This is not the year to be growing Tomatoes in Seattle. Yesterday it barely made it to 60 and it has been this way for weeks. Good cabbage weather. Also grass growing but it has been too wet to go out and mow it.
Then yesterday the snow level went down to about 3000’. LaGrande, a town in Northeastern Oregon awoke to snow. All the gardeners are pissed.
I started my peppers about a month late and am glad I did - although these are only at the 4 to 6 leaf stage. The ones who started early are now seeing their peppers succumb to diseases as they didn’t get enough heat when they needed that. Many of these I am going to pot up and then grow on the flattish rood of my workshop where it gets around 95F on a moderately sunny day. Last year I grew a few experimental Habaneros up there. But in the ground these will just die.
We are doing a neat farming experiment this year. Actually, all I am doing are peppers which I do every year. My friends Tara and Marty sell produce at the local farmers market and they are expanding - and using an acre of our land to grow more vegetables. At one point (up to 1966) this land was in cultivation but has been pasture since - then lawn which has to be mowed. Now we don’t have to mow it and there are potatoes, broccoli, onions and greens planted with much more to plant. We get to harvest what we need in lieu of renting the pasture.
But things sure would be easier out there if it didn’t feel like early April! Actually in early April we had snow! Please send us some of your Global Warming!
Yeah we’re freezing our butts off in Idaho too. It snowed in Blackfoot today!
I’m thinking of starting a grass roots movement to have everybody in the state spray aerosol cans out their windows to see if we can make a hole in the ozone layer.
I want water from all those floods dangit. We’re in a drought and some of you are getting washed away by it. Same for poor Arizona. Drought for like 12 years and last year, Texas was afloat..
I’m contemplating growing mushrooms in the leaky corner of my basement…it gets watered about every 3rd day when 5" of rain seems to fall on a fairly regular schedule. Ironically, our “official” rain gauage for the city is at our airport which is 20 miles north (although within city limites) of the central part of Kansas City and it says we’re only 1" over the norm for the year. According to my and my mother’s raingauges, we’re we’re at least 18" over (double the normal amount) for this time of year.
My yard feels like a sponge - you sink about an inch whenever you walk on it.
That’s cause Califorkneea takes AZs water. Ya’ll need to build some more storage capacity and quit taking water from ma rivah the Colorady. Gonna get rid of those dern dams too…mumble, mumble…
We’ve had the heat AND the water. We’ve had at least a couple of record-tying temperatures, plus thunderstorms with incredible rainfall and winds every couple of days. I’m sure we got an inch in 10 minutes last Saturday, when it reached 98 degrees. The grass that I planted (again) is rotting because of the rain.
OTOH, this is a couple of weeks out of a very cool (but still wet) spring.
115f in my car yesterday (my A.C.'s busted…) imagine driving around in a kilt all day in that, if you will , (Ive lost 7 pounds!)
so, Casey, you’ll understand if I say…
Just a couple of weeks ago I walked across the Mojave desert. Most people who do this walk are scared to death of it. The heat, carrying a ton of water, the desert.
When I went it was in the low 80s with a strong wind. When we all stopped for rest in the shade under a bridge we had to put our down jackets on. Some even got into their sleeping bags. Very very unusual.
I hear it’s been unseasonably cold all over the globe in many places and that the sun has had less sunspot activity, too.
But if you really want some global warming you’re welcome to it. I’ve been hiking the Pacific Crest Trail since May 1 and I can’t think of more than a day’s stretch that I haven’t walked through forest that was burned to a crisp in the last few years. In fact, tomorrow I have to walk through a section of forest that is burning right now. I have not seen any regeneration of the trees even in forest burned almost 10 years ago. All that is growing back is low scrub like you see in Southern California or in the desert.
Desertification sucks. Global warming sucks. Get used to not being able to plant what you thought you could when you thought you could.
There’s over 64 square miles of forest burning just to the south of us including unfortunately some of “my” Atlantic white cedars in the Dismal Swamp. We have smelled of smoke now for more than a week. And since these areas have massive peat deposits no telling how long this area is going to burn.
Finally cracked 70 degrees F here in Portland today for the first time in what feels like aaaages. Looks like Junuary might finally be coming to a close…
Redwolf, how’s that fire down in Bonny Doon? It was about 10 miles from my parents’ house when I spoke with them yesterday. They said it was probably going to start creeping away from SC itself and down in the direction of Davenport, most likely…I’ll take cold, rainy weather over that any day.
I have friends who live on Back Ranch Road near Davenport. Fred Carlson and Suzy Norris, both luthiers. Also Suzy’s sister Nancy and her husband Nick. Wondering how close they are to this. I don;t see Back Ranch Road on the evacuation or road closure lists.
(Ive lost 7 pounds!)
in the Dismal Swamp. We have smelled of smoke now for more than a week. And since these areas have massive peat deposits no telling how long this area is going to burn.