Strange, strange weather.

12 years ago

I live in Mn......brown Mn. I talked to a friend who usually goes down to New Mexico for the winter after Christmas. Well, they might not go at all this year......too much winter down there. I feel bad for all of those poor folk who are getting bombarded by all of the white stuff when they really aren't used to it or prepared for it. Even though I know we, in the north, could really use the moisture, I hope the snow holds off until after the people are done traveling to see loved ones. When I talk about the non-snow, I always look up and say, Lord, I'm not complaining, just commenting. LOL

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Comments (16)

phyllis__mn
12 years ago
Truly have to agree with you on our strange pre-holiday weather. I'd like to see the brown covered a little bit, but hope Ma Nature doesn't go overboard.
jeaninwa
12 years ago
it was 61 here in Colorado on Sunday. Shirt sleeve weather. Today, so far at 7 am, there is a couple inches of snow out, and it's BRRRRRRRRRRRRRR
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no hose reels, please
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Comments (3)
hey andi jr's birthday this weekend.. i am a little jammed for time.. so bear with me ... if i understand.. all you want is spigot extension across a long area?? yes??? i recall the post you mention.. but SEARCH function has not worked ... any recollection of a title??? .. but the pix are dated 2008 .. so it might be long gone from GW ... i suggest.. that you work with one inch black pipe ... to cover ground.. probably cheaper than hose.. and will last forever.. but if you want hose .. so be it.. pix below of the spigot extension ... any metal stake can be pounded into the ground ... it does not have to be a fence post ... i gave this to the neighbor.. so off the house.. they have a Y, so they can still use the house spigot .. and down 100 feet to the back of the yard.. and across 50 feet.. they have old hose ... to the bottom of the gizmo ... i suggested to them.. they buy new hose for use.. and dedicate old hose to the system ... bigboxstore sells hose in bulk.. make your own lengths ... this is NOT a pressure system.. so it gets turned off at night ... not left on forever ... and of course.. must be uncoupled and drained for winter ... that is my house and garden behind ... ken
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Awesome but strange weather here!
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Comments (5)
With tomatoes, the earlier I plant, the better the year I have, but that sometimes means planting when it is really too cold for them at night and I have to do a lot to protect them. It pays off, though, when the big harvest hits in early June and I'm canning nonstop in the early June heat instead of in the early July heat that we have in a typical summer. I almost always am canning tomatoes on July 4th because we often have a cool July 4th for reasons I cannot logically explain. The reason last year was such a great tomato year here was that I was able to start putting tomato plants in the ground during the first week in March. I never really had to worry about cold threatening them after that either because it got so hot so early. That's why a lot of us had such a great tomato year last year----just because we could plant 4 to 6 or even 7 weeks earlier than usual. I expect y'all have a good July rainy spell maybe once a decade there at best? I bet the farmers and ranchers were really excited, and I hope they got enough rain to make a real difference this year. Here in my part of OK, we have a really rainy July about twice a decade....the two I remember best prior to this year would be 2007 (really the rain was more in May and June but it carried into early July) and 2004. When you get a lot of rainfall at one time, it can have all kinds of effects on tomatoes. There are a lot of variables, including the size and stage of development of the tomatoes prior to the rainfall. You're likely to see some concentric cracking with large-fruited varieties if they already were fairly mature and about to ripen. The texture of the fruit is likely to suffer and the flavor may seem watered down. You might see rainchecking on the fruit, but it won't affect the flavor, just the appearance. Sometimes there is so much rain you even see longitudinal cracking along with concentric cracking, but that is a lot more rare here. When a big rainy spell is forecast, if I think that the rain actually is going to fall, I pick all the tomatoes that have reached breaker stage before the rain starts falling. Since we often have heavy rain in the forecast and then it misses us completely, I often wait until it is about to rain and then I run outside and pick everything at breaker stage and beyond. That saves the flavor, texture and appearance of at least those fruit. A few days of heavy rain will only affect the tomatoes that were fairly large and near ripening at the time the rain fell. The flavor of smaller and less mature fruit that won't be ripe for, let's say another 3 or 4 weeks, generally isn't impacted unless you keep having more rain and then more and more and more. That seems unlikely in your location. If you have cherry tomato fruit that was close to ripening, you'll probably see a lot of splitting. You shouldn't see the texture issues after next week since y'all undoubtedly will return quickly to your usual hot, dry, miserable summer weather in days, not weeks. When we have persistent heavy rainfall and the fruit has to grow in it endlessly, the effect on flavor and texture is devastating. In 2004 the rain was more of a May-June thing and was heavy but not overwhelmingly so and the flavor/texture of the early fruit suffered, but by mid- or late-July, the fruit were fine. Then in 2007, we had about 8 or 9" of rain in May followed by about a foot of rain (and weeks of flooding) in June (you might remember that as the year of the big Gainesville, TX, flood) and the fruit wasn't any good at all until sometime in August. Rainfall is good, of course, and I hate to complain about any rain, but in terms of growing tomatoes, it is better to have the heavy rain in April and May when the plants are young and just setting fruit, than to have it in June and July when fruit is ripening and is being harvested. Often, when the heavy rain severely impacts the texture and flavor of the fruit, I dehydrate the tomatoes about half-way and then use them on sandwiches. Partially dehydrating them can save the flavor by pulling out a lot of the excess moisture, but it does change the texture, and the flavor might improve and intensity after you partially dehydrate them, but there is no guarantee. I also cook a lot with rainfall-affected tomatoes. Using them in salsa, tortilla soup,taco soup, etc. adds lots of other flavors that help make up for the fact that the rain has watered down the flavor and also has had a negative impact on the texture. Dawn
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Strange weather = odd photo?
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Comments (10)
Thanks Babs. Do you think you could move it to a protected spot, such as against a wall or fence? Maybe it would help. Sean, you can see how one season of growth creates those sprays of stems. I prune it right after flowering in spring, usually by late April/early May. The thing about it spreading and taking over is that IF you allow those clambering stems to touch the ground, then they will definitely take root, and the from there it goes on, sort of as if the stems were hopping along the ground. But some vigilant pruning every spring will stop that. I think the possibility of bright flowers at almost any time during winter (when there's a little mild spell), along with the evergreen stems, is worth the trade off. Also, after flowering, it does produce leaves, but they're tiny and in the fall there's no raking at all needed. They just sort of fall off and blend.
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Strange weather
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Comments (3)
Thanks, fleurs. First time I've ever had red peppers before the 4th of July, but I also don't recall a year that I've had sugar snap peas survive this long. We've had some very confusing weather this year. Anyone else noticed differences in their gardens this year?
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Jasdip
12 years ago
I heard on the radio last nite that Texas and New Mexico are in for a ton of snow!!! 18". Wow!!
Jasdip
12 years ago
I was driving last nite in dark, rain and some fog, when I heard that. It was hard as heck to see, we need snow to brighten things up.
patti43
12 years ago
I'm enjoying this warm weather. It's a welcome change from last winter when we had one of the coldest winters on recorded. The weather Christmas day is suppose to get in the high 70's with a 30% chance of rain. Love it--that's why I moved to Florida!!
kacram
12 years ago
It's been sunny and dry here for the most part in December. cool, for the first half it was cooler than average, now it is a little warmer than the average. I just hope people remember this weather and won't complain EVERY day when the rain starts! lol
dotmom
Original Author
12 years ago
I got to thinking, if this Topsy-turvy weather continues, the people in the southern states will come up north for the winter!
alisande
12 years ago
It's strange here, too. I guess it goes along with the weather-related disasters the world experienced this year. I heard on Public Radio that we've seen more of them this year than at any other similar time span in history. (They said it better, and more accurately, but you get my drift.)

