winter

Fall or winter?

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The weather has changed. The past couple of day have seen a definite cold front come thru. We have actually had some cold nights/early mornings. And then some days like today its cold, we have been sitting between 40-46, shooting for a high of 46. It’s also been raining, not a hard rain, just a periodic rain. It’s made today damp and cold. Linus, my dog is only allowed on a walk if he has a sweater on. It’s not like he asks for it, but I figure is I’m cold, my dog probably is cold.

But tomorrow we should hit 62, then Monday 80 – you have got to love Texas weather. God love Texas. Tuesday we drop back down to 55 for a high and a low of 33. I’ve turned off the sprinkler system for the season. Even tho I need the lawn mowed, I’m not going to push to find someone right now. Our 10 day forecast shows us settling into the mid 60’s. So I know if we get enough rain things will grow, but there’s also a chance we won’t get too warm. If it stays cold, but we get rain, the grass won’t grow too much.

I actually got one bell pepper on my pepper plant. It’s still on the plant for the time being. It’s small, it didn’t grow to full size. But it has given me notice that growing food here won’t be like it was before. But then we were gone, and it may have gotten heat stressed. One thing I did is I put the plant in a fabric grow pot, then put that pot into a small bucket. It may not be the right size bucket but the idea was that I could water the plant before we left on a trip, and make sure there was a little bit of water in the bottom. I wanted to try to make sure the plant had enough water while we were gone. What I found was that I need to be careful where I put a plant in the yard. We don’t have much tree shade, and probably not enough shade period given the Texas heat.

Needless to say, my pepper plant didn’t do much growing. I know it had water, so I’m attributing the lack of growth to the sun and heat. It could be not enough water, always a possibility. Then again, it could be something else, or a combination of things that lead to the lack of growth.

I guess the good news is that at least its still alive.

As for the other plants in the front yard, potted flowers mainly, the caladiums have died back from the cold. I think the rose is dead, but the coleus and zinnias in the pot are still alive. The chrysanthemums are doing better since I deadheaded them. The cool weather and rain also seem to be making them happy. One of them is blooming again. I did cut the grapes back. I bought a potted jasmine which I’ve moved closer to the house to give it a better chance to survive the winter. We had cut back the cannas, and they started coming back, but I think they will die back with the cold.

One other problem I’ve been having with this weather is my eyes are dry, as is my skin. But my eyes hurt because of the weather. So it’s been warm compresses on my eyes to help my tear production. Let’s hope it helps.

Indecisive weather

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Well, yesterday (Saturday) we had wind. Lots of wind. Blow things down wind. And it was cold. Not freezing cold, but cold-in the 40’s cold. Walking my dog it was cold and windy. I know I get cold, but I even wore a down jacket to stay warm during the walk.

Today was actually kind of nice. It was much warmer, mid 60’s warmer. It wasn’t bad walking my dog. But now, at about 10 pm it is already down to 35 degrees. So even though we had a nice day, its time to cover plants for this evening.

The end of last week, on Friday we did some gardening work. We got both the new blueberries in, and got the Seedless Thompson grape planted too. We also dumped a few dead plants, think peppers I was tired of, and began figuring out what we want to do for next year. I’ve had to use some of the soil that we put into the raised beds to plant the new berries and grape. I still have some strawberries and a peony to plant sometime soon. The issue is this weather.

But to give an idea of what we are dealing with, Tuesday is supposed to be 74 and 54, yet Wednesday we will be 76 and 32. Then Thursday its 40 and 26, Friday is 42 and 24, and next Saturday its 36 and 28. So we have more cold coming in. Anything that I was thinking of direct sowing is out of the question. I can start seeds inside, its warm enough inside. But outside we are due for cold.

One issue I do have to be aware of is is last Friday to be exact, I had to call 911. Some how after having a fire in my fireplace for almost 4 hours my flue closed. The good news is that the fire alarms worked and began screaming. I opened the back and front door, grabbed Linus my dog, put my purse by the front door, put on a jacket, and walked out with my cell phone and called 911 – not quite in that order. I am happy to say fire and EMS showed up quickly. Cute firemen I do have to say. But now I’m a bit leery of using my fireplace. I will, but I’ve taken the damper pull off just in case that was part of the problem.

But with all the warm weather we have, we are due for more cold on the way.

Winter In Central Texas

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Yes, for anybody that wonders how hard it can be to garden in central Texas, today Jan 4, 2021 it is now 75 degrees outside. Sounds wonderful? Maybe if you are in dark cold snowy weather. BUT guess what it does to your garden. The poor plants don’t know what to do. Is this spring, summer, will it get cold? So yes, your lettuce may bolt, your peppers may even start sprouting, but what will happen?

