The heat continues and is supposed to stay that way for at least another week. I've kept daily weather data in Excel for 20-some years and it's interesting for spotting trends. Each month also has an historic graph of high and low temps and it shows definite periodic patterns. I've used that sometimes to decide if I'm going to try to get an early jump on spring planting. Unfortunately this Excel spread was done on Apple and now I'm on Windows. I can't update the monthly graphs and the computer tells me It can't make a graph using the data as it's "too complicated". I'll figure out some other way to do it.

I hear "This is the hottest June we've ever had." Not really. Here's a shot of some columns from the June data tab showing a seven year period from 2010-2016. That was quite a stretch.of heat. At the bottom of the data are two lines indicating the number of days that temps were 90+ and 95+. In 2011 30 days of the month saw temps over 90 and 18 days were over 95,



Was this period one of the sun's seven year cycles or part of an eleven year one? I think there's a link between these cyclical patterns and sunspot activity (minimum vs maximum) but I haven't gone deeper into that than just wondering. One day I might. With Mother Nature there's really "nothing new under the sun." Just a series of patterns.

2015 was a drought year here.
I still have a laptop with winxp/OSX for old times sake.
The osx portion is obsolete internet browser wise but I still play duke nukem on it.
Leopard I think was the beast for osx. 10.57

Gorgeous day today - low 70s and low humidity, after 96° and humid yesterday. A little warmer tomorrow, but going back up, in the week.

Starting to run out of stored rain water,I had about 120 gals.
I may have to tap into the strategic reserves next week.
I just water individual plants.

Yesterday afternoon it was 102 on the front porch in the shade. I went down to the garden to see how stuff was holding up and took my instant read kitchen thermometer with me. It agreed with the porch temp. In the garden plants were suffering. The corn was spikey, the kale and carrot plants were flat on the ground, squash and cuke leaves were droopy, etc. They had been watered in the morning. So I got out the hose to shower down the whole garden and also water all plants at the base again. Mind you, everything is mulched well.

The hot water coming out of the hose was 140 degrees until water coming up from the well came through. That was 70. Well's about 125-140' deep. At the lower end of the garden when the sun was unobstructed it was 105 and dropped to 102 when a cloud came by. But at the higher end of the garden it was 108-110!

I was curious about the air temp under the bean and cuke shade cloths but it was no different than the temp outside the shade cloth. The UGA weather instruments at the nursery up the road have a 107 heat index. I believe it.

It's supposed to back off a little over the next few days but it looks like we'll be right back up to this kind of heat by the middle of next week with no chance of rain until then. Yesterday's storms went around us in all directions. SO frustrating! The black walnuts are shedding leaves that crunch under your feet when you walk on them a day later. We've had 0.2" of rain since May 26.

Finally getting some rain but it is weird;coming from north to south.
Normally it goes west to east or south to north.

Friday's storms went around us in all directions. SO frustrating! The black walnuts are shedding leaves that crunch under your feet when you walk on them a day later. We've had 0.2" of rain since May 26. The grass is starting to get crunchy too.

Yesterday morning I was under a pecan tree at the edge of the garden when a little breeze kicked up. I heard something that sounded like rain and couldn't figure out what it was. Finally something fell my shoulder and then to the ground and I picked it up. Baby pecans are being shed. Not enough water to sustain fruit set.



It looks like a deer had a little munch in the garden last night. First time this year. That tells me that green browse is drying up in the area and that there will probably be more four footed visitors. The forecast shows no chance of rain until next Wednesday or Thursday.

73° not especially humid, supposed to be going to 97° today, but we always seem to be a few degrees cooler here. Went for a pontoon/electric motor boat ride at 2 mph last evening and almost, almost wanted a jacket. Garden is doing well so long as I make sure everything stays moist. Even the 2 bell pepper plants are still setting fruit. My poblano peppers are going nuts with little peppers forming. The Aji peppers seem to love the weather.

I finally gave up on the pole beans and planted various bitter melon, thai and Chinese long beans, butterfly pea, snake beans, winged beans in the spot. Going to be a free-for-all survival of the fittest type of deal.