I hope we don't get hammered with snow or whatever later in the season.
petra_gw
12 years ago
The weather has been really strange for a while now. Last winter, we had what the weather forecasters called arctic cold in our area of TX. The temps were in the teens for days and days. We were actually colder than Alaska. And last summer, we had unbelievable heat, above 100 degrees for weeks on end, plus exceptional drought. Lately, it's rained a bit more, but we are still close to 20 inches in deficit for the year.
Jasdip
12 years ago
LOL Dotmom!!!
dedtired
12 years ago
It's warm here too, for December. I'm near Philadelphia. Most of my memories of last-minute Christmas shopping is freezing to death while running from the car to the mall. Not this year. We've had some chilly days and nights, but nothing bad.

Of course, we had snow on Halloween, a flood and an earthquake this year, so maybe we will have a brown winter. I'd love that. It seems we do go through cycles of snowy winters, then non-snowy winters, so maybe we are due for no snow. I hope so, but I am not counting on it.

The weather around here is generally more moderate. We don't have the extremes that others do. My least favorite weather is very humid. That's the worst. I even rather shovel snow, as long as the power stays on.

Good luck to you who are freezing, drowning or snowed in!
jannie
12 years ago
I'm in Long Island. We rarely get cold enough for a White Christmas but we've been having unususlly dry and warm weather. In November we had six days in a row over 60 degrees. And hardly any rain at all since the end of September aqnd Hurricane Irene. . It's been great for shopping and putting up holiday decorations. Last year we had a tremendous blizzard on Dec . 26.
cynic
12 years ago
I have no complaints either. I really wasn't looking forward to winter this year and then some health issues complicated things more. We got hit with that one or two days with some ice and I thought uh-oh, here we go, but it didn't last. I still expect a normal snowfall so we'll catch up. But sure makes for a "shorter" winter this way. Nice an easy to get around. No worries about getting stuck. A friend had car trouble the other night and it was no suffering to help out with that.
kayjones
12 years ago
I'm in NW Florida and echo what Patti said - it's GORGEOUS here! We are at 72 and cloudy right now. The low tonight will be 60 and 60% chance of much-needed rain!
drewsmaga
12 years ago
My son & daughter-in-law were stuck on the side of the road in that New Mexico blizzard Monday en route from Houston to Woodland Park, CO. They spent 19 hrs. in the truck before the road was plowed and they were pulled out. Scary stuff. Here in Central Florida, it's beautiful! Mid-upper 70's. I spent the 1st 38 yrs. of my life in NE Ohio, complete with blizzards and white-outs and will never live north of I-10 again. I no longer miss a "white" Christmas.
Lily316
12 years ago
I miss snow and the ski resort where husband works isn't happy. It rained today and will tomorrow and the rest of the week and it's warm. Two months ago we had a major snow storm in Oct. which did a number on all my trees. It was a disaster. I miss the winters growing up here in PA. We mostly had snow and it was cold. I'm not at all liking this climate change. We've had earthquakes, floods, hurricanes , tropical storms, and tornadoes just this year plus a week of 100 degree days and 6 week drought. But for the year we are over 30 inches above normal in rainfall. That's 10 inches more than our last wettest year, 1972.

Strange, strange weather.

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Strange, strange weather.

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