Winter has been starting a little later and lasting a little longer here the last few years. In years past nearly all my trees had broken dormancy by Feb 15th. The past few years my trees have not been breaking dormancy until the first or second week of March. At this point roughly one third of my trees are just starting bud break. My best guess is that some trees will not break dormancy until the end of the month which is really late here. This was another cold winter by Arizona standards with many days 15-25 degrees below normal. Even so I expect to hear that this was one of our hottest winters on record. We heard last year that last summer was the South Wests hotted summer on record. In the fine print the South West had been re-done leaving out California and that day time temps were not included and that they shifted the summer season by three weeks. Anything that needs to be done to get a headline of "The Hottest" or "One of the Hottest" is all that matters to those who produce the data. If there is a way to say it was hot they will no matter how they have to twist and shift the statistics.

This is the worst year I've had since I started gardening (in the present era) in 2004. I had two feet of rain between spring thaw (mid April) to normal planting time (May 10-15). That is normally the amount of rain I get in a two-year period. I never could get my garden properly tilled, so I finally just raked the clods into elevated rows, and dropped seed down between the clods. Got some really crappy germination as you can imagine. I did not even bother to plant lettuce and spinach, as it was too late and warm. Finally finished planting my tomatoes June 24, about a month and a half later than I should have. It then stopped raining, and got hot. It has been over 100F almost every day, all summer, since I started planting in June, with hot winds. Just the last several days, the temps. have dropped into the mid 90's. Feels like fall! And, it is cooling off at night. Corn was looking good until about 10 days ago, when we had another 1.6"of rain, along with 70mph wind from every direction. That laid down most of my corn stalks, and braided them all together so that it looked like a lawn out there. I was too disgusted to stand it back up, so I wrote it off. Surprisingly, most of it has curved back upward, and I have even harvested some since then. My late season corn looks like it could produce pretty well, but, due to the heat, it is ripening early, and the ears will be smaller than they should be. Peppers are looking pretty good, and could have a near normal crop of sweet peppers. Tomatoes? At best, they will be very late, with sparse production. Too hot most of the summer so set on any tomatoes. And, the late season beefsteaks won't produce anything ripe until they are too late into the fall to taste good. About the best I can do with them is collect some seed. I have about 30 new varieties out there that I need to gather seed from.

Thanks for the input. Attached link indicates that Kandy Kane should last 10-14 days. I checked the corn, it was almost ready, two days later went down and took enough for supper, it was great. two days after that went down for serious harvest and processing-we freeze it-and it was past prime. Been gardening and judging when corn is ready for over 45 years, so don't think that's the problem. Zone 6, SE Ohio, what more can I say? Elevation is 810 feet, 360 degree exposure, rown run N-S. Corn is planted in rows (garden way seeder) 15" apart, 6 rows wide and 25 feet long. I remember as a kid in the 50's here, when the corn came in we'd feast for a couple of weeks. Had to repeatedly go over the patch feeling the ears to get the ones that were ready. No idea what the variety was....:-( By posting this I was hoping that I'd get a clue to a "quasi-heirloom" in line with not having to harvest it all as soon as the first one looked OK. I still think the weather had something to do with it. Been growing San Marzano tomatoes for years, this year's harvest was awful. 24 plants and 14 quarts in the freezer. Garlic (French Music) was ready almost 6 weeks early. Thanks for your time, Ev Here is a link that might be useful: Kandy Kane corn

We're in the same spot as Cameron, but I think we've had more days of 90's than she has. Except for 2 days that I can think of, it's been a minimum of 90 here, and closer to 100 most days this summer in our garden. We started off with good rains but have since dried up. For the first time in years my water bill will be expensive. I had to water to save things.