70's for the next seven days. A strong front comes through early on Sunday, maybe 1-3" of rain and high winds but then clearing in the afternoon. GREAT weather for planting stuff!

Every day in the forecast is in the 60s, up to 70° next Thursday. Sunday into Monday we are supposed to get over an inch of rain, and we really need it!

75°F/23.9°C today. You's think one (1) is the loneliest number? Howse 'bout six (6)...? The aluminum pole is for the roof rake....also lonely.

The Gotch

too soon to put the shovel and scoop away here.
i am hoping the blow we had on the 5th was the last bad snow storm
but something usually happens before april ends. still have a couple weeks
of march weather to deal with. still on that warming trend. had some thunder
and rain today. temp got into the 50s. supposed to be 50 tomorrow then 28 on
sunday for a high. could see some snow, but nothing major coming our way.
the melt has begun.


keith

We had a little duster the day before yesterday, pretty slight but enough for plant cover, shovel only if you want. Cool temperatures holding with sunshine for a couple more days, but bouncing up as high as 10C, 50F early next week.

Yesterday was nice here - 67°, and sunny the entire day - but today isn't nearly as nice, starting with enough drizzle to just wet things, which can happen throughout the day, with no sun, and maybe reaching 60°, though only up to 46° at close to 11:30 am. Tomorrow is when that heavy rain and wind gets here, later on - over an inch of rain, and 50 mph gusts forecast, so not as bad as some of those areas down south, and in the MW, and we do need rain.

Very dry here. 80°, dew point in the low 30°s range, RH 19%.
Very windy out of the west.

Had to tie up a few of the tomatoes, first time for 2025.

I planted out some replacement tomatoes yesterday so naturally we have 82 degrees, howling winds and humidity at 9%. Watered everything twice today but all my new transplants are laying flat on the ground. I'll probably be buying replacement replacements tomorrow.

Been wet here today, last check was around 5pm for 23 mm/0.92 inches of rain. Still showers moving through so still possible to get more.

Since I got the temperature/RH sensors last year I have noticed just how dry it is when the RH drops to about 30% in the house in the winter. 9% @Wildcat82 must be really tough on the plants!

We occasionally get down to single digit humidity also and yes it is tough on the plants @bower, especially if combined with high temperatures and strong winds. It is then that I turn the soaker hoses up and spray the plants when watering, knowing that they will quickly dry off when I turn the pump off. Makes a difference but need to be careful with condition selection.

@bower I watered my peas twice yesterday. They weren’t especially loving the windy, warm and extra dry weather. I put an additional layer of dry live oak leaves on top of the previously added leaves. Thick leafy mulch I have noticed really does help conserve soil moisture on these windy dry days.

My tomato beds have 2-3” of cotton burr compost/mulch, then now 3” plus of the leaves on top. The tomatoes didn’t show the least bit of wilting in the intense cloudless sunshine, wind and very low RH yesterday. Some of the cucumbers and squash had a very minor level of droopy leaves, nothing very concerning. Same for the young peppers plants, to be expected and something they will fully recover from.

My pole beans that are just getting to the vining stage, the leaf edges of the big leaves got burned a little in the constant battering dry winds, but I don’t believe it’s going to be a terrible setback. The beans didn’t wilt, the damage was mostly just mechanical.

My potatoes got a bit less perky, but I think had recovered by sundown.

Today’s weather looks to much more benign, 75° for the high with a gentle NW wind. It is currently 50° at 6:50 am, that should help the peas feel better. The upcoming week looks more pea friendly.

I read an article some time ago @Whwoz about the use of row cover in hot climates, which keeps it more humid around the plants. The results were promising for them. Wind certainly wouldn't help though! Our covers here take a beating. the fact that they trap humidity as well as warmth, though, makes a big difference for crop quality.

It 's a great thing that you have lots of water for the garden in such a dry climate. The fringe benefits of watering, for our insect communities and other critters, is more than we might think. When it's gotten dry here, I really noticed the wild critters creeping in for the water footprint. So even though we might be focused on making food for ourselves, we're helping biodiversity as a side effect, especially where it's so dry.

@karstopography The mulch sounds good! I've noticed that peppers and tomatoes are a bit more tolerant of dry weather - lettuce and greens are the hardest to keep nice when the RH drops and the wind isn't helping. Celery too.
Like you, we do get that coastal effect most of the time, that keeps RH higher.

Today here it's overcast and -5C out with RH 71%. In the greenhouse it was over 30C yesterday and I even had a window open for a couple of hours due to the hot sunshine. Still holding at 6.5C and 57% RH today, so it looks like our freezing temperatures overnight or even when it snows, are finished for the year. There are some big tubs of dirt in there as well as a few living things, anyway the dirt is mass for heat storage, and with enough sunshine it won't be too cold for winter crops out there.

It snowed here overnight. The temperature as I type is 29F with a wind chill of 20. I hope I didn't uncover prematurely! Snow is a great insulator though. Oh yeah, it's also seed starting day! Yay!

This morning began with the weather alert sounding off at 4am. With it going off every 5-10 minutes for severe t-storms here and tornado watches elsewhere there was no going back to sleep. Again, we were in The Slot with the worst going north and south of us. The main front did come through at 5am with a lot of wind and pounding rain and then just little storms coming through now and then until 8am. I'm so thankful we didn't get hit like Alabama and Mississippi. It's still lightly overcast but the sun is peeking through now and then.

After 70's-40's I now see a low of 33 for Tuesday morning! Geez! Gotta cover a few very recent transplants tomorrow afternoon. Then it's low 70's and nice weather the rest of the week.

It was already 61° at 9 this morning, and up to 66° at 11 am (might reach 70° today), and it's actually sticky out there! Rain coming later, and the wind is kicking in, up to 30 mph gusts, so far, and getting worse when that rain comes.

Hope everyone here was not affected by the tornadoes/floods.Did not look good.Any reports?

The rain's coming soon - it rained a little earlier, but the drops were so large that it sounded like hail, but it only lasted a couple of minutes. Hasn't been as windy as predicted, but the storm hasn't really gotten here yet. It's still in the 60s, but after the heaviest part of the rain is past, the temp starts dropping slowly, getting down to 54° at 3 pm. Weird weather...

Finally some normalcy. Still a tiny bit on the cool side but I won't complain (more).

25 and sunny currently. high of 40 today.
wednesday, snow is likely, no info on how much. right on schedule with
st paddys day. there is often some type of snow event here around that time.
this week highs in the 30s, lows in the 20s. some breezy days.


keith