The weather forecasts have been warning of another cool down. Yesterday, Friday, we had some lovely warm weather. And that is warm weather we’ve had for a few days. But today, its cool and wet. It now just after 2pm, and its 49 degrees outside. Early this morning, I don’t know what time but it was dark, a storm rolled in. We actually had thunder, I’m not sure about lightning, and only a small amount of rain. As of now, 2pm, we’ve only had 0.38 inches of rain. That’s really not much. And the rain came in a slow drizzle type of rain.
But it will be cool to cold the next few days. The low for tonight is forecast to be 36. Tomorrow, Sunday our high is forecast for 49, with a low of 35. None of that should affect many plants. I say many as basil is notorious for dying in cool to cold weather. I don’t trust basil in anything below 40 personally.
But by Monday our high will be back up to 60, with a low of 37. Then we stay in the 60-70’s for highs, with lows mainly in the 50’s. Next Saturday is Christmas and we’re forecast for 76, with a low of 56. Even New Year’s day (the start of 2022) it looks like a high of 66, with a low of 49.
Welcome to this year’s winter in central Texas. At least the start of winter. The rest of the season remains to be seen what transpires.
We have a cold front coming. It will bring cold weather and rain. Here where I live they are looking for 2-3/4 inches of rain. We’ll see what happens. Today was a nice mid 70, but tomorrow we may make a high in the middle of the day in the low 50’s.The actual high for the day will be around midnight, then the temperatures will just do a slow drop. The nights for the next few days, those will be the mid to low 40’s. That’s how cold we will get.
Since this is Central Texas, we’ll actually have to wait and see what actually happens. But it does look like we have some cold weather on the way. But … by next week it may be back up to the high 70’s-low 80’s.
I don’t expect the garden to like this weather. I actually expect we’ll lose some plants. But that’s the way it goes. And that’s what is supposed to happen. At least it should mean my peas will be happy and start producing. So that is something to look forward to.
One sad note. I lost one of my dogs. My Clifford passed away a couple of days ago. Its now just me and Linus. We’re figuring out how to make our new normal something we can both deal with. And Linus is not entirely taking well to being an only child. He doesn’t know how to sleep alone. I’ve actually had to begin sleeping with him, not something I actually enjoy. But for the love of my dog, I will do what it takes. He’s my child, my fur baby.
Last night a storm blew through. The rain didn’t start until after nightfall, it began well after 9pm. It was accompanied by quite a lightning show. Here where I live we also had to deal with short power outages. By short, they lasted less than a minute. But they were long enough to turn all the lights off, reset the tv, reset the microwave clock, etc.
The first power outage happened around 10pm. I had checked the weather gauge just before the power went out, logged it, and we had already had 0.55 inches of rain. Within minutes we had another power outage. The outages were pretty close together. But they did cause the rain gauge to reset itself.
By morning the weather station had recorded 3.75 inches of additional rain. We didn’t seem to have any more power outages throughout the night, at least not here where I live.
So last night’s storm left us with about 4.3 inches of rain, give or take a bit (0.55 + 3.75). We might get some more today, but once this passes we should be free of the rain. But we will be getting a definite cool front. As that matter goes, we should make a high of 85 today, yet drop to a high of 79 tomorrow, then by Sunday be a high of 69 and a low of 43.
It shouldn’t be cold enough to harm plants growing, but it might stop a few of them from doing much. But typical Texas weather, by mid next week we will be back up to around 80 degrees.
By my last check of the rain gauge last night, we had 3.35 inches of rain. This morning we had clocked an additional 0.83. So our total for last night is over 4 inches of rain.
Today, we haven’t had any rain. Right now, in the early evening, the sky outside is blue and lovely. Tonight we are not due for rain, though that is always subject to change. But tomorrow we have about a 40% chance of rain. Friday and Saturday we have 84 and 90 percent chance of rain. So we will have wet days ahead. By Sunday the chance of rain will fall to about 25%.
The nice thing of course with this chance of rain, is that our temperatures will fall also. Friday our high will be just below 80, with the lows in the mid 60’s. Hopefully this means we have begun the cooler days and nights of Autumn.
And with that cool down we begin the next growing season. Welcome to the growing reality of Central Texas.
Rain has begun. In just less than an hour we already have just shy of 2 inches and it is pouring. It is lightning and thunder, and rain.
