Late to the Summer Garden Party!

Sugar Pea Pod Vines

I'm late! Late to the Summer Garden Extravaganza. That picture to your right is the reason WHY I'm so late to the summer party this year. This, and two other sad plants that are not pictured, are all that remains from my fall garden planting efforts. My fall garden doesn't normally look quite this sad, but California's epic amount of rain this winter drowned just about everything EXCEPT what you see pictured to the right.

This spot happens to be the highest spot in the backyard garden. Not pictured is the rest of the garden. Why not? Because for much of the winter that section of the yard was under several inches of water. That's what happens when an area that had not see much rainfall in two or three years suddenly receives TWICE the amount that normally falls in any given year.

That was the winter we needed in Northern California. Unfortunately, a lot of good comes with a little bit of bad. Two to three inches of rain can be very good for fall and winter gardening efforts. Thirty inches of rain is a different story entirely. You needed a rowboat to pay a visit to some areas of the garden this past winter. I could only watch as the fall and winter greens drowned following one epic storm after another.

Lake Northern California!

BUT, there was one bright spot. It was that high section of garden that I'd set aside for the sugar pea pod plants that I'd received from a gardening friend. 12-of those starter plants went into one cirle. 12-others went into another. The plants in the lowest section of the yard, like many other fall garden plants, drowned after the backyard turned into a lake. But the other 12 did just fine.

The unusual winter weather not only covered some sections of the garden completely, it also stunted the growing efforts of those plants that remained above water. So, when the time came to start prepping the garden for spring and summer exploits, the sugar pod pea plants that survived the lake-like conditions were just starting to flower.

Spring Peas

I had a choice. Pull the plants out and declare the fall and winter season to be an entire bust, or wait. I chose to wait. While other gardeners were prepping garden areas for tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers and other summer efforts, I patiently waited for those blooms on the sugar pod pea plants to turn into garden peas. That patience would be rewarded.

The wait resulted in a weight of 1.1 lbs. of sugar pea pods. That's enough pea pods to fill up a collander. Which is a lot of peas. The vast majority of those were added to some sliced mushrooms and put into a soup creation which resulted in a lot of leftovers. I will be eating the last of that soup for lunch today, which will put a finishing wrap on the rain-challenged fall and spring gardening efforts.

The sugar pea pod harvest did finally allow for some summer garden prep. In fact, that prep started the moment that the pea harvest ended and the plants were removed. But, I will admit, I'm a solid month behind the efforts of many others. The tomato plants are already beginning to produce pea-sized tomatoes, but there will be no "early harvest" this summer. If I get a cherry tomato to ripen up by the 4th of July holiday I'll consider myself lucky.

Spring Pea Harvest

Fortunately, I get to benefit from a special climate called "California Weather." As unpredictable as it has been this year, you can still count on a long summer growing season out west. So, even if you are like me, a month behind schedule, it doesn't matter for us California types. The garden planted in late May will eventually catch up with those gardens planted in late April. When the month of September rolls around, you won't be able to tell the two apart.

The real benefit, however, is all that water stored behind our massive Northern and Southern California reservoirs. Plus, a massive snowpack that is slowly melting in the Sierra Nevada. It's a snowpack that is so very large that all of it may not melt. Our fantastically warm summers won't be warm enough or last long enough to melt all of that water trapped in the high country.

Which is fine by me. That's irrigation water for backyard vegetable gardening efforts!

A BIG Year for BIG Hydro?

Back to the Future!

1.21 Gigawatts! Great Scott! A favorite line from a favorite actor in one of my favorite movies. Thanks to the rain and snow that continues to hound California, there *should* be more than enough electrical currents in this state to power dozens of Flux Capacitors all summer long.

It is the month of March in Northern California. During a normal year, I would be busy digging up the garden right about now. I would have already planted onions and potatoes. The next step would be tilling up and preparing the main garden area for all sorts of summer vegetables.

This year, however, has been anything but normal. The onions and potatoes are not planted. The section of the yard set aside for these efforts was under several inches of water just a day or two ago. The main garden area, meanwhile, resembles a mud pit. From a gardening standpoint, everything is on hold for the moment.

