Rain and cool weather?

Last year at this time we had hot, hot, hot temperatures.  It was the third year of a drought.  This last winter there was so little ground water that my creek didn’t run.  I’ve been here since 1977 and that was the first year that the creek didn’t run in the winter.  Now the five years before this last three years of drought was wetter than normal.  We got about 50 inches of rain each of those years.  Normal precipitation for this area (or what used to be normal) is about 30 inches a year.   The last three years of our drought we have gotten hardly any rain at all.  But now!

Was 45 or so foot tall and more than 2 foot in diameter where it broke

Oh boy, it is raining now.  Beautiful rain!  There was a strong wind storm the other day that blew through and knocked down this sycamore on the north side of my (I want it to be a) low water crossing.   There are a bunch of trees and branches down from that little storm.  But most of the rain has come slow and easy.  Very little run off.   The plants love it.  I do, too.

tomatoes to left   peppers to right

Here are the tomatoes I was covering with mulch to save from Freeze in May.  Cages are up. Plants are growing great guns.  They are covered with blooms and there are 100’s of green tomatoes.  Only handfuls of ripe tomatoes, so far.  For most years this is late for ripe tomatoes but so was Spring's cold weather.  Many pounds of ripe tomatoes coming to a garden near me. .  . uhh, Soon.  Our temps are forecast for the mid 80’s this next week.  Mild.  So all the blooms should set no problem.  Looks like we're in store for a bountiful year. 

Italian Grilling peppers

Here are the Italian peppers that were under mulch in May.  Theses plants all have peppers  approaching maturity already.  Some are almost 9 inches long.  Bunches of others are in the 4 to 6 inch range and growing fast and have bunches of blooms.

Hatch peppers

These hatch peppers were under mulch too.  Much bigger plants than the Italians.  Loaded with little baby peppers and thick with blooms.    They are going to be big plants and heavy bearing.  Yeah!