How Does My Garden Grow? Slowly This Year, Seems to be the Answer

 
Image: bloodroot blooming in the backyard.

One of the parts of volunteering for CoCoRaHS is that, once a week, they want you to do a very unscientific climate report.

The thing that bugs me about it is that even though they have very nice descriptions for what criteria I'm supposed to use to determine conditions like "dry" and "wet," I'm still supposed to somehow understand what is "normal." Like, what is normal even in 2025? What is normal now compared to the normal of my youth? I suspect that it kind of doesn't matter for their records. What they seem to actually want more than anything is a record over time. I wish, for instance, that I had better notes about when things started to bloom in my garden in past because it FEELS to me (very scientific, this feeling!) that the bloodroot is up later than in prevous years and I wish that I could confirm this in my little weekly updates. 

Alas.

I suppose I could haunt my old posts here. But, I guess, the good news is that I should have a fairly accurate picture going forward.

Anyway, just a little science-y whine for today.