HATE this California weather

midsummersgarden

13 years ago

The veggies and flowers overall look good, but I can't take it. :( I don't even want to be outside.

Isn't that the point of life, to be outside tending plants? That's the entire point of my existence! :D

I need some sun...

When do you think it will warm up??

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Comments (29)

spaghetina
13 years ago
I don't know which part of the state you're in, but in my part of the Bay Area, it looks like next week should be in the 70's. Fingers crossed! I don't like gardening when the mercury hits 85+, but anything 70 and up without these crazy winds, and I'm happy.
tcstoehr
13 years ago
I'm in northern Oregon and this weather is driving me up the wall. Bitterly cold, unceasing rain, wind, darkness, hail. Give me a break already. I already had to restart quite a few plants, now I may have to again. It might turn into a 'cabbage year' but I didn't plant any cabbage. Squashes hanging on for dear life. Tomatoes turning pale green/yellow. Pole beans withering on the vine. Screw this crap.
It's like January, February, March, March, March, March...
In twenty years here I doubt I've ever seen an April or May that was as warm as the "average" claimed by the local weather forecasters.
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I hate this early hot, hot weather too, and so does my garden. The patio plants in pots are looking stressed, but the veggie plants actually look pretty good, however the bugs are beginning to bug me. I had one big pepper turning red and a bug got to it. Still have some green ones I'm keeping an eye on. Still getting a few yellow squash and the tomatoes are really coming in. Somebody please shoot me if I plant that many toms next year. And I too have a thousand cukes. Why, why? At least the past few mornings are tolerable.
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Dawn thanks. There are times when you wonder if it is worth it. I had 9 seeds of a scarce variety of bean. I planted them in a bed that I had left mulch on for the last few years. Pulled it back and planted. But left a little old mulch close by. Of the first 3 that sprouted something ate 2/3 of the way through 2 stems and ate the leaves of the 3rd one. So cleaned the mulch away. Had five plants last night. Thought they should be wet enough to make it through the day. By the time I got home all but one looked bad. Two of them revived after I watered them well. Hopefully I can save the 3 to build seed from. Then after dark I decided to fix spaghetti. I went out to the garden and pulled two volunteer garlic plants. Not the biggest of the volunteer plants but 2 which I would have to remove before long. One had a scape. I also pulled 5 onions that are just starting to bulb. I cut them up and put them in the spaghetti sauce. And then I remembered why I garden. The best sauce I've had for almost a year. Nothing like the flavor of fresh garlic and onions. I noticed this evening they are saying 86 tomorrow but have raised the 88 for Friday to 96. Hopefully it won't get that hot. Everything made it through the day except the 2 beans I mentioned above. But know the plants are stressing some although they don't show it yet. I probably wouldn't have fed the tomatoes any N if I hadn't steamed the leaves off some in the WOW's and felt I needed to grow some foliage back. The wind is blowing hard now. Jay
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Larry, There are all kinds of insects everywhere. At least I am seeing a lot of the good predator bugs and hopefully they are eating the bad bugs. Unfortunately there's not a good predator bug that controls grasshoppers, but there are a lot of songbirds in my garden every day and I sure hope they are eating grasshoppers. It seems like all the insects that plagued our plants all summer have been busy reproducing because there's more now than ever. I love wheelbugs and have a few in my garden, which is always nice to see. I saw and killed a squash vine borer moth yesterday. I don't usually see them in September. I hate that the blister beetles found their way under the floating row cover, but it happens. The only time I don't have some stray bugs under row cover is when I transplant seedlings into the garden and cover