EAST? The winds and storm clouds are here but sure haven't heard of the turbulant chaos you are describing. I can remember some days when it was snowing, the sun shining and thunder roaring all at the same time. Always a curiosity. But your's sounds a bit iffy on all accounts.

We've got the winds here in Ned., just blowing my little roses all about! Up to 50mph and could be 70mph by tonight and for tomorrow! I'm putting my tarp up before tonight. Tomorrow, I'll probably be picking the whole neighborhoods trash out of my yard...always happens that way. Tomorrow night calls for a low of 29F. I think I'll tarp up the tomatoes, too.
J.

The wind is here in Denver! The weather was just on TV, and weÂve had gusts up to 40 mph so far. Humidity is 13%. ItÂs gonna get worse toniteÂtheyÂre saying gusts up to 100mph in the front range foothills. Batten down the hatches, J! NOAA is saying there could be whiteouts in the high country! DonÂt they know itÂs June! I just looked out the front window to see if the pollen seemed to be blowing off of my BIG pine tree, and I canÂt tell, but one of the canes on my favorite (yellow) rose is laying down! :-( Have to go get it cut off.

And I have to cut my grass today too, David. Well, itÂll be easy when IÂm going the direction with the tail wind! Hope the pollen is gone before I get my nose into the tree!

Good luck with the temps tonite everybody in the higher elevations,
Skybird

Taking a short break. The wind is so dry that the leaves on the taller tomato plants are dried to a crisp, completely white, and they were green and busy photosynthisisisng this morning. A couple of Eggplant are broken off at the ground.

Rico, Colorado up the road is supposed to be down to 23ºF.

Gusts above 60 mph in Greenhorn Valley, I'm told. Seems like more than that to me, about the strongest winds we've had since we moved here almost a year ago.

I have two young trees starting their third growing season (Serviceberry and Hackberry). This is their first year without supports. Anybody think I should put up some temporary supports for this storm? I'm hoping they'll be fine. It seems that most sources recommend only supporting new trees for one year. However, if one or both get blown over I think I'll go ballistic!

Our GC just called. Our house is built; inside details being worked on now. He said our 8050 windows on the front wall AND the front wall itself (2x6's) are flexing in the wind. The windows are flexing 3/8 inch, he said.

Of all the days for the stinking wind to blow and gust this bad! This is the 17th anniversary of the tornado that ripped through here at 8:08pm. Seems like ages ago and yet, with the wind howling it seems like yesterday.

Already had to go doctor a tomato bent at the ground and pull all the hanging things on the ground. Lord I hate wind!

It really blew in Castle Rock today too. Wind gusts were up to 55 mph. Looks like it's supposed to be pretty breezy through Friday. Supposed to get to 37 tomorrow night.

Should I cover anything? If so, I have a lot to cover as I've been in the garden for a week straight planting nonstop transplants & seeds. When I was out soaking everything earlier, I swear the wind almost blew me over!

I also planted a new row of raspberry starts from the neighbor and they are not happy today. Don't know if they'll recover.

It's calmer now, compared to earlier.

Has it been 17 years since the Limon tornado, Jali? Oh, my! I was watching TV when that happened, and all of a sudden the radar on all 3 channels went down. Everybody's radar was based in Limon. That's when the local stations started using doppler radar for the weather--and they've been doing it ever since. I'm glad it's just wind this time and not another tornado! One straight down main street is enough!

Charlene, if you cover your plants now, I think the covers are going to wind up in Kansas---or somewhere east of there! If it's above 34 or 35, your stuff should be fine.

Skybird

finn21, I'd leave the trees, the wind should help convince them to get on with it and grow strong roots. That said, I have a 2 yr old plum tree that just went from approx 35º angle to a 70º angle. I used big mounds of grass clippings to cover all the stuff in the veggie garden, and I'll be picking bits of grass out of my eyes, hair, ears, teeth, nose, and upper respiratory track for the next month.

d52: That made me laugh...sorry...about the grass everywhere!
yesterday I had to rinse my nose out with water for all the peat/soil/who knows what that was in there! Like peat doesn't blow around enough when just mixing soil! The winds here make it swirl right up my nose. It does make me giggle...now that it is out of there :)

This storm up here seems to have settled, but the clouds look awful fierce. I hope you all, er, WE all, fair well.

David - it is amazing here up the little hill on 27.6!

Won't the grass clippings blow away? I was thinking of trying to throw an old bed sheet over the veggie garden [it is only 8' x 8']

What about running small gentle sprinkler [irrigation water] all night?? Hubby says that will keep tomatoes, gr. peppers, herbs etc from freezing. (He isn't too much of a farmer though!]

Good job with those grass clippings, David. Would you like to compare that experience with mowing after a volcanic eruption?

And, flying peat's no fun, Jennifer. You guys need to think - - - dust masks.

Back in '80, we were at first too scared to leave the house. Then it got so hot it was hard to be anywhere - inside without air-conditioning or outside in the volcanic ash and heat.

The ash caused our eyes to redden and our hair to stick out in wild disarray - and I still had a full beard. Everyone traveled around with dust masks and bandannas. I used both at the same time.

I had just dropped a V-8 with a floor shift and a glass-pack muffler in my old Ranchero. Everywhere I went a huge cloud of whitish-gray dust followed me (whether I was behind the wheel or behind the lawn mower - even walking). You can imagine that I looked straight out of a "Big Daddy Roth" Hot Rod cartoon.

Once again, think - - dust masks.

digitS'

hmph! it is now snowing...at least I put the tarps up!

yeah, I always think about a mask or bandanna--which I have, but I usually run out there too giddy about playing in the dirt to actually put one on. Just a while ago, it was a gust of wind just as I took a handful of pearlite out of the bag. Harumph!

