What is climate change doing in your neck of the woods?
Where we live climate change isn't theoretical. It's too real. As we all know now, the rate the earth is heating up is faster than even the most dire computer models predicted even a few years ago. Earlier this year we passed 400 parts per million of CO
2. Worldwide we've been keeping weather records for 135 years (longer in many places). Four of the warmest months ever recorded on earth have occurred this year = February, March, May and June. July looks like it will get added to that list.
Everyone knows California is in deep doo doo water wise. We see pictures of the extremely low reservoirs and farmland that can't be planted and yet for most of us those are pictures on the TV or internet. But what's it really mean? I'll can tell you I see signs in our garden every day. Things are different now and its accelerating. Last year California was the driest and warmest on record...until this year.
Where we live is in a micro climate. Paradise is loaded with them. We live in a bowl that is the top of the beginning of a valley. We have a year-round creek (still) because it's on lava cap. The watershed that feeds our creek ends here so our property still has green trees and plants for the most part. If you walk up the road a short way, however, you can tell we are in the midst of a horrible drought. Everything looks beyond stressed. The ground is drying out more every year.
Trees are dying. Periwinkle is dying. That's never happened until this year. Below is a picture of four dead Douglas Fir trees just up the road from our property maybe a quarter mile away. You can't really tell from the picture, but they are at least 120 feet tall. They grow 1 1/2 to 2 feet per year which means these had to have been alive for 70-80 years. They died this year for lack of water. They lived in our watershed, so who knows how much longer our trees will survive.
Sidepocket put up pictures of his pole beans which are growing more slowly than usual due to a dense and persistent marine layer where he lives. This is expected because when it's warmer in the Central Valley it creates an inland high pressure which then sucks the fog from the Pacific Ocean inland. He's now getting hundreds of beans.
Here's some pictures of things growing around here. Our pole beans are already more than 15 feet tall. They want to grow to the sky but can only fall downwards now. Not one single bloom on any of them. The heat and sunlight are the problem. If I ever try to grow them again, I'll have to put them in part shade at the very least, but I think that would still be a lesson in frustration to be honest.
Below is a picture of our yellow crook-neck squash plants. I planted four of them in this area so as to get a good number of them. We pluck them when they are medium sized. They started out doing OK, then two weeks ago they were suddenly taken over by powdery mildew.
I sprayed the leaves top and bottom with Seranade, which is a natural mold killer. It was created in Davis, CA a little more than a decade ago to be used in organic gardening. It was a private company until recently and has been acquired by Bayer. I really like this product and have used it exclusively on crops that I really care about.
Serenade is a fungicide and bactericide that contains a unique, patented strain of Bacillus subtilis (QST 713.) It works in three different ways to fight disease-causing pathogens: it stops harmful spores from germinating, it disrupts the cell membrane growth, and it inhibits attachment of the pathogen to the leaf. This multiple-site mode of action not only creates an effective fungicide, but also makes it very difficult for diseases to develop resistance.
It is so hot and dry now that no squash grows. These plants flower great with big beautiful yellow squash blossoms in the morning. The bees do their thing, but by mid-afternoon, the blossoms have simply dried up completely into hard dry nothingness. You can see this morning's flowers shriveled up and the result of previous day's blooms = nothing but dying stalks. This is a new phenomenon. We've always been able to grow squash easily. No more it seems.
We grew a couple tomato plants this year. One is a red cherry and the other a Roma. Something strange is going on. The Roma tomatoes turn red but the skins are hard. When you cut into them, they are completely rotten inside. There is no sign of mold on the outside at all. From the outside they look normal. Inside they are totally black-purple rotten. Here is a picture of some green ones that look normal. I sure hope when they get red they'll not be rotten inside. The skins will be terribly thick though due to the heat and dryness.
This year we had an amazing number of bees. This was very welcome as last year there were almost none. Last year nearly all things that bloomed never got pollinated due to the lack of bees. Most of our bees are wild ones. We also have European honey bees as well. So we have a good number of peaches growing. I culled them a while back (removed more than 50%). Golden Apple tree looks like it's having a bumper crop as well. I haven't culled them and if I don't soon the branches will break.
The next picture really tells a tale. This is St. John's Wort which is extremely drought and heat tolerant. I never had to water it all summer until about three years ago because patches of it started dying. It should be a healthy green but as you can see it's a sickly yellowish-green and looks very dry and tired.
What do you want to kibitz about tonight?
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Kitchen Table Kibitzing is a community series for those who wish to share part of the evening around a virtual kitchen table with kossacks who are caring and supportive of one another. So bring your stories, jokes, photos, funny pics, music, and interesting videos, as well as links—including quotations—to diaries, news stories, and books that you think this community would appreciate. Readers may notice that most who post diaries and comments in this series already know one another to some degree, but newcomers should not feel excluded. We welcome guests at our kitchen table, and hope to make some new friends as well.
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