them the very same day. That doesn't mean there aren't soil-borne pests that will be under the row cover or others that might hatch out under that, but at least most of the others aren't there. I always find fire ants under the row covers. I think they like the slight sun protection it gives them. Susan, Wheel bugs are so helpful in general that I am happy to see them, but I totally understand why you are not. The weather usually determines how bad of an insect year it will be. We need cool, wet, cloudy autumn through spring weather. Well, we need a cool summer too, but we never have one of those. Many, though not necessarily all, pest insects speed up their reproductive rate in the heat. So, insects that might take 2 or 3 or 4 weeks to complete a reproductive cycle in average weather can go through that reproductive cycle in less than a week in very hot weather. That's one reason that the insect population just explodes in hot years. Spider mites, in particular, get into such a fast reproductive cycle that their babies can be born pregnant. It also hurts us and helps them when winter stays pretty warm or when spring warms up very early like it has the last two years--they get a head start on reproducing and on attacking our plants while the plants are younger, smaller and more vulnerable. I've never seen insects as an overall group as bad as they've been the last two drought summers, although I have had much worse grasshopper years in the late 1990s and early 2000s. It is a shame we likely will not see the monarch migration. I did see a new, fresh monarch yesterday, so clearly some are in the area but I'm not seeing lots of them like I usually do. I am seeing plenty of other butterflies, including more and more sulphurs and swallowtails. You might try feeding the tomato plants that haven't bounced back from the pruning. I'm inclined to think that a feeding may boost them and kick them back into producing. I fed mine right after I pruned them back. Some bounced back and some didn't. We still are not getting much fruitset on anything except cherry types because our daytime highs are just too high. Yesterday we topped out at 98 degrees, and our relative humidity hit 14%. The fire pagers in our county went off at almost exactly the same time as they did the day before. In both cases, it was about the time we were at our maximum high temp and minimum low relative humidity. Although our county did not have an excessive number of fires this summer, I think our fire season is about to start if we don't get some rain. When fires start popping up at the same time every day, that's a clue that our weather combined with dry vegetation has reached the danger zone. This fire was further north than Thursday's, so it didn't involve our VFD but involved the three to our immediate north and they were out there for quite a while. That's a bad sign too. Wood mulch on the soil surface doesn't bind nitrogen. That only happens if the wood is worked into the soil itself. Normally in the fall, I add compost from my pile, grass clippings collected from mowing the lawn, and chopped/shredded autumn leaves to the beds. I just chop/shred the leaves by running over them with the lawn mower and catching them in the grasscatcher. You can add anything you want in terms of organic matter and soil amendments--manure, compost, alfalfa meal, mushroom compost, etc. Or, you can plant a winter cover crop like vetch or rye grass. Let them grow until it is almost planting time. Then, cut them and let them decompose in the soil, or rototill them into the soil, or pull them/dig them out and put them on the compost pile. The issue with rye grass is that its roots are so aggressive that you almost have to have a tiller to work the plants into the ground to get rid of them. I often use buckwheat, which goes from seed to blooming in maybe 5 or 6 weeks, as a short-term cover crop. As a bonus, it attracts beneficial insects. Unfortunately, frost kills it. I plant a ridiculous number of okra plants because it is easy to 'sneak' them into ornamental plantings. This year I planted about 30 so we had tons of okra and I have put a lot of it in the freezer. I finally got tired of picking the okra, so stopped picking it and am letting the pods got to seed to collect for next year. I actually have some pods