Jay, our greenhouse has gotten up to 96 F a few times this past week, with every window open and a large standfan blowing out the east window. I don't have shade cloth or an automatic vent fan yet. Still plan to get the vent fan and install it under the gable on the east, but instead of shadecloth do you think some old cotton sheets sewed together and anchored over the top of the roof would work. Last week we tied some tarps over the roof and they did keep it cooler, but they were just tied with baling twine and the wind whipped them until the twine broke.

I have lots of old cotton sheets from the years that we used them to pick up leaves in the yard. I'm trying to reuse them and save some money. Ideas anyone?

Jay, Stepping into the greenhouse is an adventure for sure. Even with all the vents open and the 50% shadecloth up, we've been as warm as 98 degrees in there this week. Turning on the fan brought it down a lot though.

These early warm temps are starting to scare me. Seems like 2011 all over again. It was 88 degrees at our house, but I was at the lake for the final day of fire training and we had a great breeze out there all day long so it didn't feel quite as hot to me out there. Still, I bet we were in the mid-80s at least.

The plants here are just going bonkers with growth. I cannot believe how fast everything is growing. I suppose that's a good thing as long as they are not too big to cover up if we have a late freeze.

Did you look at your drought monitor? Happy days are here again, and you're back in D-3. Woo hoo!

Dorothy, Some people do use sheets, so I think it will work. You'll just have to experiment to see if it gives you too much shading, but I don't think that it will.

Today before we headed out to the lake, Tim covered up the lettuce with shade cloth while I was moving some young veggie and flower seedlings into a place where they'd have afternoon shade. I hope the shadecloth and good watering keeps the lettuce happy because we're already having some temperatures likely to induce bolting.

Dawn

Dorothy I agree with Dawn. Sheets should work ok. You will never know till you try them. And the greenhouse is like my grafting experiment learn as I go. I thought I had read and researched enough on both that I could eliminate some problems but encountering some I hadn't anticipated. The problem I was having is those a few inches from the poly on the sides were getting too hot. If you held your hand there it would burn it. But 6 inches further away was ok. The sun is more intense coming through the poly than I ever dreamed it would be. And the small area may make it worse also. But I keep both windows into the utility room open and set in there several days during the heat of the day potting up. All of my maters are potted up. And haven't started anymore as planned. May started a half dozen cells of one variety and then may not. But I've learned enough already to know that Dawn was correct 40% shade cloth isn't enough in this area.

I hadn't looked at the drought monitor but knew the local forecasters had downgraded us a few weeks ago. They are saying we have a good chance of more moisture tomorrow night and Tuesday. I have several projects going and have a dentists appointment tomorrow afternoon. This afternoon I finished preparing the area where I will plant the caged tomatoes. Hope to get some WOW's up tomorrow. I spread a some iron/sulfur pellets and then some organic Fox Farm mix and 2-3 inches of shredded partially decomposed leaves on top and then tilled in with the Troy Bilt I bought last weekend. I can tell I will probably use it more than the Horse or the Mantis. It only tills an area 12 inches wide but I really like the job it does and you can watch and control how deep you go. I only tilled this in 5-6 inches deep at the most. The area where I had the leaves piled is full of worms. I left some leaves but had to use most of them. I will lay a layer of alfalfa over them tomorrow and then some straw on top and then probably plants my Burrell's cantaloupe in that area. So it is ready to set up WOW's now. Everything I plant early will either go in them or 5 gallon plastic buckets with the bottom cut out and stuffed with straw. I know I'm gambling and don't want to have to try to cover 30-50 plants when a cold night surprises us. But the plants are just going bonkers. If I held them till late April they would be trees especially if I potted them up. I think I will be eating some ripe ones by May 1st. Jay

I have already moved all my transplants outside the greenhouse and have almost all of them planted now. And have started clearing out the inground beds inside. I don't plan to have any plants in there over the summer so I wouldn't mind a lot of shading. It is also now the ingarden storage shed so will have to be in and out this summer. So I'm going to try it.

If we get cold weather again we will all be in trouble because I started putting mine in the ground today also. I already had a few in containers and it is almost like you can stand and watch them grow.

Al asked me earlier why the onions didn't look as good as they normally do, and I said, "Maybe it is because it is the first week of April." We both keep forgetting how early it is because we have had warm weather for so long.

Earlier today, I told Al that Dawn, Jay, and Dorothy all had a new greenhouse this year so I was reading about their experiences every day. He said, "You need a greenhouse, don't you?" I said, "No, not yet, but the time is coming."

I am having a tired, cranky day. You know, I am just so wiped out from all of the long days of cooking and fire training since last Tuesday that I have absolutely no energy and no motivation and the ambitious "to do" list I had for the garden today will be my "to do" list for tomorrow or the next day, I guess. All of the preceding explains why I didn't drag myself out of bed and out of the house early today like I usually do, and when I finally made it out to the greenhouse to open it up, the thermometer read 98 degrees at 9:30 a.m. I quickly opened all the doors and vents and carried the flats of sweltering plants outside to sit in the much cooler outdoor air. The temperature went ahead and climbed to 100 degrees before it began dropping after a few minutes. It has stayed at 90 degrees or lower since then. If I ran a fan, I probably could get it down to 85.

