Sun at Last

I woke up to bright sun, birds chirping, and a warm feeling in the air.  For those of you who live in sunny climes, you may think we are all nuts, but this is the firsts 70 degree day in months.  We have had a long, cold spring.  It is June 4th and this is the first sun. 

Here is the nuts part.  In the northwest we go about our lives dodging raindrops.  Most of us don't even notice when it is raining.  We have learned to do everything we need to do, both inside and out, in the rain.  We are seriously light impaired.  So when the sun comes out, if it hits 50 degrees, we all drop what we are doing, get our shorts on, and go outside.  We can not afford to waste the sunlight doing stuff inside.  So everything gets left as it is...and out we go.  This is the only area in the country where you will see people wearing socks with sandals.  We love shorts and sandals in the sun, but we don't want our feet cold.  We are really a bunch of geeks. 

I jumped up and made coffee and ran out to the garden to see how everything was.  It was 92 degrees in the green house.  How the hell did that happen?  I opened the door, and checked all the hot crop plants.  All the soil was moist and they looked great.  So I guess these plants really do like that heat.  Wrong again!!!

This evening my partner went out to close up the door to the greenhouse and check everything, and two of the tomato plants were almost dead and drooping over the sides of the pots.  OK...so it has been too cold, now one day of sunshine and they look like they have been run over by a truck..what gives?  How does anyone ever grow anything?  They got a good dousing of water and we will see if they survive my abuse.  I also put the hanging tomato out on the front deck to hang about a week ago?    It seems to be doing fine, but these other six plants I am going to put in the ground.  I am not sure how to know when that is going to happen.  The books say when the "ground is warm".  Is there a such thing as a dirt thermometer?  Because when the "ground is warm" tells me absolutely nothing.

So we had a fabulous day in the northwest.  Sunny, breezy, warm and beautiful.  Hopefully it will dry out and the green we will now be seeing will be from flowers, trees and grass, and not from the traditional green moss and mold hanging off everything.

I am looking forward to another fantastic day tomorrow.  It should be up into the high 70's again.  Yipee!!!!

Could someone let me know what "warm soil" is? 

Karen