that are dry and ready to harvest, so maybe I'll do that today. I could cut the pods this morning and sit and remove the seeds from them while watching college football today. One of my favorite ways to sneak okra into the ornamental beds is to plant tall varieties in the back of an ornamental bed that has 4 o'clocks and hollyhocks in it. So, the okra goes behind the hollyhocks and 4 o'clocks, and then in front of the four o'clocks I plant Swiss Chard in various colors and in front of the chard I plant some of the pepper varieties that stay shorter. It is pretty all the time, but after the hollyhocks have finished up blooming in mid-summer, the combination of okra, brightly-colored chard and pepper plants is a really pretty almost-tropical looking combination. Winter Density can grow most of the winter here but I will not necessarily say it will last all winter. However, it does tolerate some frost. I do plant it every year and have about 20 heads of it growing now, though they still are small. Once the temperatures are in the 20s, lettuce can get iffy, but covering them with floating row cover can both prolong their lives and keep the quality higher. In some past years, I've had good winter crops from several other kinds of lettuce, including Arctic King, January King, Rouge d'Hiver and Continuity Red. Really, though, since I started using floating row covers, I do not necessarily choose winter varieties for winter. There are lots of other greens that do well in fall and winter, especially with the use of a row cover to keep them a little warmer at night. Some winters I grow arugula, mizuna, tatsoi, mache, French sorrel and miner's lettuce. Spinach, kale and chard do great as winter greens too. I have planted a ridiculous amount of kale and Swiss Chard this fall, along with far too many collards, because the chickens love having fresh greens in winter. Some years I can keep winter greens going almost all winter. Spinach is particularly good at bouncing back even if damaged by cold weather and heavy frost, but in those years when we dip down into the single-digit temperatures, even lettuce and greens under row cover can freeze. Sometimes, though, they resprout from the roots. Oddly, one of our coldest periods here in our county is the first week of December. That's often when we get some of our coldest weather of the season. It sticks in my mind because that's when Marietta's Christmas Parade is. No matter how nice the weather is on the days leading up to the parade, it is almost guaranteed that we'll be freezing and shivering on parade night. It is common for us to be in the 20s on the night of the parade. If I put a heavy blanket over the row cover that is covering the greens, I usually can get the lettuce plants past that first really cold blast of air in December. This will be my first winter to grow lettuce in containers in the greenhouse. Of course, in the GH, the daytime heat due to the greenhouse effect is more of a worry than the nighttime lows. I checked the temperature in the greenhouse yesterday to see how much higher it was than the outdoor air temp. Even with 50% shade cloth and all the doors and vents open, it hit 111 degrees inside the greenhouse when it was 98 degrees outside. 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franktank232
13 years ago
Thanks guys... Its 90F here right now with a dew point of 71F making real feel 96F... I'm sticking to the couch and was sitting in my little kiddie pool. Tomatoes look awesome, the bananas are leafing out... Been 70F+ for about 10 days now. March/April have been some of the warmest on record... :) Keep that trough out west and the ridging over the upper midwest!
dicot
13 years ago
We just keep getting winds, seems like it's gusting 30+ mph every other day, just killing my allergies and my biking, as well as ruthlessly stripping all the moisture from my topsoil. Our brief drizzle was just enough to infect all my tomatoes with a raging case of septoria, but didn't recharge the soils at all. I'm ready for warmth.
benbenbu
13 years ago
I think you could still enjoy the fun of gardening even when the weather is not fine. There are many kinds of indoor growing equipment to help you achieve that. You could garden inside when it's cold and raining, then garden outside when it's sunny. :)

