Once again the topic of discussion is weather. Almost everywhere you go you hear complaints or talk of weather. Although we have had only one cold spell, week of Jan 1, I am sure folks are discussing just how cold the winter has been. In actuality this winter has been abnormally warm. Some days temps have averaged 10* above normal. There has been no snow this winter to date. How can so many people hear so many different reports of weather. Every time a storm is brewing TV and Radio weather forecasters have a love fest with updates on the trek of the storm. I expect one meteorologist will have a forecast that differs slightly from another. I will not comment how different the forecasts have been compared to what actually happens though.  I am amazed though how listeners to these forecasts twist the forecasts and extrapolate the forecasts from inches to feet! last winter was one for the record books! the coldest in forty years. But weather folks are telling us that 2011 just missed making the top 10 for warmest on record. somehow I doubt those numbers. 2011 had a few 100 degree days but too me was not a hot summer. I am thinking the problem comes in with what temperature data the experts are using. Let's say the average high for 2011 stayed the same but the night time low inched up a bit. Somehow that qualifies as a warmer climate. 

So what to do about the weather when it comes to gardening. We gardeners obsess over the weather for our small plots of cultivated land. Imagine what a farmer with 1,000's of acres has to contend with. So i say what can you do about weather? NOTHING AT ALL. Just adapt by farming indoors instead of worrying about contending with wind, snow rain and, deer.

A quick search of many gardening catalogs and garden shops will reveal a plethora of contraptions and systems designed to grow produce, herbs and more indoors year round.

This has been a trend I have predicted for the last few years. Once relegated to the esoteric garden spectrum hydroponics is almost a mainstream item. Many new hydroponics systems are being aimed at main stream gardeners.

A really cool trend in the indoor gardening arena is "Window Farming". Window Farming uses an open source format in which contributors improve upon or adapt the original Window Farming system to their own use. Window farming uses a series of the top third or so of 2 liter soda bottles loosely held together by wires and connected together by tubing. Nutrients are pumped from a bottom reservoir, for instance a small 2 gallon bucket, to the top "bottle". The nutrients then flow through the bottle section and into the next bottle. The bottle sections use the top of the soda bottle but turned upside down. So the planting area is as wide as the bottle. The neck of the bottle, where the cap goes, is pointed downwards. It is through this downward pointed neck through which nutrients flow into the next bottle. Pretty ingenious.

Now is the time to begin looking at seed racks arriving in garden shops and planning your gardens for 2012. More and more heirloom varieties are popping up on seed panels. My favorites are from the Hudson Valley Seed Library. The decorative seed Art Packs are work of local artists and their renditions based on the name of the variety inside the pack. For instance New Yorker Tomato is in a pack with a road map motif showing the escape routes out of New York City to upstate.

Comstock Ferre a really old Connecticut seed company was purchased by Baker Creek Seed Company from the Ozark region. This merger is a good thing. Baker Creek Seed is a throw back to old farming days. The employees of Baker Creek dress up in 1800's garb while attending trade shows. They also have on display heirloom vegetables they grew from their seeds. I have witnessed some really strange looking melons let alone bizarre tomatoes.

So there you have it. Forget the weather and pull up a grow lamp and plant something while the football playoffs run on and on and on.....................

Garden advice you can dig!