Horse latitudes and doldrums of summer

 What does that have to do with gardening? Weather. 

"The Horse Latitudes are zones of calm wind and high pressure at about 30° north and south latitude, where air from the doldrums sinks. Historically, ships in the horse latitudes would run out of food and water while becalmed, sometimes leading to horses being thrown overboard."

 

So that's where we are, heat advisory for the next three days. Not exactly no wind, but it is a hot desert kind of wind. Mornings have that cool heat anticipation feel but it is wonderful as long as you stay in the shade. It is going to be 90+ for the next five days with very little wind but thankfully cooling at night but not until well after dark. We didn't open up last night until after 8pm. I managed to get out yesterday after sunset and fill the bucket almost full with water after almost emptying what I had in it to water the tomato and oregano. 

Clear and crisp skies yesterday and today and will continue for another week. The parrots were having a wonderful time in the trees last night and one last one this morning was left that squawked and flew off as I was letting Rocky roam around.

And formatting for photos has gone FUBAR again. 

 

Roses are blooming again after being stripped in July. The flowers are smaller than they should be because it's a second bloom cycle but that is to be expected. Probably 30+ year old bushes and they've likely been doing this from year one. Sigh.

 The asparagus fern is blooming again, wonderful fragrance depending on the wind. It was a pleasant time hanging out in the area this morning.

Stupid formatting isn't letting me post parallel/in line photos together.

So the tomato had some damaged leaves, something was gnawing on them of the insect variety so I pulled them off and doused it with about a gallon and a half of water. Dumped about a half gallon of water on the oregano as well. You can see how it ran off due to uneven soil but it'll survive. The tomato hasn't grown much and the leaves are really thick. Not thin like spring leaves at all but the water well is helping immensely to keep the water around the root zone, as it should.

Something kicked some dirt around in the south bed. I think it may have been a cat but not going to worry since I'm not watering that bed and only have cilantro seeds scattered around there. After the first rains of winter it'll likely sprout like crazy. If not I have plenty of seeds. 

Definitely more like desert weather than tropics because now the humidity is much lower at 32% when we had the tropical storm last week it was up in the 60's. Blech.

 

Staying inside, staying cool as we can until the afternoon when the sun blasts the front wall. Keep cool as you can, hydrate and low stress.