Here is a link that might be useful: Garden Equipment
cyrus_gardner
13 years ago
Blame it on El Nino.
It is strange that in WI, zone 5, it is 90F and in CA, OR, zones 9 and 8 are looking forward to 70F.

Here in AT/GA, zone 8, we have been having lots of 80F anf higher days since mid April.
I am about a week away from harvesting eggplants, tomatoes, cucumbers and beans.
Thankx to El Nino. lol

cyrus
coopnabucket
13 years ago
it snowed/hailed here for a moment yesterday :(
booooo
bomber095
13 years ago
Last June, we set a record w. 23 consecutive days w. measurable precipitation here in the northeast. Suffice to say, no one had great results w. their gardens. Tomato blight was everywhere. In fact, we didnt get our first back-to-back 75Â° days last year until mid July.

I sympathize w. you all
ancfan
13 years ago
Finally had to plant my seedlings they were getting root bound waiting for warm weather. I hear it's going to be in the 70's all week with chance of rain, this time last year it was in the 90's, it's crazy (the weather). I grow a winter garden and it's still doing great and the warm weather stuff is just sitting there.
oregonwoodsmoke
13 years ago
It's been below freezing most nights this month, but at least we are getting sunshine.

All my berries are happy, but still in pots. Their fence isn't finished. The wind has been blowing too hard to set the posts needed for the fence.

The veggie starts, under grow lights, are taking over my house. I think I should start some more. The ones I've got are getting awfully big and I suspect that they won't be tough enough to make the transition outdoors.

Hard to support the global warming idea this cold spring, so now I guess we have "weather change" which means it is getting hotter, colder, wetter, drier. I think that covers all the bases so that we can claim that any weather on any day of the year will support our fund-raising.
robertlovesmaters
13 years ago
I feel your pain midsummer, i also live in norcal, petaluma area.. this crazy weather is drivin me nuts.. I started 40 black krim tomato plants from last years harvested seeds about 2 months ago.. was trying to harden them off and a heat spell hit... cooked all of them.. started over,, more black krim, cherokee purple, and tigerella.. tryin to harden them off. cold spell hit and killed all but 6.. finally broke down and bought a bunch, including 4 nice big 1 gallon plants, pineapple, black krim, cherokee purple. put them in my ripoff topsy turvy((5gallon bucket) planters.. had them on the patio, finally moved them to the garden which is more exposed and the dang windstorm hit.. killed 50% of the leaves. now i sit and watch it rain.. gaaahhhhhh!!!!!!!
nancyjane_gardener
13 years ago
My maters are holding their own, growing slowly, but I also started them from seed for the first time, so they're small, then started them a week late. They seem to be healthy, though.
Robert, so sorry for your loss! I had purple cheroke last year and LOVED them! Didn't have room this year=(
Interesting that you are in Petaluma and zone 10 (usually LA or Florida areas, very hot), and I'm just south of Rohnert Park and I'm in zone 8. Mayyyyyyybe 8.5.
I'll see if I can find the USDA zone chart. NT
mockturtle
13 years ago
I posted about this last week in the tomato forum, after running around covering all of my tomato seedlings to protect them from the cold and rain. I waited until the second week of May to plant my warm weather vegetables, not wanting to repeat last year's experience. Last April there were a couple of weeks of cold rainy weather, that my vegetables never really recovered from. Just a lackluster year. (Pasadena area)

A lot of posters said that it was no big deal and a little rain never hurt a plant.
I don't know about that.

I am up in the Bay Area right now, and it is cold and rainy. Really weird for this time of the year.
bejay9_10
13 years ago
I decided to "roll with it" - went out and planted a lot more Bibb lettuce. Look on the bright side - the cabbages were stupendous! Managed to get 8 pints of sauerkraut and lots and lots of slaw with a few more "biggies" just waiting out there.

Ya - the toms don't look too hot - squash same, cukes same - baa.

I'm down San Diego way - coastal with "real blustery" ocean inflence. Bring on the lettuce

Bejay
cabrita
13 years ago
Yes, lettuce! This year we did very well with the cauliflowers, favas, peas, lettuces, radicchio....runner beans are flowering now and most of our tomatoes are also flowering. Most of the tomatoes look great actually, even though they are slower developing than in warmer years. The eggplants are another story, they don't look too good. I am holding off from planting okra and cow peas until after it warms up a bit.
promethean_spark
13 years ago
I'm just starting to transplant the warm-weather stuff. I start them in my unheated greenhouse and it's just been too cold at night for them to grow very fast.
sisterrific
13 years ago
Ugh I agree. Poor little plants are just not growing in this cold! Looks like it will warm up just in time for memorial day though, so at least there's that!
earthworm73
13 years ago
Up here in lil' California (Washington State) we have been in the doom and gloom too. We have been like 10 degrees below normal during the day. Yup cool weather crops are lovin it. Heat loving crops are SOL for now. Boy what I wouldn't do for a couple of 75* days in a row.
urbangysy
13 years ago
THIS so hard! I can't plant the cukes (way root bound!) or they will freeze. Tomatoes aren't root bound YET. Ugh!! The corn, watermelon, pumpkins, jalapenos, herbs, are just done in. All this cold is making the sweet peas finally slow down and not even the sunflowers are happy. :(

Maybe the heat this weekend will make everyone perk up.
oregonwoodsmoke
13 years ago
I've repotted my veggie starts, most of them more than once.

