Hot! Hot! Hot!

I don’t really need to tell you, but it has been hot here the past few weeks. Last week, we were over 100 degrees for about 4 days, with a high of 110 for a few minutes on Thursday. This week it has been in the 90’s and there are still a few days  to go before it cools down a bit further.

The heat can be hard on the vegetables, but we keep them well watered and the heat ends up harder on us than the plants. Plants are pretty resilient, but it did take its toll on the mature lettuce and it can be difficult to germinate new lettuce in high temperatures. I have a new trick to soak the seeds in water overnight to get the germination going. It has been working pretty well. We were more worried about our chickens, but we put a sprinkler in their pasture to help cool the air around them (they don’t like to be wet much). With the high daytime temperatures, we also had some warmer nights. While we still had a few nights in the 50’s, some nights were warmer, and that means the plants got a little extra growth spurt overnight. We had some good harvests of cucumbers, beans, squash and tomatoes. Yes, tomatoes! Our refrigerator has been working extra hard to keep cool, what with the warmer temperatures outside and warmer vegetables coming in.

The site for our new pole barn is ready and building started this week, with setting the poles for the barn. We’re excited to have this space that we have been thinking about for four years, finally coming into being!