Good Morning, Jay!

I hope you get that cooldown and get some fruit set too.

We had our cooldown Sunday night when light rain dropped the temperature from 101 all the way down to 76 in late afternoon or early evening, and then yesterday wasn't bad---only 93 degrees. It was a lot better than having high temperatures around 100-102 and heat index numbers around 108-110 like we've been having. Today it is back to hot and miserable again, and I don't expect any new fruit set here until sometime in August at the earliest. We still are getting fruit though, although it really is starting to wind down....and that's okay, we've had plenty.

We haven't really had good rainfall here since those first few days of July so the grasses are browning out pretty quickly and a lot of the ponds (even spring-fed ones) are very low. So are the creeks. The river still looks half-decent though. Yesterday a power pole snapped, and the electric line that came down sparked a grass fire....not in our fire district, for which we were grateful, but it serves as a reminder to all of us here just how dry the grasses are getting. We are having a pretty good summer fire season so far, with only a few fires here and there. I hope it lasts.

All I'm really harvesting now is tomatoes, peppers, southern peas, okra, cucumbers, squash and melons. Well, it sounds like a lot when I say it all at once, but it doesn't seem like too much when I'm harvesting and bringing it in. Maybe that's because the tomato harvest has peaked and is falling, so it seems like so many less tomatoes than we were getting daily just a few weeks ago. It has been a pretty good year here except caterpillars of all kinds are everywhere, and the summer rain brought the usual tomato foliage diseases, but most of the plants outgrew them. I even hate to say this for fear of jinxing myself, but the spider mites aren't even that bad this year, and the grasshoppers aren't either....yet. However, there's tons and tons of leaf-footed bugs and squash bugs. Oh well, it's always something.

I hope you have a great week and enjoy this break in the temperatures.

Dawn

Dawn did you get the email I sent on the NM firefighter? I sent it to the address I had. Wasn't sure if it had changed. The grasshoppers have hurt the peppers some. Guess I will have to treat them. Overall though knock on wood a good year.

Ooops, I've gotten really lazy about checking my emails this summer. I'll go look!

We are forecast for 89 degrees both Friday and Saturday! Mercy, compared to the last week, 89 is practically sweater weather :)

Jay, I found your email and responded. Better late than never. Sorry for the tardiness.

Mary, Those temperature sound lovely. I don't think we are supposed to cool down that much, unless they've changed the forecast since I looked at it this morning.

Today it wasn't so much the heat again (a high of only 97) but our heat index was atrocious (109). Despite all that heat indoors, I canned and then I cooked dinner too, so the kitchen certainly is hot and steamy now.

So, I went and snuck at peek at my NWS forecast highs for the rest of the week: Wed 98, Thurs 100, Fri 94, Sat 93. So, we won't cool down as much as Mary and not nearly as cool as Jay, and the 80s are only a pipe dream for us, but I bet 93 and 94 will feel great compared to 100. We are supposed to be in the lowest 90s next week. We'll take it! However, it would help more if the heat index would drop more as well.

I think it is a really good sign that some cooler weather is hitting at the end of July/beginning of August. Maybe that means the heat breaks early this year. We can hope!

Gary McManus covered this in today's Mesonet ticker, which is linked below.

Today's Mesonet Ticker

If y'all page down through all the many graphics he has on The Ticker, down to the very last one, he's got the 8-14 day outlook, and it seems really promising.

Maybe the cooldown is real and not just a figment of our imaginations.

Dawn

Dawn I read your reply. I sent one in return. I knew you would know much more about it than I did. Again reinforces how fast things can change.

Was 98 today for a high. At least not 100+. Tomorrow around 94 then 81-82 Thursday that will seem like a fall day.. I picked my first full sized tomato today. I had picked some full sized varieties but they were all 1/2 or less of their normal size. Cherokee Purple beat the rest including the hybrids again this year. A near perfect CP. I will likely scoop a few seeds out to save and then have a BLT. Had one a while back with a couple of the smaller ones. Have continued to manage to get some fruit set. Not sure how. Not a lot but enough that I should start getting a few every week and then hopefully if this cooldown lasts like they are saying I will get some nice set for a mid Sept harvest. Going to try to put out the rest of my fall garden tonight and tomorrow evening. Been surprised at how well everything has hung in during the heat. Maybe resting the garden for a couple of years and then planting cover crop helped.

Jay, Congrats on the tomato harvest! It always amazes me you can grow tomatoes there in such extremely harsh conditions. I bet the cover crops and resting the soil did help and, honestly, in some horrible weather years, it is good for the gardener to take a break too. I think there is nothing better than a near-perfect CP. I hope you enjoyed every yummy bite of it.

Dawn