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Yo Yo Weather

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I’ve found the weather to be very strange this week.

It was really hot hear last weekend, but we had a good rain storm on the Sunday and it cooled things down making the beginning of the week fairly pleasant. In fact, with the rain we had on Sunday and the cooler days on Monday and Tuesday we didn’t even think about watering the garden until Wednesday night.

Wednesday and Thursday were fairly hot, but then today – Friday we were back to reasonable mid to late summer temperatures.

However earlier this evening the wind really started to pick up. I mean it’s really windy outside. Windy enough that my husband was eying our neighbors huge Maple and he was hoping that the wind didn’t get any stronger because he really thought some of the tree branches might start coming down.

So you can imagine with all that wind it’s cooled down quite a bit. I expect it will get quite cool through the night.

If the weather we’ve experienced in the past week were a diet it would be a yo yo diet.

It looks like Saturday and Sunday will have temps in the mid 70’s. My husband and I are again hoping to get some gardening work done over the weekend and I’m actually quite happy that it won’t be too hot. I can’t work up the desire or energy to do major garden work when it’s 100 degrees and humid outside.

How’s the weather been in your area?






A hardy little rose

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Wordless Wednesday

Charles albanel rose

This is a hardy rose named Charles Albanel.

I believe it’s part of the Canadian Explorer series. It blooms at least three times each season and when it does bloom it’s lush with flowers.

When I took this photo I think all of my roses were nearing the end of a bloom cycle but I think the heat wave and more frequent waterings (and maybe that mulch I discussed in the last post) gave them a boost because many are already blooming again.

Do you put mulch on your garden beds?

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If you’ve been reading my garden stories you know I was a very very bad gardener this year. I didn’t complete my summer gardening tasks until last week! Those tasks included adding a three inch or so layer of shredded red cedar mulch to my garden beds.

Time and time again I’m amazed at what a difference mulching the garden came make. If you use an attractive mulch it makes your garden beds look nicer. I find it also makes your garden look tidier.

Other benefits of mulching include:

  1. It cuts down on weeds and the task of weeding since weed seeds can’t penetrate the thick mulch easily.
  2. Mulching helps hold the moisture in the soil so you don’t have to water as often.
  3. Mulch helps keep your plants roots cool.
  4. I find fewer animals digging in my garden beds when they have a good layer of mulch.
  5. Plants look healthier.
  6. It’s been said that red mulch placed around Tomato plants reflect certain light rays back at the plant and actually help make tomatoes grow better.
  7. The mulch eventually breaks down in the soil and adds nutrients for your plants.

Since putting mulch down we’ve only watered the garden twice and the plants look great. I did rain on Sunday though so you could say the gardens had three waterings. Prior to adding the mulch the plants were wilting in the hot summer heat within two days. The soil was just drying out too fast.

Now my plants were fairly healthy despite the lack of care I’ve given them this summer, but still, I can see an improvement in how they are withstanding the summer heat in the short time that the mulch has been down on the garden beds.

I’m not new to mulch. Ever since I put my garden beds in six years ago I’ve been putting mulch down on the garden beds by the end of each June. This is the first year that I did it so late and I won’t ever be late again. It really helps!

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