The forecast for today ranged between 97 and 99 but they missed it again. I just looked on the nearest Weather Underground station which is about a mile from my house and it just topped 104 but it didn't feel as hot because the humidity was only a bit over 30% which is really low for here. Just looked again and the temp went down to 102 must have been a cloud going over but hopefully that 104 was as bad as it will get.

Bill

We hit 98 this afternoon. A cold front is supposed to come through this evening with maybe a shower. Then we'll be into the 80's the next four days with one low of 58 in there! Clouds most of tomorrow. I think right before dark tonight I'm going to roll the dice and set the plants out. The holes were prepped this morning.

That sounds nice Dawg. Today the forecast is for 100 and I'm hoping it isn't like yesterday. Even though I had watered very heavily the day before yesterday I had to do it again yesterday evening. I hope that is the last time for a while. We are supposed to cool down in a day or two but no rain in the forecast.

Bill

Well, for once the weather dude was spot on. Right now at 2:30pm it's 76 after a high of 82. A nice breeze too. The clouds are starting to move away. It is such a joy after a stretch of upper 90's!

I was too tired to set out plants last night so Pickles and I did that this morning.

Four Long Island Improved Brussels, three Premier kale, three Vates collards with room for something else on the other side of the bed. A bed of Wando peas in the bed behind them, double rows down each side:

[IMG]https://i.imgur.com/poRyZaj.jpg[/IMG]

Six Packman broccoli and four Amazing cauliflower on one side and in about three weeks the same will be planted down the other side of the bed, once the plants are ready:

[IMG]https://i.imgur.com/5NRoqRO.jpg[/IMG]

In another area I planted cabbages, four varieties with different DTMs; 4 Stonehead, 4 Charleston Wakefield, 3 Late Flat Dutch and 2 Red Acre. The Dutch and Red Acre are both new to me. The Reds were free seed.

There are also two beds of bush beans. Contender in the foreground and in the bed on the other side of the garden there are Strikes on one side and Jade on the other. Jade was more free seed and I've never done them. Spotty germination on those.

[IMG]https://i.imgur.com/TsADSiT.jpg[/IMG]

Next week I will sow turnips, daikon radish and carrots and that will be it for September planting. Onions, scallions, garlic and two hills of fall planted potatoes under plastic will get planted in October. That will finish the fall garden.

I put out about a 15 foot row of beans yesterday. We have had a nice cool down with highs the past two days around 90 and lows in the upper 60s. The forecast is for mid to upper 90s by the middle of next week. I hope that is wrong.

Two of my sons live in Mobile and they got 10 inches of rain the other day. I got 1/10th of an inch to continue the drought here. It is getting harder and harder to keep my peppers and tomatoes sufficiently watered with the high winds increasing the moisture loss lately.

Bill

Yesterday I got all this stuff watered and then mulched so that should help a bit with the dry weather. In the South, not mulching is an invitation to death by drying.

Turnips and carrots will be sown Monday, garlic and onions in October and then the fall garden will be in.

For my area, it's looking like summertime is going to eventually turn into winter - missing Fall along the way. We are in a drought too with temperatures still in the 90s. There are brown oak leaves on the ground already. I mowed Thursday and it might be the last mowing of the year - the mowed ground is covered with dried newly fallen oak leaves. If I were new to this area, I would not expect leaves to be on the ground this early.

We do have 6 tomato plants and two buckets of yellow and zucchini plants. I used both 10-10-10 fertilizer in the container mix and am using the liquefied fertilizer to water with, and... I still don't know if we will actually have production or not?

It is really tough when you get no rain or so little it doesn't wet the surface of the ground for month after month and high temps to increase the moisture loss. I am still getting a few tomatoes and bell peppers but many have sun scalding. I just planted some beans and they are struggling with the heat and my cucumbers that were planted a few weeks ago are making a few but needing constant watering.

Bill

Last evening Pickles helped me get the shade cover on the four brassica beds. It's just the lightweight frost cover with the sides up. It's 94 right now and I just checked on the plants. It looks like that bit of shade (and a lot of leaf mulch) is doing the job. We got it on just in time as we'll have upper 90's for the rest of the week.

Three of the beds:


[IMG]https://i.imgur.com/FxrBpER.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]https://i.imgur.com/gZDxPlq.jpg[/IMG]


The bush beans are holding up without cover.

I just sowed turnip seed last evening. The 4" soil temp was 92 so I hoed a trench and filled it with water several times. Then I pulled the soil back in, sowed the seed and watered again. Soil temp at 4" was now 85 but no doubt surface temp is a lot higher. This evening I think I'll water the row again and lay dampened newspaper sections over the seed row for two or three days until I see seeds popping. It's something I've never tried but turnip seed is cheap at the feed 'n weed!

Fall up north here is a little different. The pawpaw harvest has just started. My apples are always very late, so probably beginning of October. Sunflowers put in in July are starting to bloom. Tomatoes put in a month or two late are beginning to produce. I'll get enough to taste them, & evaluate them for future years.

