Jay, I hate to hear that it is so bad here. You have the heat and wind, but we have only the heat....and the humidity. I think I'd rather have the humidity here than the wind you're having there.

Our temperatures are only hitting about 95-96 every day, but our heat index hit 101 yesterday and currently is 103. I stayed outside as long as I could stand it today, but it finally drove me in.

We had good weather earlier in the month, but I guess the cool nights are gone now. It was 77 degrees this morning when I went outside at 6:15 a.m. and I didn't come in until noon, so it was a lot hotter than 77 by then. I went back out after lunch for another hour, but couldn't stand it any longer. I'm going to go back out around 4 p.m. It may not have cooled off much yet by 4, but the west end of the garden is in the shade by then.

I've been working every night until just before dark. When it is so late that I get distracted and just stand there and watch the bunnies hopping around the yard, it is time to pack up the tools and come inside. Clearly, if I am stopping what I am doing to watch five little cottontails hopping around the yard, my brain is fried and tired and I need to come inside.

The cooler weather had been nice, but it's all over now. Still, as bad as the weather feels, it still is nicer right now than in June 2012 or June 2011.

Last night I was digging potatoes, and when it got dark enough that I couldn't tell the blue potatoes from the dirt clods, it was time to stop digging. Once the temperatures fall into a decent range as the sun is setting, I hate to go inside and waste that cooler night air....but once you cannot see what you're doing, I think it is time to come in.

As soon as I came inside, a skunk showed up outside, so I made it inside in the nick of time.

Dawn

Dawn I read recently that this June at that time was the 4th windiest on record for the first 15 days and if it maintained that rate for the rest of the month it would finish as the second windiest June since they started keeping records. I've had those around during the 30's say that one of the problems was it blew everyday. We've had lots of wind the previous 3 years but this is the worst so far. I can do things to help the plants handle the heat. I've been trying to at least give some of the plants a little protection from the wind. The moisture doesn't stay around along with the heat and wind. I went to Dodge to pick up the last compost & wormcastings I will need this year. Before I left I watered somethings again. I will give the peppers a drink tomorrow. The in ground tomatoes haven't shown any signs of needing a drink. So far I'm impressed with the raised bed mix I used. I haven't watered the raised bed in almost a month. The mix seems to hold moisture well and the plants are doing good. I'm also using the mix in my containers and haven't had to water them much yet either. Jay

Dawn, you sound like I do when I'm tired: Non-Functional. When I'm that tired, if you want to know something, you'd better ask the dog. He'll make more sense.

Normally, our garden is pretty easy to take care of, but this week, by Thursday afternoon, I was wiped out.

Between raiding the lot next door for grass clippings and digging up the new shade garden - a project I hadn't planned to touch, this year. Then, I mulched over six hundred square feet of beds, plus the normal gardening stuff. For a few days, it all turned into a full-time job, with overtime.

I took Friday, off. Pulled a few weeds and made plans for tomorrow and the weekend.

Like you said, by mid afternoon, it's hot and humid and that, by itself, wears you out.

Tomorrow, I've got to get the jumbo garlic dug out and hung up, pick green beans, plant about a hundred daffodil bulbs, check on the onions... and start mowing grass. Then, I'll probably need to water part or most of it.

That's after I go buy a new TV set... After sixteen years of service, ours finally bit the dust. (The wife is a little cranky w/o her TV fix.)

Jay, It sounds like a great planting mix....plus you've had those little wet things called raindrops falling lately. I'm surprised y'all recognized the rain that has fallen since y'all haven't had it in so long. I was afraid y'all would forget what rain looked like before it fell again. It doesn't seem fair y'all are getting all that wind in your 4th (5th?) consecutive drought year. Makes me think of the Dust Bowl, and there you are, living in No Man's Land.

The heat drove me indoors for 4 hours today and then, when I went outside briefly in the middle of the afternoon, I scared off a doe who is teaching her fawn how to scavenge for food at the compost pile. That doe knows I put lots of yummy stuff (well, yummy if you are a deer) on the compost pile at this time of the year when I am canning a lot. The doe had a little hissy fit and tried to chase me back inside. I did come back inside after a few minutes, but it was because it was too hot, not because there was a deer looking for some corn husks or ears or something on the pile.

Warren, When I get that tired, I can't even sleep, which my husband doesn't understand. When he is really tired, he falls asleep in 15 seconds. When I am overly tired, I can't fall asleep at all. I paced myself better today because I have had trouble falling asleep this week. There really is such a thing as overdoing it in the garden, and I'm afraid this week I've been overdoing it quite a bit.

The potato digging is almost done and that's been the big project. I've dug 296 lbs. so far and still have about 10% of the plants left to go. That means for the next few weeks, I'll spend 'spare' time preserving the amount of potatoes above and beyond what we can eat fresh and save for seed potatoes.

June and July are crazy here in a good year, but in a good way. I'm always busy tending the garden and harvesting, sowing a few succession crops, etc.