This may sound like terrible news, but it's not. It's a minor inconvenience. The onion and potato planting party can wait. Mother Nature isn't quite done yet. Another storm or two is in the immediate forecast. This means more rain, more mud in the garden and more snow in the high country. A lot more snow.

Lake Tahoe Snowpack

This bounty of rain and snow that Mother Nature has provided for us in the 2022-2023 winter season is a blessing in many ways. It means more than enough irrigation water for backyard gardening and fruit growing efforts like mine. Commercial agriculture *should* get close to 100-percent of irrigation water deliveries from the state and federal water projects. This will, in turn, reduce or even eliminate pumping for groundwater supplies for many farmers and ranchers.

What farmer needs to pay for electricity to pump water from a well when the canals, holding basins, lakes and reservoirs are full of water? Which they are at the moment, thanks to this winter's non-stop rains. When the rain eventually dries up and the weather warms, the real bounty will come with a record snowpack in the Sierra Nevada that begins to melt. Hopefully, it's a slow melt.

But the biggest payoff should be an abundance of electrical power to run every single air conditioner and light up every light bulb in California  this summer and every other western state with a connecting electrical grid. The power producer known as BIG Hydro is primed and ready to deliver a BIG year.

Lake Oroville-Courtesy Bill Bailey

What exactly is BIG Hydro? There are many definitions. The U.S. Department of Energy defines it as "facilities that have a capacity of more than 30 megawatts (MW)." Other definitions put that number at 10 MW, but you get the idea. It's a boatload of electrical power. The BIG Hydro plants in California are primed to deliver a very big year indeed. This number will be so big that it won't be measured in megawatts, but rather gigawatts (GW).

One GW is a LOT of power. How much? It's enough, obviously, to power a single Flux Capacitor (almost). In more conventional terms, however, you would need roughly 3.1 million photovoltaic panels (solar) or 333 utility-scale (very large) wind turbines to achieve that kind of electrical output. In terms of horsepower, you could possibly generate that same kind of electrical kick with a horse race featuring 1.3 million horses.

Shasta Powerplant-Courtesy KRCR-TV

The Shasta Powerplant located at the base of Shasta Dam, California's largest reservoir, can generate more than 700 MW of power when the reservoir is full. That's enough juice to power 700,000 homes and businesses. This is just one BIG Hydro plant. There are numerous others.

The Hyatt Powerplant, Thermalito Diversion Dam Powerplant and the Thermalito Pumping-Generating Plant are all located at the base of Lake Oroville in Butte County. Combined, all three can also generate more than 700 MW of power when Oroville is full of water. That won't be a problem this year as Oroville has already reached the point where large water releases have already started thanks to a monster snowpack in the Feather River watershed located above the lake.

Oroville Spillway-Courtesy Bill Bailey

Speaking of the Feather River watershed, you shouldn't miss the opportunity to drive up Highway 70 into God's Country this summer. The show of spring and summer wildflowers should be a sight to behold. Not only does this drive offer the pure, stark beauty that is Northern California, it's also home to the "Stairway of Power." The entire river canyon has been transformed into one BIG Hydro plant after another.

Why is all of  this so important? Hydroelectric power is nothing new, after all. This is a true statement. Yet, among all forms of power generation in this country and elsewhere, even in this day and age, BIG Hydro is still the cheapest, cleanest, safest and most reliable form of power generation on the planet. Check that: It's only reliable if the rain and snow fall in any given year. If the rain doesn't fall or the snow melts away quickly, that reliability factor gets a bit "iffy."

That "reliability" factor is important. California gets summer power from a variety of sources. The 2021-2022 season was a dry year indeed. Dry years spell big trouble for BIG Hydro. The combination of power from both big and small hydro projects amounted to a measley 14 GW of power. That small number forced utility companies like Pacific Gas & Electric to burn natural gas supplies to make up the difference. A lot more.

Hyatt Powerplant-Courtesy DWR

This year, however, should tell a far more pleasing story. There's enough "juice" (water) in the Northern and Central California watersheds to power big and large hydroelectric plants all summer long. The last big year for BIG Hydro came in 2017. The combination of big and small hydroelectric generators produced nearly 44 GW of power.

