Makeshift Greenhouse..

This AM, from under the tent...

Soggy outside...

It is the 'monsoon season' in Colorado. Cool heavy rains in the afternoons. Apparently, this was the 'normal' weather pattern for decades upon decades in Colorado (centuries, I dare say). The past 10 years have proven to be dry. Meaning, the 'normal' amount of heavy snow during the winters (totally snowed in, from what I have been told), and dry dry dry, hot summers, made the conditions just right for a Waldo Canyon fire, or a Black Forrest fire. A tinder box. So, having lived through both of these devastating and deadly fires, I choose the rain.

To try to keep the raised garden beds from floating away, I made a makeshift greenhouse, if you will. I initially bought the tarp to try to protect the plants from the hail. Much more difficult to predict, as it happens so fast. Really, it is just an 8' tarp. I bolstered it up w/ a couple of bamboo stakes held in large terra cotta planters, along w/ the taller stakes for the growing pants, so the water would run off. The perimeter basil did get soaked, but they will be fine, they are hearty. Once the sun comes back out, (please sun, come back out!), the July/August warmth will pick up where we left off, and the harvest will continue. In the meantime, I am so so glad to have made the makeshift greenhouse ...it may not be pretty, but it did the trick!!!