My goal for this week is to get everything possible into the ground so I can empty out the greenhouse. It is too hot in there unless I run a fan and I'm not inclined to use a fan if I can just move the plants outside. With rain in the forecast tonight and tomorrow, it might be hard to get the planting done, but I may just mud them in if I have to.

Jay, I am starting to think I should have gotten 60% shade cloth. It surprises me how quickly the greenhouse heats up each day and how early it heated up in winter. I'm afraid with 60% the plants might grow too slowly though.

The cats think the greenhouse is a cat spa and lounge around in it all day and swat at the moths, butterflies, crane flies and June bugs that venture inside. So, I guess as long as I open up the doors all summer, the cats may have a nice hangout. They like it so much that in the mornings they are sitting outside the greenhouse doors waiting for me to open it up. It has replaced the potting shed and garden as their favorite hangout. Otherwise, it is so hot here that the greenhouse is about to go dormant for a few months, though I may store some garden tools in it or something.

There are thunderstorms to our southeast/east moving up from Texas into southeastern OK, and they just put our county under a Severe Thunderstorm Watch, so I need to run back outside and crank up the Mantis and finish cultivating the areas that have been too wet to plant. They have a nice collection of weeds, particularly bindweed, sprouting that I want to rototill under before it rains and they grow some more. I've cultivated about 1500 square feet today and have about 500 more to go. Then, depending on the weather, I can transplant the remaining tomatoes and peppers, and direct sow the rest of the warm season crops later this week.

I can't believe it is April 2, and most of my garden is planted. I thought I'd get to use the greenhouse later into the spring--until May at least, and I didn't expect to have this much in the ground already--not that I am complaining.

I know we need moisture, but I wish I could have 2 more dry days. We are just finally drying out from the last big rain.

Jay, I have a big TroyBilt tiller in the garage and several smaller ones. The only one I use is the Mantis because the others throw me around too much. Tim uses the bigger ones. It is amazing how much equipment you can accumulate with just a few acres to maintain. We built our garage with all that equipment in mind, and I am starting to think we didn't build it big enough.

Carol, It is time. If y'all start planning and building it now, it will be ready in time for you to grow cool-season crops inside of it all winter.

I think my onions have been in a funk from too much moisture too early in their life, but they've snapped out of it recently. The potatoes have gone bonkers and are growing into trees. The snap peas are miserable in this heat.

I do keep thinking that some things aren't growing as fast as they should, and then I look at the calendar and think to myself that I've lost track, too, because it got so hot so early.

Our local TV met wrote on his blog about the correlation between a warm March and the summer weather in the same year, and basically concluded there's no direct correlation---that a warmer-than-average March doesn't necessarily mean a warmer-than-average summer. That's good, I guess, but so far the warm trend continues, and for as long as it lasts, I will fear that summer is going to be miserable. I need a big shade cloth that will float in the air over my head as I walk around and work. My plain and simple straw hat just isn't doing the job.

The Tulsa weather said it was the warmest March in recorded history, and also the warmest quarter on record. I don't know how I will make it when the 'real' heat gets here. I came inside because it was too hot to work in the sun and the temp was only 80 at the time. It is 84 now.

My ground is perfect for planting right now and I would love to finish my tomatoes today, but I sure seem to be going slow. We got five in, mulched, and caged this morning, and 10 more planted this afternoon, but I got too hot to finish.

My schedule earlier this year interrupted my seed starting and I don't have many peppers because I just wasn't here to take care of them. If I was home, I was afraid to start anything that I might not be here to take care of, so I put it off too long. I will probably need to buy some sweet pepper plants which will be the first time in many years. It seems a little crazy since I have tons of pepper seeds, but life happens. I started a few but they didn't get proper care.

Although it seems hot to work outside, I have accomplished an amazing amount this week. I am going back out and try to finish a few more things today. If this is anything like any other Spring since I have lived here, the rains will soon come and delay the planting, so I need to get as much in the ground as possible.

Dawn, the rain is looking like it may stay east of you. They are saying we have a fifty percent chance of thunderstorms tomorrow, so I'm off to plant. LOL

The climate specialists predict that April will be hotter than normal in most of the US. Temps and precip are expected to return to more normal levels for the 3 month period of April-May-June, but may be hotter and drier than usual in OK.

http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/predictions/multi_season/13_seasonal_outlooks/color/page2.gif

Discussion of their 30 day prediction is here: http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/predictions/long_range/fxus07.html

Carol,

It was just a rough year for you in terms of seed-starting because y'all were so busy with Gary's hospitalization. Next year likely will be better and you'll have pepper plants all over the place.

If you're coming to the Spring Fling, I can bring you some sweet pepper plants. I always have a lot extra.

I think it is not necessarily the heat but rather the combination of the heat and humidity and the fact that we've had less time to gradually acclimate to ever-increasing heat. It just arrived too early.

Pam, We watch the weather like hawks here and I am not liking what I see. I don't even go look at the NWS's long-range forecasts lately because it is depressing. I just wait for Heather, who posts here as Miraje (I hope I spelled that right) to warn me if something really bad is coming, because she knows before the rest of us what to expect.

I've always lived within 100 miles of where I live now and am no stranger to extreme heat, but having it arrive so early for two consecutive years is discouraging when our cool-season plants have to hurry to beat the heat even in an average year.

Does anyone here remember the last year we had snow around Easter? I think maybe it was 2007. That memory is fading fast.

Dawn