It sounds like you have been very busy as well. I try to remind myself to slow down and take the time to smell the flowers, but in June through August that spare time is hard to find. We joke that we have had the same lawn furniture for 15 years and never have sat down on it, but the cats do a lot of reclining on the lawn furniture as they watch us work.

I don't have much of a shade garden because the deer like to eat everything I've ever planted for a shade garden, except for four o'clocks....so we have oodles of four o'clocks.

I like watching TV myself, but watch it a lot more in winter than in summer. In summer (yeah, go ahead and chuckle) it is all about the garden. I didn't used to let the heat drive me indoors as easily as it does now, but after getting too hot and getting sick at some wildfires in the summer of 2011, I am a lot more careful now about pushing the limits in terms of how much heat I expect my body to tolerate. The other day when I spent almost 14 hours outdoors (I came in for 10 minutes each for breakfast, lunch and dinner), I was toast by the time I came inside....but I got a lot done.

Tomorrow I have to sow purplehull pinkeye peas and winter squash to grow where the potatoes had been. I added compost and Garden-Tone to the soil today after I finished digging potatoes, so now I can just plant the seeds and be done. I'm hoping for an easier outdoor day tomorrow, and will spend most of the hours in the kitchen preserving food.

In the new back garden I have a vole or voles getting a plant or two per night, so I need to come up with a plan for vole control. Usually the cats handle it, but the cats have to be inside at night because of the bobcats and coyotes, so the voles can run around and do as they please all night long. Voles are not my favorite creature.

Dawn

Dawn, you've had a busy week, there. (That's a lot of taters)

The use of your law furniture sounds like our house. The dogs allow us to sit in our lawn chairs...once in awhile. It's really their lawn furniture. We just borrow it now and then.
We have a gopher *and* moles in the front garden. The only thing they've done so far is make holes in the dirt and sod, but I'm gonna go huntin' 'em one of these days.

As for the original topic about hot and windy conditions, we've got two beds by the driveway that dry out pretty quick. I could soak them today and tomorrow they'd be dry as a bone. I've got to get some mulch on them as soon as I can. Most of the other beds stay wetter, longer, mostly because the beds by the driveway act as a windbreak for the rest of the garden.

This last week, I re-worked the two front flower beds, too. They now have more variety, color and texture than they did before I re-worked them. In time, once the new plantings mature, it'll all look a lot better than it did before, and it didn't look too bad, to begin with.

I don't have as many amendments in the beds along the fence in the back yard. I keep planting taters in them, but this year we added some Mary Washington asparagus and tried some melons and punkins and sweet taters. The first year we were here, we planted a couple of grape vines, too. Progress on those is slow, but steady, at the moment.

In one corner of the back yard, in unamended dirt, we've planted some glads, grape hyacinths and irises. They're doing as well or a bit better than you'd expect. heh. The grass in the back yard, however, is doing spectacularly well...

Dawn time will tell about the mix. I haven't been real satisfied with the container mixes I have tried the last 3-4 years. I had never used but one of Soil Mender's products until last year. Last summer/fall when I decided I was either going to have to make a raised bed on the south side of my garden or just quit using that area I did some research looking for something that would do what I wanted. Their raised mix was mentioned a few times so I researched it and after they answered some questions and gave some suggestions I decided to go with it. To be honest I had some concerns when I opened the first bag and saw the small pepples in it. Although 1-2 months isn't enough for a fair test I liked the results enough I decided to changed over a few containers and try it in them also. So by the end of the summer I will know more about it. The plants seem to be stockier and set fruit well but not as growthy. The Brandyboy I planted as a large plant in early May is the stockiest and biggest stemmed Brandyboy I've ever raised. It has set some fruit so will see how it continues to grow.
Yes the rain drops have helped. But won't last long with the wind and hail. We have been in the middle of the amounts. At least we aren't at the bottom like 3 years ago. I have a coworked who only received 4 tenths total during this last event. The rainfall has been very spotty. I saw the same thing again yesterday going to Dodge City and back. Areas with full bar ditches and areas where not a drop fell. Like I posted yesterday the wind is the biggest problem. I moved some containers out where they would have more sun this year. Those plants are falling behind those with a little shade and more windbreak . The distance between them is less than 15 ft. So will try to move them today. Better get outside again and do some more before it gets too hot. Jay

Yes it has !
Don't give up, we just have to be more creative than other gardeners. Like how I plant my seeds in # 10 cans so they don't blow away. Looks silly, I don't care all my seeds came up this year . And mulch, well I really haven't figured out how to keep it where I want it but a fence is working in the tomatoe area
This year has been so windy here too. I am better protected than the last 2 years but somehow the wind sneaks between and around to dry everything up as fast as possible. It is not as bad as being out in the wide open like I was the first year here in the panhandle. Yesterday going to town I drove through a horrible dirt wind and after getting 3" on Wed. one would think that everything would still be soaked. Not here.
Hot wind is how I found this corner of GW.
kim