Classic 'height of summer' type day here. Forecast high 73F with a humidex up to 78F. Humidity running at 70%. Actual high so far was just over 70F and humidex 74 but it has dropped back to 66F for now. Gusty winds from the south to 31 mph. It's been blowing for several days now basically tearing the covers off my garden bed 'enclosures' and giving me rabbit anxiety - it's really a rabbit year here. It's a little breezy to be trying to fix that as yet, although perfectly nice to be working in the garden in your shirtsleeves. The UV is 9 today though, and that is a nasty glare but plenty of clouds drifting through. When it gets to 8 or 9, which is not that often, I try not to be out during the midday.
It's been dry lately, and I watered all the garden beds today including the garlic. Everything is growing well but we are having a late start due to the long cold spring. Trees have just recently leafed out, they're still that brilliant pale green. Strawberries still in bloom, blueberries too and even currants don't seem to have set yet. The good news is, we haven't had a frost since the berries started blooming, so there's a chance of a good set.
We're supposed to get a good 25 mm rain from monday into tuesday, which would be great.

It is still 69° at 1:40 pm, 2 days after it got to 96°! It is also very wind, with 25 to 30 mph gusts. Got to 58° overnight - not too cold for peppers, but almost! But I'll take the cool, while I got it!

I continued mulching since we only got 1/8 inch of rain last night.
Very cool nights,I almost made siusiu in my gotchies.
https://en.bab.la/dictionary/polish-english/siusiu

we had a spell of cool, dry weather lately. just a couple days ago, the low was 40 degrees. not much plant growth
going on in the garden yet. we finally had some rain over the weekend that should help things along. currently we
are at the other end of the weather spectrum. we are having our first 90 degree day of the year. we just hit 91 degrees.
i knew it was going to be warm when it was in the 70s when i took my dog out just before 7am. you either do your outside
work early or late in the day. only thing that high temp is good for is drying clothes on the line which i am doing. it will cool
off a bit during the week. its still too early in the summer here for 90 degrees to stick around for long. my mediterranean blood
can handle the heat better than my nordic wife, but even i have my limit.
edited to add that it topped out at 98.1 degrees at 6pm. currently 97 at 7pm. that is hot.

keith

I finally planted all my sweet peppers over the weekend, while the temps were still in the 80s.Today it’s 95F and windy, and the next three days it’ll be in the triple digits.

104F

94° at 6:00 pm, dew point 72°, so nothing too ridiculous. Supposed to be 95° tomorrow. No real rain in sight.

Another fairly nice day, only getting in the low 80s, with low humidity later in the day. My house is still only 75°, after getting very cool last night again, and I closed it up, to hold it in. Had to turn my range hood on briefly, when cooking that Szechwan eggplant, but it was already cooling off some.

Summer switched on last weekend and it has been way too hot for us northerners. This afternoon it was above 90°F in shadow in our backyard. The heat will continue at least till end of the week and it is making life without air conditioning quite miserable. No need to warm up the sauna this week.

we continue to have some of the windiest weather i have ever seen up here.
we had 40 mph gusters yesterday, and 15-25 mph winds off and on nearly every day.
last week was hot, in the 90s. this week is cool with highs in the high 60s to low 70s.
rain off and on, but not enough. we need to water nearly everyday to keep things alive.
wind is causing me to lose plants. dikovinka got replaced with the same. a barrys crazy
cherry is looking bad, and will need to be replaced with something else. grrrrrr


keith

91° Sunnyish, some thin higher clouds filtering the light just a touch. Freshening North wind, with a distant rumble of thunder.

Rain possiblilities appear to be on the rise as the week progresses. Trying to finish up some sun dried chile peppers. Weather is dry enough and hot enough, but got to watch out for the rain.

No letup of the hot weather here since my last post June 19. Every day has been 22C or more with humidex 26-31 C, mainly sunny to boot with high UV frequently 9, it's the kind of glare that is just blinding when you go outdoors. No rain until last night a wee shower at last. Very muggy and continuing hot. Did I mention the heat? Just brutal without air conditioning or any place to retreat to. It is hotter and more humid indoors, a lot hotter! even if you keep the windows open and the drapes closed. You are drooping around the house in skivvies in the dusk while blinding light streams through a crack in the curtains.

Absolutely everything has needed water, including the 'rain fed' crops like garlic. No rain fed. Watering and little garden chores keeping me for half a day every day, no day off! No shopping trip to town - what would I wear? Um... no I don't really have the outfit for this kind of weather any more, certainly nothing fit to strut in public. The only thing I can find that I can bear to wear in the house is plain cotton so old its in tatters. Maybe I need to dig deeper in the rag bag and find myself some really classy duds.

Well now that I've howled about it, lets also say that the tomatoes are lush green beasts loading up with fruit, the garlic are scaping early, the early wheat and barley is heading up, the poor little peas are in for a shock but overall, things are really popping in the garden. Lots of degree days stacking up, at this date when normal high would be 19C and lows of 9C, we haven't seen north of 13C at night for weeks now.