Well, where the temperature will drop slightly, down into the 60’s later this week, we could still get cold 31-30 degree nights later this weekend. And we don’t really have much in the way of rain coming. So you can plant, or at least try, but what will the weather be like next week?

That’s why gardening here can be sometimes a significant challenge. We don’t have an easy to understand winter, nor do we necessarily have cold rainy weather. Water will always be an issue. And once it doesn’t finally get out of the cold, may be next month February, it may go from 60’s to 80’s. That may feel nice, no real cold, but you also miss that slow growing season.

By the time you hit the 80’s, you are now looking at jumping into the high 80’s to the low 90’s. And it won’t take long.

This is the challenge of gardening here in Texas. The seasons may be “short” and you may not have much time to grow what you want. It also means that direct seed sowing/growing, what I do, can be an iffy proposition. Plants may germinate when the temperature is right, but the calendar says its not time. And that is what can make it a challenge – planting seeds/plants at the right time, before it gets hot, regardless of what the calendar says.

Welcome to gardening in central Texas.

Another cold front

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We started this morning at a balmy 70 degrees. Now, 8 hours later, 6pm, it is now 53. We are going for a low of low 30’s, we’ll see how low it goes.

In addition its been raining. We’ve managed about a 1 inch of rain today. We’re also due for rain all day tomorrow. We’ll see how much we get.

But its nice having some cold weather. Its good for the plants, and it kills of bugs. And of course we could use the rain.

As for the garden, we spent this late morning turning the beds. We pulled out the old dead squash plants, pulled up the drip watering system, then turned the soil down to about 6 inches. I would have gone deeper but I couldn’t find forked cultivator. I ended up using a long handled narrow spade. I worked with what I had but if I can’t find some of my larger tools I may need to do a Home Depot run. We did put two bags of soil that had been sitting around into one of the beds. We probably need to pick up a bit more soil, but we can do that another day.

Now we need to wait to see what the weather does. The next few nights are due to be around freezing, or just above. Then our days are up back to the mid 60’s to 70’s.

Such is central Texas weather.

UPDATE: by next morning, we’ve had 2″ of rain. We had quite a thunderstorm come through this morning. But its now 2 inches of rain, and we are still raining.

Another cold

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Well we had another cold front earlier. We even had rain Saturday morning. We actually had 1-1/2 inches of rain. Its been a while since we’ve had rain. Our drought conditions have currently put us in severe to extreme drought conditions. Rain has not be in our radar for a while. But it was good to get what we did.

Between now and the end of the year, about a week and a half away, we expect to hit a couple of days of 70, but most will be in the 60’s. We don’t have another freeze here on the forecast for the next 10 days, but our evenings will be in the right 30’s to mid 40’s. Maybe we’ll get some rain, but there is not even a 50% chance. So I’m not holding my breath on that.

But such is Texas weather. It was a hot summer, hopefully at some point we’ll get some good cold. But if we do, its not yet.

Cold front

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The weather in Austin has actually be rather nice the past few days/weeks. I took a long weekend trip earlier this month and came back to 90 degree weather. So Austin has been warm to nice. Nice being mid to high 80’s. But today we have had a cold front come in.

I was out walking the boys (my dogs) a couple of hours ago, just before noon. It was lovely, though a bit overcast. It was warm, a little bit humid, in the mid 70’s, my watch said 76. While walking the boys there was a light breeze. But during this walk I encountered a cool breeze. In a matter of minutes that cool breeze became a cold breeze. Still a breeze, no great strength to it. But the temperature began to drop. I had left wearing jeans, a tee shirt, with a denim shirt (no jacket), and the temperature began enough of a drop for me to begin to get chilled.

Now, just a couple of hours later, the temperature has fallen to 50 degrees per my watch. That’s a 20+ degrees drop in a matter of a couple of hours.

We even had a short shower outside. Not much, it registered as less than 1/2″ of rain. But needless to say, its a cold rain, on now a cold day.

The forecast – rain and mid 40’s for tonight.

As for plants, well I plan to cover the tomatoes or at least bring them in so they are under the patio. Those plants I’m worried about will probably be placed in the same area. Those I’m not worried about, the lettuce, flowers, mint, etc. those can stay outside. Since we don’t expect to get even close to freezing I’m not going to be concerned about them. Yes if it gets cold enough I may lose a few plants. But here in this area first front is due in less than a month, so those plants should be winding down anyways.

Maybe it really is autumn, going into winter here in Austin.