Seasonal Switcheroo

Almost everybody who watches the charts knows that the La Nina swing of the El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO) in 2010 has probably been the largest contributor to global temperatures moving consistently downwards since March – it should be an obvious logical connection to make for even a casual observer :-

Up until this month, however, despite the La Nina effect, 2010 still ranks as one of the hottest, if not the absolute hottest, years on record so far, according to NASA GISS :-

https://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/2010july/

It looks the short-term cooling pulse from La Nina has gone into remission for the moment, and the United Kingdom has started to have some warmer temperatures again, in the last month :-

Scaling right down to the level of the back yard, I have had discussions with several people about how the leaves of Spring-growing plants have started to appear again – rising up from bulbs and corms just below the surface of the garden soil. I even have a small bet on, that one particular well-insolated patch of garden will actually have Spring flowers again before the “cold season”.

More interestingly, I had seen tomato plants re-flowering, even as their fruit is nearly finished cropping. And I have seen shrubs re-flower, too. Is this the second Spring of the year ? And if so, is it the right time to start planting vegetables for the “cold season” ? Will La Nina in fact mean that Winter doesn’t get very cold at all here ?

Although it’s not uncommon for people to plant Winterised varieties of edibles, to keep them in produce over the low productivity season, several keen locavores, local food growers, are talking about planting an array of Spring vegetables here, right about now.

More about ENSO :-