Memorial Day week heat wave
The weather has been
unusually hot this week, with highs in the 90s and record highs for our
area at the closest weather station. Monday afternoon, the
temperature inside our trailer got up over 100, setting off the high
alarm on the incubator --- now I've taken to training a fan on brood
3 during the hottest period in the late afternoon.
The adult hens are
spending their time resting in the shade, but the tweens have been out
and about...and so have the chicks! When we moved the
fluffballs from the house to the second coop on Sunday, I leaned a
piece of plywood against their pophole, figuring they weren't ready to
explore yet, but the youngsters knocked that down by Monday
afternoon. I figured they knew what they wanted, so I instead
used the plywood as a little ramp, and soon our youngest flock was
exploring the ragweed forest.
Other than trying to keep
ourselves cool, though, this unusually hot weather has been a
boon. After two solid months of adding items to our "must be
hauled onto the farm ASAP!" list, the driveway finally dried up enough
to allow passage. Sticking to the most important first, Mark treated me to two
truckloads of manure and a
load of straw. Meanwhile, we were able to
drive in supplies that had been building up in the parking area,
including masses of cardboard for kill mulches, bags of lawn clippings
for garden mulch, 
and some lumber.
Weeding has been taking up more and more of my time as last fall's
mulch melted into the soil, so I'm even more grateful than usual for my
big piles of biomass.
On the whole, the garden
has also been happy to see the sun. Sure, a few strawberries got
cooked on the vine and a cabbage leaf showed signs of sunscald, but I
can almost see the rest of the garden growing. We finally hooked
up the rest of the sprinklers
and are now watering in earnest to keep that momentum going.
Homegrown produce currently on the menu includes strawberries (far more
than we can eat), greens, lettuce, parsley, broccoli, snow peas, and
sugar snap peas.
Or explore more posts by date or by subject.
About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.
Want to be notified when new comments are posted on this page? Click on the RSS button after you add a comment to subscribe to the comment feed, or simply check the box beside "email replies to me" while writing your comment.
I've been reading a couple of blogs by folks gardening out there, and I have to say, I'm not jealous. It sounds like the area didn't have a summer last year, and might be on a trend to stay in that kind of climate for years! That said, you can grow awesome cool season crops nearly all year round without protection.
(And, don't feel too bad. 100 degree heat with 55% humidity is hard to bear, even when looking out at a vibrant garden.
)