Too Hot

Too Hot

If you can’t handle the heat, get out of the garden.  We are in the midst of a heatwave.  It might not be the burning inferno that some folk experience in summer in other places, but it is hot for me.  In the last week the hottest the thermometer in the garden registered was 38°C yesterday at 6:27pm!  Surely the evenings are supposed to be cooler than the middle of day. 

But the biggest surprise was in the greenhouse.   It got up to 50.3°C!!!  And that is why I don’t have any plants in there at this time of year.  Although I am toying with the idea of getting some electricity wired in there, so I can set up fans and cooling systems to make it more bearable.  But I have had a bit of fun with it.  Today I cracked an egg into a frying pan and left it on the shelf.  After 5 hours it was cooked, although I think 5 hours was a little to long… but I don’t like a slimy top on my yolk so was waiting for it to white over.  But that gloopy layer just went transparently crunchy.  The whole thing was cooked right through.  I did eat it and it was nice.  But I think I might give it another go tomorrow with scrambled eggs. 

I have been getting out there into the garden early in the morning and working until it is too hot to be comfortable then coming inside to melt into a sticky heap on the sofa.  But things are actually not too bad out there.  There is a bit of wilting in places, so I’ve been watering with my irrigation system.  But things should hold out until next week when the forecast is promising rain.  A good amount of rain, which will be gratefully received in the water tanks…  If I can allow myself to believe it, as the forecast has a habit of changing at the last minute.

The most common task in the garden has been weeding, because in spite of the heat those pesky weeds were just living their best life.  I do have a few pests and problems showing up.   I have been spraying for passion vine hoppers, but it feels like sweeping back the ocean with a broom!  The advantage is the vegetable garden is pretty much an annual situation, so my grand strategy there is to wait until the end of the season and have a bonfire with all the dead material where the eggs will be hiding.   My poor mum has them in her garden and has resorted to fly spray – they are such insidious bug-gers!

I’ve also pulled out my onions.  They went in on the shortest day and should have come out on the longest day, but the tops just weren’t flopping over, so I made the decision to just pull them.  They are now in racks on my deck, elevated on bricks so they get good airflow and dry out nicely to be stored away for use during the year.   Now I have two empty beds and I need to decide what to do with them.  Although it is probably prudent to wait for cooler weather before starting anything.

A birdproof cage for my blueberries has been on the list since last season, but I never quite got around to it and now my new blueberries are ripening up, so I need to take urgent action.  Instead of a nice permanent structure with hinged doors for easy access I’m in the midst of cobbling together a strange looking cage to protect my treasures.  I didn’t get it finished as I need more supplies from the garden centre.  This was also the perfect excuse to stop for the day as the heat was getting a little unbearable.   I would have got to that point a little earlier, but I needed to strip the pine needles off the Christmas tree and spread them around the base of the blueberries before I locked it all up tight… or the Christmas tree would have hanging about the garden for months waiting and perishing.

I am waiting for things to cool down significantly before harvesting my produce.  It has been a little odd to eat strawberries that seem to have been cooked already!  At this rate I’ll be out there in the dark.  

Now don’t get me wrong.  I’m not complaining.  I’m just stating facts.  It would be impolite to be complaining about something I’ve been longing for, especially after last year’s soggy summer.   It just I had forgotten just how hot hot can get.

Come again soon – it won’t be this hot forever.

Sarah the Gardener  : o)