[QUOTE=Cole_Robbie;625890]No peaches for Southern Illinois this summer, or pears, or plums. The freeze may have taken out a lot of strawberries, too. Growers have them under row covers, but two nights in the teens is still going to kill a lot of plants. I don't think the cherries or blackberries have bloomed yet.[/QUOTE]

I would :cry: if we had no peaches. I look forward to those every summer. But only the ones from the farm stand...never supermarket peaches (those are always spitters :?!?:). That's weird about the strawberries. Mine are loving the cold and we've been in the teens a few nights in a row. They have plenty if lush green leaves for this time of year. Maybe it has something to do with the variety I have.

The bad news: my 12 little broccolis and my Brussels sprouts bit the dust along with a planter box of mustard greens.

On the bright side, lettuce, cilantro, cabbage, onions and leeks are still happy. I think my tiny pea shoots survived, too, except for the golden sweet snow peas.

Our long range forecast looks pretty good except for an overnight low of 23 degF on Wednesday.

I'm thinking about starting some runner beans this week. Last year I started them at the end of May and they succumbed to the July heat before they developed pods. The flowers were pretty though. Maybe I should start them inside For a couple weeks, just to be on the safe side.

At 3pm, DFW just tied the record high of 91 here on the first day of spring. It'll be hotter at 4pm.

Spring has sprung into summer all in one day.

I just looked after your note to me Salt it is only 80 degrees here in the shade.
Worth

We started off with a breezy day, with winds blowing from the north. Then the winds shifted sw and pleasantly warned up to 70. Tomorrow forecast is calling for more of the same.
Sure it ain't no Texas here.:lol:

Thunderstorms here today

90° with a nice breeze. It felt wonderful!

DFW Airport did set the record high of 92 today. It only got to 88 here at my house.

Here in SW Missouri we hit 85 today. I figured it would be a record high for the day, but apparently it was 94 in 1907.

We're still riding mother nature's roller coaster.

[IMG]https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20170321/c37f3215424721ceb5be5e1c8ace55d3.jpg[/IMG]

The snow from last week's blizzard will be hanging around a bit longer.

It's warming up for me, but turning cloudy and rainy a lot. My greenhouse is based around the idea of typical weather for this time of year, which is about 45-55 and sunny. 65 and cloudy is actually much worse for me than 45 and sunny, as far as making plants grow. The greenhouse does not heat up at all on cloudy days, When it's 45 and sunny, it's 80 in the greenhouse.

We had another snowstorm yesterday. 15 cm. :( Then it turned to ice pellets and freezing rain overnight, and now it's rain, drizzle and fog up to another 10 mm. No chance to shovel the white stuff while fluffy, so will have to live with the sodden mess of it, a little longer. More rain-or-snow just above zero wetness on the way for Thursday and then it looks like back to the deep freeze for another week.
Typical March weather. :lol::twisted: Will be cold treatment for my little seedlings. :roll:

I'm thinking the wet is almost the worst of it just now, because my road is unpaved, the snowplows over the years have scraped every bit of chip rock off it, so on the wet thaw days it is like the worst cow path ever. :no: ATV's drive in to catch the trail into the woods and they have churned up some unbelievable ruts :shock: I was nearly stuck trying to drive home the other day, worse than any driving in snow or ice this winter. :surprised:

bower, don't you have hardly any top soil? How much mud is there before you hit the bedrock? just curious

[QUOTE=Cole_Robbie;626705]bower, don't you have hardly any top soil? How much mud is there before you hit the bedrock? just curious[/QUOTE]

Cole I'm not sure how much fill went in to build that road as it is a steep bank on one side, but I guess it was over the native 'soil' which is clay at least on the side where my driveway is and the ATV trail, which is still in it's natural condition at about the same level. Around here the clay is mostly found on ridges, quite rocky and with boulders poking through. I have seen soil as deep as a couple of feet in places before you get to boulders and pug (that's a sort of white clay), go twenty feet either way and there's nothing but boulders pug and rocks. It sure looks like a couple of feet of clay were there where the road went.
The bedrock is not too far down where I live - we struck the mother rock when we were building the house and had to adjust the plans since I didn't want to blast it... so I'm basically anchored to a giant underground cliff. :yes:
The man whose family owned the land next to mine, he told me they tried to farm there but had to abandon it because the cliff was a few feet below the surface and it wouldn't drain. There are parts of my land like that too, it's all boulders and if you remove a few as I did, it fills up with water in spring - but no source so it also dries out in summer.

3-21-17
We had a high of 85F. Not a record but much warmer than 66F average.
Tomorrow night's low forecast of 35 F is not reliable. It might dip into frost line.
But from there on seems to be frost free (39F and higher ).
I might start planting out on Thursday and continue on Friday. I've got just 13 tomato plants from my first batch ) and a lot more peppers and eggplants at this time.
It has been a long journey. I started them on Jan 19 , that is over 2 months already.
It has been a roller coaster weather from early March up to now. .

Have a nice weather !

I see there is no new posts.
I take it as a sign of [B]" NO NEWS IS GOOD NEWS"
:)
[/B]