That's enough power for nearly 36 Flux Capacitors if my math is right (31 million homes). Of course, you may need to visit a few California junkyards to find that many DMC DeLorean Time Machines.

It's all GRAVY!

Courtesy: NOAA

February 26th or 27th (depending upon where you live in California) turned out to be a seminal moment in our wacky and wild weather history. It doesn't happen very often, but it did happen this year. It was on these dates (again, depending upon what area of the state you call home), where most communities in California surpassed the average rainfall amount that falls in a *normal* year.

Any rain that falls between now and the official end of the rainfall year (June 30, 2023) is "gravy."

By the way, if you have lived in California for any length of time, you know by now that nothing is *normal* when it comes to the weather in this state. It can be either very hot or very cold, OR, very dry or very wet. If there is one thing you can count on when it comes to the weather in California, it's this: You Cannot Count on Anything.

C-BAR-C Park-Citrus Heights, CA

What does the term "average rainfall amount" mean and why is it important? Again, depending upon where you live, it's the amount of rain that falls over the course of 12-months (one year). In the Sacramento area, an area which I call home, that "official" number is 19.20 inches of rain. The climate station located on the campus of CSU-Sacramento hit that number on February 26, 2023 and has since zoomed past it.

Similar stations located in nearby communities all zoomed past normal rainfall amounts, according to the climate stations created and maintained by the California Nevada River Forecast Center. This is a division of a federal agency called the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration or NOAA. Large cities and small communities alike in Northern, Central and Southern California have all blown past the *normal* amount of rainfall they receive in any given year and are now entering uncharted territory. This can be a bit nervewracking.

Mammoth Lakes, CA

Where it will stop, nobody knows. The rain continues to pelt Northern California day after day after day. That rain turns to snow as you head east of Sacramento. There is so much of that snow in the higher elevations at this moment that some homes are completely buried in it. They look like giant lumps coated in white. Snow walls are as high as ten feet in some communities. They are about to get a lot higher.

"In the Central and Southern Sierra, the snow amounts are really remarkable," said Dr. Daniel Swain, a Climate Scientist with Weather West. "Buildings are starting to collapse under the weight of the snow. This is notable because these are buildings built in places that are historically very snowy. For them to collapse under this snow load says a lot about this sequence of events."

Dr. Swain, who is now holding weekly briefings on YouTube in response to the series of storms slamming into California, confirms that the state is on the precipice of breaking some long-term weather records. This includes the most recent record set during the winter of 2016-2017. Rain and snowfall amounts, should they keep increasing, may even threaten the 1982-1983 deluge, which triggered both landslides and flooding in Northern and Central California.

NorCal Forecast

It would be useless to list actual rainfall numbers on this blog posting. Why? Because, by the time this blog posting is published those numbers will be "old news." The local weather forecast indicates Northern California is going to get slammed with seven straight days of rain as I write this. Whether we actually get seven straight days of rain is anyone's guess at this point. But, the forecast is rather ominous.

I'm kind of glad that I bought that sump pump for my garage last December. This garage rarely floods. Yet it has flooded five times this winter alone, and may flood again (several times) over the next week.

Yikes.

The rain and snow has resulted in some positive news. The giant Northern California reservoirs in Shasta, Trinity and Butte Counties should be full of water this summer. Reporters who cover news events can switch from "drought" coverage to "floods."

Courtesy: Christine Beal

But the most positive development is plenty of irrigation water for agricultural interests (hopefully), environmental concerns, summer vegetable gardens and fruit and citrus hobbyist efforts. You might even be able to water a lawn this summer without feeling a tinge of guilt over water waste. You would hope that a deluge of rain and snow like this would put at least a temporary end to California's water wars.

But that may be a bit of wishful thinking on my part. There's absolutely no proof that Mark Twain ever wrote or uttered such a line, yet, despite this, it is a true statement: "Whiskey Is For Drinking; Water Is For Fighting Over."

My thanks to the Facebook page The California Water for Food and People Movement for providing some great photos!