Tomatoes put in in May are either: 1.)dead of disease (most of my F3's, PBTD, Danube, Fish Lake Oxheart, Hardin's Mini, Bajaja, Maglia Rosa, Ramallet Santa Maria, & Colgar 100), 2.)struggling to make a few more(Dark Galaxy, New Big Dwarf, Butter Apple, some F3's), or 3.)chugging away producing mercilessly(Velvet Red, Post Office Spoonful, Sungold). The Bishop's Cap hot peppers are also in the ragingly productive category. They'll surely go till frost. I have two Romanesco broccoli that are refusing to head up.

And, of course, I'm well on my way to planning next year's garden...

The peppers are the only spring things left and are still going great guns. I'm going to cut back the number of peppers next year. We freeze bags of strips for cooking, pickle jalapenos and freeze some whole and this year I've dehydrated various peppers (pimento, ancho) for making pepper powders.

The four fall tomatoes that were started from seed on June 4th are producing for fresh eating. Those are early Girl, Golden Girl, Creole and Large Red Cherry.

I was going to sow some carrots along with the turnips but that's been pushed back about three weeks. I can't replace the seed I have as easily as I can the turnip seed.

Speaking of germination temperatures, I have several charts on file but I like this one the best:

[IMG]https://i.imgur.com/OKZfnAI.jpg[/IMG]

More Shady Business... Turnips
 

This morning the soil temp was back up to around 94 in the turnip row sown two days ago. I've read about putting boards over seed rows to keep them damp until germination. Not having any wide boards I decided to play with wet newspaper this morning. I watered the row again and then covered it with wet newspaper sections and will leave it on there for two days to see if that will cool things down enough for germination.

We'll see. I'll have to water again tonight.

[IMG]https://i.imgur.com/IJwpnVh.jpg[/IMG]

It's something I've never tried but turnip seed is cheap at the feed 'n weed. There's still enough left to plant the county. It's amazing how much 90 cents will buy.

Real Shady Business
 

So... the turnips. Yesterday morning I lifted the newspapers on the turnips. Gah! They were up about an inch or a tad more and pretty leggy! That was two days after covering them. I should have checked the next day since they had already been in the ground two days. :shock:

[IMG]https://i.imgur.com/j9IMkWC.jpg[/IMG]

Hmmm, will the leggies survive especially in the heat? 96 again today and the same until Friday, no rain in sight. Maybe some shade would help. I thought about it last night and decided to try it this morning. I didn't want to cut up a new piece of row cover but remembered I had some of those Magic Door mesh panels in the shed. They're about 6' long and 18" wide and have come in handy before for various projects. The advantages of being a garden pack rat. :roll:

I ran some baling twine the length of the bed and draped the panels over the line to make a very long and narrow "pup tent".

[IMG]https://i.imgur.com/rH3oJTy.jpg[/IMG]

Because it still sagged in spots I had to add a few pipes with tennis balls on top down the line for support. Then I laid the 2x2's along each side of the panels to anchor down the sides on the tent.

[IMG]https://i.imgur.com/jCJqzoJ.jpg[/IMG]

Here's the final configuration. Like I've said before, you make it up as you go along. ;)

[IMG]https://i.imgur.com/JE2QvBz.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]https://i.imgur.com/oZL8frA.jpg[/IMG]

I need to thin the seedlings with scissors. No sense in them getting leggier trying to outdo each other! In fact, I'll do that tomorrow morning.

I can't believe you go to that much trouble for turnips. You are certainly more dedicated than I am right now. I find it so easy to plant them that if one batch doesn't do well then I just plant some more. The seed are so cheap at the farm feed stores around here.

I'm not ready to start any greens yet. It was only 97 today but for the past week it has topped one hundred here nearly every day and still no rain. Another problem for me is the horde of whiteflies that have appeared. They will suck the life out of new greens when they are really small as I found out a few years ago when they were this bad. I have sprayed my cucumbers twice in a week just to thin out the whiteflies a little. They had gotten so thick on the underside of the leaves that even when well watered the plants were wilting way too much. The spraying really helped but I don't know for how long. Had to do the same thing with my beans. They have been fairly bad on my tomatoes and brought the dreaded TYLCV virus into the garden this year. Now about half my tomatoes are showing the symptoms and I'm sure the rest will follow shortly.

Sure could use some rain and a 20 degree drop in the temperature just so I could get out there and get some work done after 8 in the morning and not pass out from heat stroke.

Bill

LOL! Because turnips are so easy to grow, and I have a ton of seed and I can replant at any time, I'm just experimenting to see if they can be saved. Call it putter time. The whole thing is a learning exercise.

I've read before about laying something over carrot seed during hot weather to help germination since carrot seed takes a while and they can dry out. But I've never tried the method so I've tried it first with the turnips. Lesson learned... keep checking for first signs of germination or you'll get leggy seedlings!

We haven't been quite as hot as you, just upper 90's that will be down to low 90's this week. Maybe a few high 80's over the weekend. Still no rain in sight. This morning I noticed that the big crape myrtles (tree size) are half bare and continue to drop leaves in the drought.

Fortunately no white flies this year although they've been a problem now and then in past years.

I've also noticed the disappearance of the black swallowtail and tiger swallowtail butterflies. Having fulfilled their mission in life, I'm guessing they've gone off to their final reward. And I haven't seen a hummer at the feeder in 10 days. I'll keep one up a while longer though, until mid October.