I'm ready for low 80's and no humidity. We don't get to the 30's until November.

yep. i'm ready for cooler weather. maybe not hi 30's but cooler than the 97 that it is today.

I'm ready for low 80's and no humidity.

Ditto!

Frank, I am in southeast Wisconsin, in Dodge county. What forecast are you checking out? I looked at a few and don't see any 30's, for the next 10 days at least. But, I definately can agree with you that I am sick of the hot summer heat. I am not looking forward to the next 2 days, forecast to be in the 90's. I already started my radishes when it got a lot cooler, and SHIZAAM!.......HOT again. Now all of my radishes aren't developing and the ones that started have cracked. I've pretty much decided they are junk, and will start fresh in a couple of weeks, assuming it cools down. I too like cool season crops more, although I can't deny my love for peppers. I am quite fond of squash & melons as well, but I must say, I love my cool season peas, radishes, kohlrabi, carrots, lettuce, and the list goes on. I just hope we actually have a fall, and not instant winter.

Joe

Its been a bad year overall, for various reasons. Out with the old and in with the new, so I say get it over with.

I don't know if I agree about the year here in MI. The apples, grapes and peaches are great, and even the watermelons are very good. All greens, root crops, beans, and tromboncino produced very well. If the August rains had not generated some blight in tomatoes, they'd be very good too, but they were still abundant. The eggplants were decent. Really, the cold spring gave way to a hot summer, and we got crops in. Here I saw record numbers of SVB, a huge increase in squash bugs, and an increase in cucumber beetles.

We were situated right between the cold zone (PNW) and the hot zone (East), so we got a Goldilocks summer. Not too warm, not too cold. Not too wet, not too dry. Actually, I would have preferred a hot summer for my okra and melons.

I'll be pulling out most of the summer crop except the melons (none are ripe yet!!!) in a week and transplanting my spinach in.

Joe-

check this out...
http://wxweb.meteostar.com/sample/sample.shtml?text=KUNU

I watch the GFS and the EURO... Still showing a very nice cool shot. GFS still wants to drop our temps to 37F, but I think fog will limit that. I'm in the Mississippi River valley and tis the season for fog. Areas to the east (Sparta, BRF) will probably really plummet Monday morning. This cold air will then move east. A reinforcement comes down later next week with even more cool air. Next week is going to be awesome! Highs only in the upper 60Fs here Sun/Mon . You are probably by the lake, so all bets are off. L Michigan is very warm so any lake breeze will put an end to any cooling.

This year has been so so. Spring sucked and everything was so late out of the gate. Then it was very wet, followed by very dry. Then we had all that heat. Past month has been nice for wx, but the ragweed has been horrendous.

Tropical development in the Gulf of Mexico could possible lead to some Texas rain. Euro develops a cane right off the coast.

welp in the mid 90's today and tomorrow....and I was off work and hoping to do some hard core gardening, but will just putter a bit I guess.....

Hotter temps came in 2 nights ago, and I have seen a flurry of activity with the squash and cukes putting on new female flowers, so that is welcome. Harvest 2 okra pods, lol! A bumper crop! BOTH plants had one this am!!!

Hopefully - they'll put a lot on these 3-4 days of high heat (20 degrees above normal) and then the weather will be nice, the fruit will ripen, be harvested, and out the plants come, lol!

But yes - my weeds are out of control, and in some ways - I'm looking forward to a killing frost, reboot the garden for 2012.....

Winter squash starting a whole new generation here, too. They'll never be mature by the time the frost comes. Even the first set aren't ready yet. But you can eat them green.

I'd prefer a late frost so I can keep the October apples on the trees as long as possible.

I didn't get a good scald on some of the apples, but it was a good peach year.

I desire more rain and a late frost...lots of late crops out there [you know?].

It looks like another hurricane could follow Irene's path.

Here in NW WI we'll be dipping down to 41 on Sunday night, but temps will come up a bit after that. And no, I'm never ready, being originally from the PNW. Cooler temps just means that 5 months of winter is just around the corner...I'm not used to it after 9 years and never will be...but I'm stuck here until someone takes my ashes back to Puget Sound...

I am about an hour from the lake, so it has no effect on the weather here. I am definately seeing some low 40's in the forecast, which sounds like some good windows open at night sleeping weather. I don't want frost yet because I started my garden just this year, and in mid July even. I only planted fast summer crops, which include beans, cukes, picklebushes, and zucchini. The zukes were putting out in 30 days already, and I've gotten plenty enough to use already. The pickles, although infected with downey mildew now, are just putting out now, so I think I will beable to can up plenty before the downey mildew wipes out the plants. My cukes have smallies on them, and the beans are looking like I won't get anything, because I don't even have flowers yet. With that said, I hope to have the frost hold off a bit, so I can get some production from my late garden. The cool will help out my peas though, which are growing great....just can't have them flowering until it's cooler. I'd be ok if frost held out until October.

