Might be with the storms at the top of the state heading southwards. Hope. hope. hope.! :)

They're forecasting only 99 degrees for us for Monday, and I am hoping they're right. It hit 107 at our house today, and it was miserably hot. We'd been out to fires in the morning and mid-day hours, so I was too hot for the rest of the day--like I couldn't cool off.

Y'all will laugh at me, but as soon as the temperature cooled off to 105, I went outside and picked cucumbers, peppers and okra.

My garden wilted horrifically today while I was gone. I watered tonight, but it may not be enough to save the peppers and squash that wilted. I should have watered them this morning, but our forecast was for 101, so I wasn't expecting the plants to be all that unhappy. There's a big difference in 101 and 107 though, especially to a plant.

I had harvested the last of the mid-season corn this morning, and should be able to start harvesting the late season corn in about 5 to 7 days. I haven't looked at it closely, but know it getting close to being ready. I'll be glad to not have any corn left to water after that.

Jay, my tomatoes are about done. I've got about a dozen selected to keep going for fall, but I'm yanking out a few every day as I harvest the last of the fruit that's breaking. The ones I've taken out so far are the big slicers that aren't going to set anything in these temperatures. I cannot complain. We've had more tomatoes than we can handle, and I have absolutely no intention of canning one more jar of anything with tomatoes in it. I am done with those! Going to start making pepper jelly beginning tomorrow.

Fowler is one of the beans I'll be picking tomorrow. They've been producing surprisingly well in this heat. I have kept them pretty well-watered and they get shade beginning around 3 p.m. which I think has helped them in this heat.

I am worried about how long it may be until the weather breaks. What if the slight cool-down they forecast for next week does not materialize? The forecast makes me crazy. Today our forecast high was 101 and we hit 107 at our house. It was already 99 when we arrived at a fire a little after 10 a.m. and 101 by the time we were back at the station a couple of hours later. I just hate when it is that hot that early in the day. Tomorrow our forecast high is 106. I refuse to guess how much hotter it actually might be.

Except for the tomatoes being hot, exhausted, pest-infested and worn out, the garden is doing great, but only because I'm watering the non-tomato areas. This is the best cucumber and melon year we've had in ages, and I think it is because we don't have cucumber beetles around spreading bacterial wilt.

I've been watching the radar hoping everyone in the storm's path gets rain but not damaging winds.

I don't think the storm had much rain in it, but it did help with the temperature for a lot of places. We didn't get any of it here.

Dawn, Are your habs ready, or are you buying peppers? I forgot to buy apricots on my last trip to Sam's, but I am thinking of just buying a few habs so I can get that task done as soon as I get apricots.

Carol, They are ready. I've already picked twice, but I used the first two rounds (small numbers like 4 to 6 peppers each time) to make some hotter-than-usual Annie's Salsa.

My plants have been heavily loaded with green habs forever and ever. When we came back from the fires yesterday and I saw the pepper plants had wilted, I noticed a lot of the green habs had turned orange. Prior to that, I had to crouch down and look underneath the foliage to check them, but with the wilt, they were right there in the open for easy viewing. The habs wilted more than the jalapenos. Their foliage was limp, limp, limp, and a lot of it revived in late evening after heavy watering, but some did not. One reason I picked as many orange ones as I did is that I was worried about sunscald on the wilted plants, and even though it was 105 degrees, the humidity was 21% so it didn't feel that bad out there.

I have enough ingredients cut up and prepared in advance, and frozen, for six batches of Habanero Gold---except for the habs, which I'll be cutting up this morning after I make some food for the firefighters. I've been stockpiling dried apricots for a while. I have 3 bags from CostCo in addition to the 6 batches already diced and ready. I did the prep on a day when I was canning something else because that's when I had the red sweet bell peppers (they were purchased).

The only Habanero pepper I plant now is 'Chichen Itza' because it is much earlier--maybe by three weeks--than the O-P habaneros, and the peppers usually are about twice as big as those on OP habanero plants. I believe I harvested the first ripe habs righ around July 4th.

I am sure the habs will wilt today, so likely will run out there in a few minutes after I get a batch of something in the oven, and put up the shade cloth over the peppers.

We are starting to have fires, so I need to get busy making the Habanero Gold as soon as I can. The sooner I start, the sooner I'll have enough jars done that I won't worry and fret if this summer's fire season is like last summer's. Since it is starting later, maybe it won't be as bad. Chris' department fought a very difficult brush fire (50 acres of burning trees, including tons of cedar) last night in Grapevine and he is driving home totally exhausted. I think the fire trouble down here is just beginning.

Now that the habs are turning orange, I notice some of the sweet bells also are coloring up orange and red and gold, so maybe I won't have to buy any red sweet bells from this point forward. I did get a good deal on them. CostCo had bags of six very large red sweet bells for under $6.00 a couple of weeks ago, so I bought them and cut them up and froze some for Hab Gold and used the others in the Habanero Annie's Salsa. At the time I bought the 2 bags of red sweet bells for roughly $12.00 for 12 peppers, our Wal-Mart was charging $1.78 each for red sweet bells. This week I think they were $1.48 each, so CostCo is still beating them on the price. I haven't looked in Sam's Club for red sweet bells. We usually go to CostCo because our animals like their store brand of dog food, which is a high-quality pet food similar to Science Diet, and they have a few other things that Sam's doesn't have. I love CostCo.

Dawn