Starting tomorrow, bandanna!

Oh, I hope this is just a flurry and not actual sticking-snow.

Digit: Are you referring to Mt St. Helens? Yeah, we had that, too, down in SoCal. It was awful...but not as bad as it was for my cousins in Salem, Or!

...not even going to mention hot rods (I am SOOO my father's daughter) or I'll be chatting it up about detroit lockers and double carbourators! (how DO you spell carborators any how?)

Gee, I wonder if I should just bring in the tomatoes? No...not yet...the tarp seems to not have flown away...

Think the Amish, and their non-bailed hay, those artistic clumps out in the fields. Miniaturized-hay stacks are the way to do this, learning this after I started mowing, and taking each grass-catcher-load over to the plants, and sprinkling it. Those pre-Amish-Model grass clippings are now about N.40.22º X E 35.75º, Alt 10,123 and rising then falling, and should now be obscuring a drive-in movie theater somewhere in Nebraska.

I realized my efforts to be in vain, so, thinking efficiency and mass production, I recruited Dear Son 15, a strapping, strong, track star fella (hereafter known as DS15) to mow stuff while I battened down stuff, and his job was to fill the cart with the clippings, including that 'back-40' that he has 'forgotten' to mow for a month. So, he promptly, iPod in full, ear-filling force, mowed over an irrigation spigot thingie, spewing a huge fountain of irrigation water into the sky.

He worried about his iPod, I worried about the mower.

Anywho, this has led me to my perfected Amish-Mini-Hay-Loaf-'Mater-Protector technique, where in I just grab about 10 lbs of grass clippings and go dump them on a plant. Plant bows over due to excessive weight, grass clippings cover the sides, and as its a full 10 lbs, it sets up its own aerodynamic forces and, is, so far, still there.

Back to you in the studio....

Oh, I forgot. I fixed the irrigation spigot thingie by hammering in a wine cork.

This is very frustrating, J! NOAA doesnÂt have you on their map. I found PinecliffeÂnow if thatÂs on the map, why isnÂt Nederland? And I found East Portal, and clicking on where you should be I found something called CaribouÂwhich IÂve never heard of! Anyway, theyÂre showing you around freezing for the next few nitesÂlowest theyÂre showing is 28. If theyÂre covered, your tomatoes should be fine, but when your cover gets wetÂorÂheaven forbidÂcovered with snow, just be sure it isnÂt weighting the plants down so much that it breaks them off. If you got your stakes in and the tarp is over the stakes, no worry. And just leaving them covered for a few days isnÂt going to hurt them either. Just think! Tomorrow you might be playing in the snow instead of the dirt!

Deb, if you can anchor a bed sheet down so it wonÂt blow away, that will protect your tomatoes and peppers. And if you run a sprinkler all nite, that should work too. Air freezes faster than water, so if everything is wet and it doesnÂt get too far below freezing, it should protect them. It seems to me a sheet would be easierÂIF it doesnÂt blow away.

I got my grass cut today too, but no blowing dust around here at least! Just the pollen from the pine tree! And I got the rest of the veggies mulched with the clippings to help keep the water in. I can almost hear the wind slurping the water up from my soil! One of my two bird feeder poles blew over! It wasnÂt a "regulation" post! It was just an old, rusty post I found that had a hook on top. Was gonna replace it anyway, but now I guess itÂs sooner rather than later. Oh, well! A new one will look better!

WindÂs blowing like crazy out here right now, but so far no other plant damage besides the one rose cane. Have lots of the neighborÂs cottonwood branches in my back yard!

Good luck with the temps tonight, mountain folks,
Skybird

Thanks, Sky. We brought the tomatoes inside this morning as they were toppled over last night. Well, I did choose to pop them in pots instead of the ground! The tarps did alright for most of the night, but this early morning they just wouldn't stay. Now they are happily rolled up in the shed. The roses actually look pretty alright, one looks totally normal, one looks dry and lost a few full blooms. The tiny baccopa is very unhappy and the marigolds folded in half. BUT, everything else looks good.

D52--maybe you have the writers knack! I know it wasn't fun while it happened, but it sure made for a good read. And, if I were in Nebraska, I'd probably have to laugh as that grass blew by.

Suddenly, I want a wind break! My pine and aspens are in the wrong place. I want them right where they would do the most good, protecting my little plants. I wonder how easy it is to dig up and move an aspen? Not in this wind, of course, but maybe in a while?

Yay! Freezing and near freezing temps...hoorah (no, not really).

Oh, NOAA has my town by zip, 80466. Although, Caribou is just up the center of town off the peak to peak and is a good place for hiking.

I hope we all have gardens by the time this weather settles!

Here is a link that might be useful: NOAA Ned. ('tis a fairly good site for weather)

Made it through last night okay --ran the sprinkler. Plants all looked a bit "wilted" this morning after the ice melted, but look better now that the sun has been on them all day.

Will use a bedsheet over them tonight, as it is supposed to be even colder.

June, huh??

Here in Arvada, we discovered half of our 30 yr old peach tree had split off the trunk and lay on the ground with many tiny peaches. When John went to saw it off, he noticed decay in the trunk. Today on the KHOW 630am Saturday gardening show, the tree expert said alot of the damage he saw was due to decay in the tree. And we had actually been worrying about the poor old tree having too many peaches and that we'd have to pick off many now! But a few yrs ago in May 2003 in that snowstorm, our 35 yr old Russian Olive tree went down on top of our car!