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With luck we will begin a cool down, at least a Texas cool down, starting today. Instead of mid to high 90’s we will drop down to mid 80’s. Today we are only supposed to hit a high of 90. By Tuesday we should be down to 83. Not cool by most peoples standards, but for this area that’s something. Our nights will still stay in the low 70’s.

They are also saying we might get rain this weekend, on Sunday (Father’s Day). That will bring us this hopeful cool down.

Now one thing to remember is how central Texas often gets its rain. We can get just a light sprinkle, may not even register as a quarter inch, or we might get a downpour and get 3″ of rain. You never know.

The other fun part of rain in this area, is we are considered the Austin area. So if north Austin gets rain, that counts as rain for the area. But the distance from say Round Rock (north Austin) to Manchaca (south Austin) is about 30 miles. Because of how Austin area is framed, it covers from Williamson (top north area), thru Travis, down to Hays (bottom southwest) counties. Travis county is where most of Austin resides as far as I can tell. But the Austin area covers those three counties. Sometimes they even include Burnet County when talking about the weather.

So saying we (Austin area) may get rain doesn’t mean which area may get rain. I have a friend who works in downtown Austin. There have been times they have gotten downpours, complete with flooding, but where we are (corner of Hays County), we did not get so much as a sprinkle.

Let’s pray for rain in our area. That would be nice.

It hasn’t been unbearable weather. That is I’m sure yet to come, usually in a couple of months. But its just hot. Mid 90’s for the days and low 70’s for the night. And that’s what we’ve had day after day after day after day. No relief in sight from this weather. We get some clouds so we have some humidity. But no rain. I can’t call it unbearable, but its hard on plants. In this weather anything that doesn’t get enough water will die. And it might be a fast death, or it might be slow.

Welcome to Texas heat.

There is something about Texas weather that is just, oh well, just accept it. We had been getting strange warm weather. Then poof, with no warning we got rain. Like 1.35 inches of rain. That happened last Sunday. Just one day of rain, then it moved on. But now we have fairly warm weather. Since Sunday we’ve been in the high 80’s with the evenings in the 70’s. This is central Texas summer type of weather. Its hot during the day, but the evenings don’t really cool down much.

Gardens don’t really love this weather. Its just too hot. But as luck and the forecast would have it, early next week we should be high 90’s. As in Monday, Memorial day would be 98, and next Wednesday should be 99.

This is why gardening in Texas can be dicey. You may have some periods of nice weather, plants grow well, then wham its hot. And its not just that the days are hot, but the nights don’t cool down that much. Our days may be in the high 90’s but our nights will be in the mid 70’s. And we’re not even in summer yet. Once we get to summer, it may be like this day after day after day. The water needs of a plant to stay alive get horrendous. And of course it can get humid in the process. So I’m not the biggest fan of summer in Texas. But its coming nonetheless.

We’re getting hot weather shortly. Gone are the nice days, coming are the hot ones. It looks like we’re leaving behind the comfortable days of the 80’s and hitting the 90’s.

On Tuesday, two days from now we should begin hitting the 90’s. By Thursday and Friday we will hit the high 90’s – 97 and 98 respectively. The only good news is the evening will still be in the mid 60’s. But it looks like the summer heat may be on its way.

At least we’ve had a good run of snow peas and asparagus. The squash and zucchini are growing nicely, as are the tomato plants. I’ve been busy and not feeling well so I haven’t done much weeding, but the tomato plants don’t seem to mind. That’s good.

One nice thing is the fruit trees have been growing nicely. The apples are just starting to get ripe. Some are getting that red blush that tells me they are ripe and ready to eat. If they don’t have that blush, you could eat them but they are still a bit tart. But the deer eat the tart ones that have fallen. We go into the fruit tree cage and pick the fallen ones then throw them out to the deer. The deer like them. So that’s helpful.

But it looks like the heat is here.

Typical Texas weather, we got thunderstorms late Thursday night then spent yesterday in rain. The good news is we got 1.3 inches of rain. The garden can use it. And today we are pushing for 83 degrees. And we will probably make that.

But we have been eating asparagus. I am still picking asparagus. I’m also picking the peas and snow peas. Even the tomatoes have been happy. We have some on the vine that are getting big, but are still green. I’ve seen squash peeking out of the leaves.

And apples!! The apple trees are full of them. The plum trees have these little plums on them. I’m hoping that the storm didn’t take down too many plums. But overall the garden has been good. Everything has been growing. I can say I’m happy with it.

What’s interesting is that the weather is warm, high 70’s – mid 80’s. And we’ve had sporadic rain ever couple of weeks. Not a lot of rain, but the garden has been happy and growing with it. We did have to recheck the lines to make sure everything is getting watered. As of this point, I think everything is.

One thing we do have to address is the rain tanks. I’ve been busy, this was not something I am used to checking. But the rain tanks collect their water from the gutter system. At the top where the two meet is filled with debris – leaves, twigs, etc. From below it looks like a birds nest but I’m pretty sure its just debris. So that needs to be cleaned so that we collect all the rain water. As is we are not getting as much water as we should from the tanks. And I need that water for the plants. Another job to be done.

