Autumn 2022

We’ve finally come into fall here in Central Texas. Its cooled down, for Texas. We now have highs in the mid 80’s, so we are out of the 90’s and triple digits. And the nights are finally cooling down, in the high 50-low 60’s. That’s quite a difference from what summer was, but its still not as cool as other places may be.

As for the garden, changes are afoot. I’ve been considering letting go of the garden beds I have and changing to elevated garden beds. I picked up an elevated garden bed from Home Depot recently, and a friend assembled it for me. While I was looking at them, I found one type of elevated garden bed that was for herbs. What was nice was it had pre-installed sections. Mine does not. But I was thinking I could use fabric pots inside the bed I have. I tried it out and found that I could probably put 8 fabric pots inside the bed easily. Doing that might make it easier. Its something I may give a try. It would allow me to put lettuce in one pot, carrots in another, peppers in another – kind of like square foot gardening, but in fabric pots.

The beds I have work, but I have some issues.They are on the ground, so there’s a lot of bending involved in taking care of them. Since the person that helped me install them didn’t put down weed cloth well, I tend to get a lot of grass growing inside the beds. That’s a constant problem. Also, the beds I have tend to be too much for me, I’m only growing for one person. I don’t need to grow 6 bell pepper plants for just me. One cucumber plant can be more than I need. And I will tell you that with the change in the weather my bell pepper plant (Wonder) is producing prolifically. I have an abundance of bell peppers this year – from one plant.

My cucumber plant looked bad, so I had cut it back quite a bit over a month ago. Well it is now producing well. The nice weather has helped that too.

But gardening is going on still. My pea plants never sprouted, so I think I just need new seed. Or I may try some different seeds that I have. With this nice weather it may be worth a shot.

Wish me luck. My garden continues.

Its cooling down

Its not quite fall/autumn yet but the weather is cooling down. Its not a big cool down, especially if you lived in a different area, but for Texas its a cool down. By cool down the days are in the high 80’s with some low 90’s thrown in for good measure. The nights are now in the low 70’s with some high 60’s in the offing. Getting down that low would be nice.

But for the garden it means that things are now growing. Plants are springing back to life. My tomato plant, its been babied all summer, is now showing new shoots and even flowers. Maybe I’ll even get some tomatoes. Some areas of Central Texas have gotten some rain, and they have mentioned even better success with their gardening.

As for rain, here at the house we’ve had a little. Nothing much to speak of, but some. I say some as areas north and south of here, and even east and west of here have gotten rain. But here its been little bits – half an inch here, a tenth of an inch there, more like dribs and drabs instead of a good rain fall. Such is life here!

But nonetheless we are on a cooling trend. After this long hot summer, and the slight rain we’ve had here even my lawn is filling back in (yeah!). I’ve planted a few seeds, beans, peas, some swiss chard and at least the beans are coming up. I do have to admit I am using some older seed and that may be the problem. I may end up going and getting newer seed and seeing if that will sprout. But it is good to see the plants perking up, and seeds sprouting.

Maybe I’ll get something from my garden this year after all. I can hope.

It rained

Where some areas got more rain than they could want, mainly in the form of flooding, here at this location, we got 1.58 inches of rain. I admit that most of the rain came in one quick downpour. We got an initial inch of rain in about one hour mid afternoon. Here we even had some periods of power fluctuations. Luckily we didn’t have the power go all the way out, but I was concerned about that happening.

For a while it was just a slow rain. Here there doesn’t seem to be any flooding, but other areas may have gotten more rain than we did. Earlier today news had said that the Dallas area had flooding. So I wouldn’t be surprised if some areas in Travis Co. have gotten enough rain to flood. I’m sure some areas in the greater Austin are have flooded, and I’m sure tomorrow’s news will give reports of any.

But more rain is still expected come early morning, probably before sunrise. The forecast suggests thunderstorms may begin around 4AM. We shall see. But I admit its nice to finally get some rain. We do need it.

Rain!

It may not sound like much, but it is what we got. We got a touch of rain overnight, only 0.06″ of rain. Not even a tenth of rain, but it is what it is.

But this afternoon we actually got additional rain. Grand total for today was all of 0.42 inches of rain. That may not be much for rain, but its what we got. And since we are in such dire need of rain we will take it! And be thankful for what we got. Some areas may have gotten more than we did, but at least we got some measurable rain.

I’m sure the yard will be happy and thankful for it.

YEAH!!!

Rain?

After hitting a high of 99.9 degrees earlier, we have now dropped down to 78 (in less than 1 hour), and the humidity has risen from mid 33% to now 79%. Will we get rain? I’m not sure. But it has been windy and the skies are dark with clouds. So there is hope in our hearts that rain is on the way. As it is only about 3:30pm it is possible. I will update if it happens.

Is this the end of Summer?

Its still hot by any standard – mid 90’s here. But today they say will be the hottest day of the week, 99 degrees. We’ll see if it passes the triple digit mark.

The rest of the week is forecast to be a bit cooler, still hot but definitely cooler. For example tomorrow should be 95/71, then Friday 90/72. That mean in two days it could be 10 degrees cooler than today. We just have to make it through today.

Hopefully with this change in weather my yard and garden will begin returning to life. One of the websites around here, Austin Organic Gardeners, gives a weekly suggestion of what you can plant – both direct sow and transplant. And its begun making suggestions again. So hopefully this means it will be time to get our gardens back growing things.

Let’s hope!

Cooler!

Well we are actually getting cooler weather. Its not what I would call a cold front, more like just a slight cool down. We’ve even been getting some clouds, usually a bit later in the afternoon. And some areas have even gotten small short showers. They may be extremely localized showers. And they may be significant showers. But they don’t last long.

Today we got a few small sprinkles here at the house. Small sprinkles as in they weren’t enough to wet all the ground, just leave drop spots on the driveway.

But at least they are cooling down the area. Its 8:30pm and its down to 85 degrees. That may not sound like much but that’s down from 9pm and 90 degrees.

We’ll see how long this lasts. But at least it seems as if we will cool down enough to let plants grow and hopefully survive. The cool down will be good for gardens, at least I hope it will be.

It’s HOT!

I just saw my weather station register 106 degrees. We have clouds, and my weather alerts, that’s from area weather stations not my home weather station, has sent warnings about lightning strikes. So yes, we have hit hot here in the area.

The weather station is bouncing around the 104-106 mark.So we have hot, and I doubt we’ll get much cooler for a while.

UPDATE: it’s almost 4pm and it has begun sprinkling!

Okay, it rained for all of about 20 minutes. But that rain came in a variety of directions. The nice thing is the temperature dropped down to 74. In addition it was just rain (0.39 inches), some lightning and thunder, no hail. But now it is warming back up, we’re back up to mid 90’s in about an hour and a half.

Triple digits

We have officially hit triple digit temperatures in my back yard. Its hot and dry, 101 and 33% humidity. Plants are just dying. Lawns are getting dry patches from not getting enough water. Potted plants are not happy, animals are not happy.

Trying to walk a dog in this weather is difficult. Even at 9pm its hot, often 89 degrees. And that’s just too hot to walk my dog. And of course, at 9pm its dark. You have to take a flashlight with you.

But we will see what happens thru the rest of summer. Will it get hotter? Very possibly it will. And if it does, it will be miserable.