Almost here. Maybe.
Jul. 7th, 2011 07:10 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
billeylerLast night, the weatherman on the local Channel 4 news showed a graph of dew points for the past week here.
I didn't realize that the weather service specifies that we have to have more than 3 days in a row of maximum dewpoints in the 40s to say that the summer monsoon has been triggered. The full holiday weekend was something like 43/45/42, but then it dropped back into the 30s. So 'officially' the monsoon hasn't started.
Nothing on the rain gauge while we were gone, but the airport reported 3/100ths of an inch this past Saturday. Happily, Tijeras (small town in the canyon that I-40 snakes through) got over an inch then. Yay!
I can tell SOMETHING should be happening soon. The humidity is up in the 30s right now, which makes for less effective evaporative cooling. I was sweaty on the walk home yesterday, which is rare.
Yes, this is all quite boring, but since we haven't had any significant precip here since last October, it's a desperate waiting game for us gardeners.
1. Volunteer 4-o-clock leftover from a planting a few years ago. I had been pulling them all up the past couple of years because they were EVERYWHERE. When the Texas Sage died over the winter (stump is in between the red and yellow flowers), I decided to let them have a go again.
2. The coneflowers come up every year, rain or shine.
3. The mystery yellow-flowering plant. This one is some sort of weed (i.e., I didn't plant it), but only grows where the drip system is. I have no idea what it is, but by summer's end, it could get to 10 feet tall.
4. The damned mystery vine. This came in 10 or 12 years ago and is a source of aggravation to me. Anywhere there is reliable water in the garden, it creates a dense mini-kudzu like thicket (see under the coneflowers). It's the first thing sprouting in the spring and has millions of sprouts. Pluck, pluck, pluck. If I let them get away from me, the whole garden would be this innocent looking vine.
5. Happy tomatoes! The eight vines have probably 40 or 50 green tomatoes and hundreds more buds. Danny's thinking he'll have to become a canning goddess later in the summer!
6. The glory of the hollyhocks is gone and all the stems are sagging over from the heaviness of their seed pods. All these will be cut to the ground this weekend. They'll have a slower, yet equally flamboyant 2nd flowering in the fall.
I didn't realize that the weather service specifies that we have to have more than 3 days in a row of maximum dewpoints in the 40s to say that the summer monsoon has been triggered. The full holiday weekend was something like 43/45/42, but then it dropped back into the 30s. So 'officially' the monsoon hasn't started.
Nothing on the rain gauge while we were gone, but the airport reported 3/100ths of an inch this past Saturday. Happily, Tijeras (small town in the canyon that I-40 snakes through) got over an inch then. Yay!
I can tell SOMETHING should be happening soon. The humidity is up in the 30s right now, which makes for less effective evaporative cooling. I was sweaty on the walk home yesterday, which is rare.
Yes, this is all quite boring, but since we haven't had any significant precip here since last October, it's a desperate waiting game for us gardeners.
1. Volunteer 4-o-clock leftover from a planting a few years ago. I had been pulling them all up the past couple of years because they were EVERYWHERE. When the Texas Sage died over the winter (stump is in between the red and yellow flowers), I decided to let them have a go again.
2. The coneflowers come up every year, rain or shine.
3. The mystery yellow-flowering plant. This one is some sort of weed (i.e., I didn't plant it), but only grows where the drip system is. I have no idea what it is, but by summer's end, it could get to 10 feet tall.
4. The damned mystery vine. This came in 10 or 12 years ago and is a source of aggravation to me. Anywhere there is reliable water in the garden, it creates a dense mini-kudzu like thicket (see under the coneflowers). It's the first thing sprouting in the spring and has millions of sprouts. Pluck, pluck, pluck. If I let them get away from me, the whole garden would be this innocent looking vine.
5. Happy tomatoes! The eight vines have probably 40 or 50 green tomatoes and hundreds more buds. Danny's thinking he'll have to become a canning goddess later in the summer!
6. The glory of the hollyhocks is gone and all the stems are sagging over from the heaviness of their seed pods. All these will be cut to the ground this weekend. They'll have a slower, yet equally flamboyant 2nd flowering in the fall.