It began with fat big droplets of rain. I went out to check the noise and it was hot, humid and the rain was beginning.
Now, its down to 71 degrees and its still raining. In the time I’ve been writing this we’ve crossed into 2.16 inches of rain, and its still pouring out there. It is quite a storm out there. And we are due for rain for the next few days.
Its a good thing rain, lightning, and thunder doesn’t bother the dogs.
It has been raining now an hour and we’ve just crossed the 2.5 inch mark of rain.
Autumn has begun. Hallelujah! The weather is changing, at least for central Texas. The sun is still shining, but at least the temperatures are changing. We finally have cooler weather. Bearing in mind this is Texas, it means our daytime temperatures are in the mid to high 80’s. Okay, that may not be cool temperatures if you like in say the north East, or northern part of the USA, but here, that’s a cool down. Autumn also means our night time temperatures are lower, mid 50’s. Again this in central Texas so you have to bear in mind our summer temperatures are much warmer than that.
But in honor of autumn I have begun cool weather crops. Last week I put in peas, carrots, bok choy, beets, and some lettuce. The peas have already sprouted.
We have rain in the forecast this week, and the new seeds will enjoy it I’m sure.
I”m also working on eliminating some of the grass in my back yard.
Because my yard slopes slightly, I need to know how it slopes and where it slopes. I don’t want to eliminate the slope. The entire property drains from the front yard down and out the back yard. Since any water will drain out the back, past the metal fence to the greenbelt, I don’t really want to lose that drainage ability. I need to keep the drainage intact.
At first I was thinking I would just put mulch in the back yard, but I reconsidered that. If I attempt to put mulch down, when we get a hard rain, something this area gets, the mulch will just wash away. So just mulch is not what I want to do. But I am considering the possibility of rock and mulch, or just using rock. Rock would have the advantage of allowing water to flow though to the greenbelt area behind.
Once I decide what I want to do, and what I want where, etc., then I have to decide how to actually do the work. Rock may need, probably will have to be, ordered and delivered. The mulch is yet to be determined. How much mulch will I need, should it be more like bark chips, etc.? That will depend on the actual design of what I choose to do.
One of the “designs” I am considering is to put mulch on the sides of the yard by the wood fence. But I need to make sure that will not cause the wood fence to rot quickly. I could mulch areas where things like trees are planted. Then put rock in between the mulched areas. But in order to keep the mulch from moving and being washed away, would it make sense to put rock in the area by the metal and wood fence, for drainage?
So why do I want to make changes to what I have, you ask. Well part of the reason is where the raised beds are makes mowing behind them impossible. They are just too close to the metal fence in the back. I have the same problem with some of the areas where plants are by the wooden fence lines.
The back two rectangular areas are the raised beds. The metal fence is behind it. The two shorter sides have wood fencing.
This is not to scale but it gives you an idea of what I mean by the area behind the raised beds is too narrow to mow. I measured it and that strip is all of 23″. That makes mowing behind it difficult. It usually has to be weed whacked. Such is the problem.
Yes, I could pull out all the beds, move out all the dirt, then replace everything. That would be a lot of work. And I’m not sure its really worth it. Of course, who wants to really have to worry about mowing such a narrow strip?
I think leaving the beds where they are and either putting rock or something else that doesn’t need to be mowed, and will allow water to drain out of it will make much more sense. I’ve even considered the fake mulch mats back there. Just something that will keep grass from growing, and allow water to drain. I don’t need to grow anything back there. I only walk back there to work in the beds, pull veggies, weed the beds, etc.
Darn if we didn’t get rain again. Today started out a bit cloudy, but nothing I thought would amount to much. Just goes to show you how much I know, or rather how much I have to learn.
I went to church, something I’ve recently begun doing on Sundays, and after the church service, around 12:15, I walked outside to the beginning of sprinkles. It didn’t looking like dark clouds. And I didn’t actually think it would amount to much. I hadn’t heard that rain was due. I must have missed that part of the forecast. But it began it rain. Nothing heavy. Just a slow constant drizzle. And it rained for almost the next 8 hours. As I write this, its about 9:45PM and the rain has stopped and the clouds are breaking up. I even walked the dogs. That’s how dry its become.