I have absolutely no idea what happened to the weather last night. Yesterday we had a high of 82 degrees. Last night we dropped to a cool frigid 38. I didn’t hear anything about this coming. The good news, at least we didn’t get to freezing. All my plants have been growing, we have lots of little apples on the trees, the pea plants have flowers, as do the tomatoes. We’ve been picking asparagus and the artichokes plants are getting big – then wham — cold last night.

And it didn’t warm up today either. Its almost 6pm and we barely made it to 40 degrees up here. Right now its cooling down again. On another strange weather note, we did get a slight bit of rain last night/early this morning. I was up late and we had thunder, lightning, and a short rain fall. We’ve also had wind last night and this morning. I’m sure that was because of the weather change.

Tomorrow they are calling for we to warm up to the low 70’s. I’ll be happy if we make that. And I’m sure the plants will be happy too.

No I haven’t moved, but this blog is moving to a new home. Instead of using Blogger, which has served me well all these years, I have decided to give this site a new home. Please bear with me as this transition works its way thru the kinks of moving.

Yes the weather has been lovely, days in the mid 60-70, with an occasional 80 and almost 90 thrown in for good measure. The nights have been cool, upper 40-50’s. But with lovely weather, lots of sunshine, the plants are growing. The peas have already started coming up, the fruit trees have had their flowers and we now have little apples appearing. Even the plus had lots of blossoms this year. If all goes well maybe we’ll have plums later this year. We have a lot of blossoms on them right now.  So the growing season is looking up.

The fruit trees we had in the green house, mainly citrus, developed blossoms while in there. Those are looking pretty good right now. Some of the citrus and the avocados that spent the winter outside in the ground did not fair well. We may have to pull them and either put them in pots and see if they survive or just consider them gone. If we have to pull them out, some of the fruit trees in pots will be put in the ground in their place. That’s an idea I’m still toying with.

But right now everything looks good outside. We do have some problems with the watering system, but we’ll figure that out somehow.

We’ve had some warm, moist, humid, cool, stormy weather. Like that! We went from 60’s to just above freezing, and back up to warm. We had dry, to humid, to rain, storms, and back to dry in the space of a week.

My garden is trying to grow with this warmth. I didn’t really get to cut back my fruit trees, so we’ll see how they do this year. The apply trees are full of blossoms and when I was out there today it was just buzzing with bees. The plum trees look like they are getting ready to blossom too. I’m not sure if I need a pollinator for the Santa Rosa plum, but I may look into that. We have yet to get any plums from it. Though we did get a couple one year, the bugs or something got to them before we could.

Last week since we have some dry days I turned up the soil in the veggie beds. This week I put in seed. I planted:

• beet
• broccoli
• carrot
• onion
• peas
• beans
• sweet pepper
• swiss chard
• spinach

I need to get some lettuce planted too. This time I may put them in barrels instead of in the ground. I also need to get the basil out of the green house and into the yard.

Hopefully they will grow this year. I also rearranged where things went. So the peppers are not where they have been planted before. I don’t know if that will make a difference, but we’ll try this year and see. I am thinking I may put some of the sorrel into the permanent bed. I like sorrel, but Pat killed my other plant. I am growing some from seed this year and its in a pot. I might take some of it and move it into the ground.

But the berries look like they are doing okay. The blueberries look happy and are getting blossoms. Even the lemon trees have blossoms so maybe I’ll get lemons this year. I do love the meyer lemons.

Now hopefully the weather will cooperate and growing can commence.

This is how strange Texas winter/spring weather can be. The other day we were happily in the 60’s – 70’s. Two days ago we had a high of 77, and yesterday was a high of 70.  Right now, 4:15 pm it is all of 36 degrees.  We’ve been having some rain (0.20 inches yesterday and about the same today), and it is a cold rain. Tonight they are saying a cold of 33-36. Yet tomorrow will be mid 40’s and Friday will be 60. By Saturday we will be 70.

Unfortunately the pump for transferring water to the storage tanks isn’t working. At this point all we know is there is a breaker or a GFCI that is popped and we don’t know where it is. We did some searching and didn’t find it. But since it is so cold and wet outside we will have to continue that search another day. Preferably when its warmer.

DH and I have gotten the plants out of the greenhouse and uncovered everybody else. We did that last weekend when the weather was warm. I was even able to pick up some strawberry crowns and get them in the ground in the planter. I was waiting for the rain to come before I put any seeds out. Since we will warm up after this cold spell I will put seed out probably either Friday or this weekend.

At this point all the weather forecasts say this is the last of the cold and the weather will warm. We should have a few warm dry days that will allow us to figure out the lack of power to the pump. But then we should have a few cool wet days. So hopefully we’ll be able to get the power back to the pump and capture the rainwater. The plants would like that I’m sure.