Joe

We got down to 38 last night. I had everything covered. We were expecting 32.

Im going to the lake to swim boat and ski, So NOpe

Temps in the 30's. Today was 109 degrees! Thank goodness the wind was blowing!

In my previous post, I totally forgot to mention something.

Frank, the start of fall as Sept 1st in your book is totally the right one. The September 21st start date that always gets thrown up by the media is incorrect and is solely used by astronomers. How it became official beats me, because meteorologists officially define the season start dates as Dec 1, Mar 1, June and Sep 1.

Nope. Like warm, even hot. Shivering in northern Scotland on vacation; I was glad to get back to Alabama.

I too think that the 21st is late....perhaps the 10th would be a good all around date.

On another old tradition. Dogs and cats are given 7 years to equate with 1 year for humans. A lot more practical way is to give dogs and cats 15 years for their first year and 5 for each year thereafter...a lot more realistic on animals early and later years.

Picked the only watermelon the other day, a Sorbet Swirl...going to cut it today...

Look at this forecast:
{{gwi:103586}}

Awesome!

45 at night and 70 during the day - I am totally up for - but frost is not something I am looking forward to. And full WI winter even less. My Dahlias are just coming into full bloom, and covering 35, 7 ft. plants isnt easy!. Last year I spent 3 hours one night constructing a huge plastic tent over them for a mid-september frost warning, then we didnt frost here. My neighbor thought I was nuts.

I wasn't ready for the low temps at night. Garden froze 2 nights ago and again last night. Garden hasn't hardly started to mature...no beans, tomatoes, melons, squash...you name it. Yesterday day morning I turned on the sprinkler system before sunrise but as I looked out I am wondering if I can save it again. Last night I checked the weather and it was suppose to only get in the high 40's last night. Oh well another gardening year gone.
Ellie

Mar 1 the start of spring? I think we had subzero temps on March 13 in 2003, and we had 14F on March 31 this year. We also had 98F on Sept. 2 this year, so start of Fall should be delayed too.

We're in Canada. We're always ready. ;)

We were actually quite surprised (and obviously pleased) that our first frost warning was only last night (Sept. 3); frosts in August aren't uncommon. Hauled out the tarps and blankets because the forecast was for 0ÃÂC in the early hours. Thankfully, it only got down to 3ÃÂC.

Photo below. Link for a frostly chuckle. :)
{{gwi:50858}}

Here is a link that might be useful: RMR: Frost Warning (comedy show clip)

Sorry, my "degree" symbols were replaces by gibberish. That should be 0 and 3 degrees Celsius respectively.

our little heat wave broke.....66 degrees feels plenty chilly!!

Most symbols used here get replaced with jibberish, so I quit even trying to use them. Anyways, if I lived in Canada, I'd probably look into a garden with a retractable roof :) Heck, I dislike the short growing season here in Wisconsin; I can't imagine zone 2 in Canada.

Joe

Loved the link!

Retractable roof... LOL! It gets plenty hot up here, just not for very long. :)

My neighbors probably think I'm nuts anyway. I've covered plants and had good luck doing it. I miss living farther south in Florida. We were surely blessed with warm winters there

Two weeks of extreme heat warnings and record heat here in AZ. Hottest August on record. 112 today and it felt cooler. My husband saw 119 on his way to school on the motorcycle, full gear, in a traffic jam on Thursday.
Freezing weather, even blizzards sound like heaven to me right now.
I'd swap property with someone if they have about 40 acres in a rural area!
I have lemon trees, pine trees and a huge swimming pool!
Hurry up winter!

I've lived in both Kuwait and Saskatchewan. Both have some things in common. One godawfully long, intolerable season, and one short, nice, glorious season. During the godawful season, the only possible activity is to run from home to car to office to grocery store. Yes, there will be always be some people who shrug off the extreme temperatures, but there's no getting around the fact that 120 degrees F and 40 below zero F are intensely taxing on the human body, vehicles, plants and animals.

That's one huge tarp Macky 77! It must be hard to handle.
LOVED that video!!

I'm a wimp with heat. I can handle temps reasonable well down to 0F. Below that and its annoying. On the high side I don't care for temps over 80F. High humidity makes it even worse. If I was a veggie, I'd be a broccoli or lettuce.