And yet throughout that entire time we only got 0.67 inches of rain. So when I say it was a slow rain, it was a slow light rain. And the weather forecast says we might be having more rain.
Unfortunately for the next couple of weeks I will not be posting. I will be online, but out of the area so I will not be posting anything. Hopefully nothing new or earth shattering will happen while I’m gone.
I pulled out some of the old plants, like the cucumber and pumpkin plants. They were not doing great. The pumpkin plants were not seeds I planted this year, they were volunteer plants. I pulled up the swiss chard plant. That will need to be replanted. I’m also figuring I will reseed some carrots, maybe beets, and some lettuce for my fall crops. My beans are still in the ground, as are some peppers, and a couple of tomato plants. And they will probably continue growing. Having some rain while I’m gone wouldn’t be a bad thing.
After pulling the plants up, I turned the soil so it will be ready for fall planting. I do need to add some soil back into the beds. Hopefully that is something I can do when I get back. I’ll have a bit of gardening work to do when I return.
Last nights rain continued. How much rain did we actually get, well that’s a good question. It appears my weather station at some point got reset and the time was off. So when I went to bed last night at midnight by my watch, it didn’t match the time on the weather station. So even though it said 0.79 inches what it continued to add until midnight its time, when it would have reset for the new day is anybody’s guess.
And to add to it last night was a night of lightning, thunder, rain, and power outages. We actually had 2 power outages that I know of.
Nonetheless today, now at 9:45pm we have 3.08 inches of rain on the weather station. We didn’t have any more power outages during the day. But we did have a couple more thunderstorms. Both last night, and this evening we have had downpours. The kind where the wind blows, the sky darkens, and the rain pours down.
Today we got to all of 77 degrees. I know because that was around 2:45 when I walked the dogs. But by 5pm it wasn’t much warmer. And then shortly after 5:30ish it began to pour. I was at the friends for dinner and we could watch it darken then watch rain begin to pour from the skies. It didn’t last too long, but it probably gave us a good 1/2 or more inches of rain.
Now at almost 10pm we have the before mentioned 3.08 inches of rain, and 72 degrees. For summer in Austin that is a bit below the norm. Yet tomorrow we should get up to the low 90’s (92 is the forecast) and our chances of rain drop down to 20%. The chance of rain drops after that, the sun will begin coming out and by Sunday we should be high 90’s (forecast for Sunday is 98).
As for the garden, I’m still harvesting Anaheim chilies. And it looks like there are some green beans ready to be harvested. But I’m not sure how the tomato plants are taking the downpours. I’m expecting the answer is going to be not great. I know some plants in pots are getting blown over due to the wind.
We’re still getting some rain here. Yesterday, 7/6 I woke up to find we had gotten 0.45 inches of rain. Today we’ve gotten 0.16 inches, all in one short microburst. Its was just “boom” it was raining, rained for a short couple of minutes, then it was over.
The only nice thing about this weather is we’ve been in the mid 80’s, sometimes low 80’s instead of the mid 90’s we could normally expect. The cooler weather is nice to have.
But at least we’re lucky, we could be Florida. That area has been dealing with Hurricane Elsa. It made landfall today in north Florida. Its on its way to Georgia (probably there already). Its expected to be in North Carolina tomorrow morning, so it will probably make it way through South Carolina this evening. It should make Massachusetts by Friday, then by Saturday it will be back out to sea. At least that is what they are expecting. I’m sure we will be hearing about the destruction its causing soon enough.
I’ll try to keep posting about both our rain here, and Hurricane Elsa.
They have warned of rain. Its not a continuous rain that we get here. And they’ve been warning of it for day. Well, it does strike. And I use the word strike as that is what just happened. In the space of less than 15 minutes we have gotten 3/4′ of rain. We’ve spent the day with clouds, some blue skies, and yet suddenly the skies darkened and rain began. It has been 15 minutes now since it first began, and where the rain has slowed, we still have 0.77 inches in the back yard. It well may stop shortly, but by then we may well hit .80 inches of rain.
And being that its still mid afternoon, its possible we could get more rain later this day or tonight.
This is how rain comes in central Texas.
At least the yard and the garden got watered.
UPDATE: its almost 11pm and we’ve topped out at 0.82 inches of rain. But rain is in the forecast the rest of the week. I’ll keep you posted.