I know they won't make it if I put them out, so they are living as house plants.

Plenty of room under the lights for 4 inch pots, not so much room for the gallons that many of them are now living in.
robertlovesmaters
13 years ago
Yayyyy, more heavy rain..my poor melon plants are drowning.
nancyjane, I used the zone finder by zipcode, 94952 and it told my it was zone 10. not that I would know. well, the rain is really helping with all the seeds i direct sowed. all the weeds are lovin it too. will be weeding for a week straight.. Supposed to be sunny for the next week, bring on the sunshine and watch em grow.
la_sportsman
13 years ago
Really ready for the wind to stop. In central valley it's cold enough to stunt growth but not kill but wind is shredding everything.
nancyjane_gardener
13 years ago
Robert. The USDA DOES list you as zone 10 and me as zone 8! CRAZY! I know we have many microclimates in Sonoma County and people are talking about global warming, but 2 zones 10 miles apart with very similar weather????? In fact I think Petaluma is a little cooler than us with the Liberty Valley fog.
We had .91" of rain today! That's NUTS!!!!!!
I'm done with it! Nancy
robertlovesmaters
13 years ago
The description fits though. We do get a lot of fog and wind comin down the valley from bodega bay.. heavy coastal influence. Rohnert park and Santa Rosa are much warmer climates.. Any how.. Yayyyyy, the sun is out and is supposed to be nice for a few days..
spaghetina
13 years ago
We're shrouded in gray right now on the SF Bay peninsula. Doesn't matter. I'm still going to go out and get some things planted, and by this afternoon, things should warm up a bit into the high 60's. Good enough for me.
californian
13 years ago
Here in Orange County where I am we have gotten maybe a total of one inch of rain in the last two and a half months. Its another drought year down here, except for all the rain we had in February. It has been cool and cloudy though, so although I have hundreds of green tomatoes only four have ripened so far.
loribee2
13 years ago
Robert/Nancy, I'm in Rohnert Park by Sonoma State and have always thought my zone was 9!! LOL What site are you using to get your zone? Around here, those little maps are so hard to read. The chart often runs straight through Sonoma County and it's practically down to what side of the freeway you're on!

And if I can add my complaints to the others--I've been waiting 15 years to have a vegetable garden again, worked all summer last year clearing out a side yard, installing raised beds and irrigation, setting down rock in the paths. I put in a winter garden last fall that did beautifully, got my excitement up for the "real" crop this spring....and all I've been doing is fighting the elements. So far, I know I'll have a good crop of peas and parsley. Everything else is still out with the jury. Whaaaa!
robertlovesmaters
13 years ago
Loribee, I used the zone finder thing on this site. it said 10.. I live out bodega highway on the way out of town.. dont give up , remember all the rain that we had gave them plants a good amount of time to develop a great root zone.. keep feeding and watering as needed and you will see a great amount of growth in the next 2 weeks. supposed to be sunny for a while.. my snow peas, peppers and tomatoes all have a lot of new growth just in the last 2 days.. good luck..
loribee2
13 years ago
Thanks, Robert! I didn't realize there was a zone finder on this site. I typed in the zip codes for both Rohnert Park and Cotati (since I border both towns) and both came up Zone 10. Sonofagun! Now I'll have to go find out what that means, LOL

And thanks for the reassuring words. My squash and tomatoes are suffering from chlorosis and because my at-home soil tests come up okay but my water meter runs off the charts about 5" down, I'm guessing it's water. I'm really hoping that once things dry out, they'll start bursting like I remember them doing last time I had a garden.

So fun to talk to people from around my area!

HATE this California weather

Comments (29)

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