Frost advisory up for parts of Wisconsin. I had 47F this morning and it felt cold!

I hate the heat,too. Grew up in Boulder, CO and spent time in Iowa, WA state and other cold areas. Just don't like the intense heat nearly enough and miss winters.
Can't wait to leave this state behind!

I have trouble with heat too, but its the humidity level that seems to make all the difference for me. Fall and Winter are my favorite temp times!

If I was a veggie, I'd probably be a leek. I can handle mild winters and have many layers. ;)

DrHorticulture, you've summed it up perfectly! I'm in the central part of the province, by the way... a ways east of S'toon.

Catherinet, yes, it's a GIGANTIC tarp! My (now) hubby bought it on a camping trip back when we were still dating. We went with his whole family. Of course, it poured buckets for nearly the whole trip and everyone, especially my future mother-in-law, was miserable. One day, he disappeared, unannounced and on foot, when we stopped to gas up the vehicles and he was gone long enough that we started to get concerned. He eventually returned, having gone to buy the biggest tarp he could find, regardless of the price. This tarp sheltered three (older, single-wall) tents, two vehicles and a picnic table area as well as the area beside the fire pit. For some reason, it didn't take much effort to convince him that we needed to splurge on a proper tent - with full rain fly - of our own, lol! The tarp has been useful for all sorts in the years since, but I'm happy to note that we've never taken it camping again.

Macky......how did you ever get it over your whole garden at once? I have trouble just getting small ones up! How did you get it to stay up over all those tents, vehicles, etc?
I use tarps alot on my chicken coop. Unfortunately, they are the cheaper ones and don't last very long if there's much wind.
I hope you don't have to take the one on your garden up and down too many times.

109 degrees on Friday, 47 degrees on Monday morning. Gotta love Kansas weather!

Love the link too!

Macky, would that be near Humboldt? I'm in the city proper, but in a low elevation cold spot. On some calm and clear summer nights, it's five degrees Celsius colder here than at YXE!

Yes, very close to Humboldt, in the RM. Do I know you?

Catherinet, we laid it all out flat on the grass and then hubby and I each took opposite sides and bunched it up. Then we walked it over to the garden and laid it on the east/west path immediately south of the pole bean teepees (the cedar arch is on the north side of the garden in that photo). We then went closer to the pole beans and each stuck a long stick into one of the grommets of the tarp, which allowed us to hold the tarp above the pole bean teepees and drag it over all six of them. Then we just kept pulling until we'd gone as far as we could go without uncovering the teepees on the south side. Remove the sticks from the grommets and lay the tarp down flat, then go around tidying up all the edges. Made a nifty little fort underneath. :)

Frost Advisory
URGENT - WEATHER MESSAGE
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE MARQUETTE MI
942 PM EDT MON SEP 5 2011

...WIDESPREAD FROST LIKELY OVERNIGHT AWAY FROM THE GREAT LAKES...

.HIGH PRESSURE MOVING OVER THE AREA WILL BRING CLEAR SKIES AND
LIGHT WINDS TONIGHT. WITH LITTLE OR NO CLOUD COVER...TEMPERATURES
WILL QUICKLY DROP UNDER THE COOL DRY AIR MASS IN PLACE. OVERNIGHT
LOWS WILL RANGE FROM AROUND 30 TO THE MID 30S AWAY FROM THE GREAT
LAKES TO THE UPPER 30S AND LOWER 40S NEAR THE GREAT LAKES SHORELINES.

Me thinks we lost most of the garden.

Oh, dear... so sorry, makete.

Yep, it got us bad. Tried to save the garden but lost most of it. Hard frost this morn.

Fog saved the day here....44F and thick fog in the river valleys. I see Sparta, WI about 20 minutes east was 37F this morning. I love it! That Katia out in the Atlantic is blocking the other tropical system and that is holding up the high pressure over the midwest. More sun and 70F all week. Overnight lows should slow warm to the upper 50Fs by late week.

Sorry to hear that Makete! Can you quickly preserve some things?

Sounds like you have the system down Macky. If we had done that when my son was still at home, I'm sure he would have wanted to sleep under it!

No thanks! Everything got off to a late start this year because of the cold and rain. I'll take my summer long, slow, and languorous, thank you very much.

Nope, I don't know you, but I was just curious :)

What I would like is a geodesic dome over my whole backyard, so I can have a slice of...I don't know...Utah or South Dakota in Saskatchewan.

Day 7 on the EURO has another shot of cold air and a LARGE chunk of really cold air descending down into Canada. If that breaks south, we'll all see frost.