Our backyard temp was at 38 yesterday afternoon. Needless to say, not much is getting done around here right now either, other than making sure the gardens are getting watered in the early am. Also gave them all a good drink last night too.

Don't know what's going on in our one garden, but this weekend will be digging up the potatoes that are planted there. All of the tops have died. Not sure if its the soil or the seed potatoes. Bought them at the grocery store this year instead of ordering them. Had the same problem kind of a few years ago when we were buying grocery store ones before changing to the ordered ones. This year much earlier than before, due to the heat maybe?
The ones that are growing in the pots and other boxes are doing much better and they are the ones that were kept over from last year and planted. Did this as an experiment to find out if they would grow properly. Guess it didn't work and will be ordering next year. They all get the same amount of watering done to them too.

as they were store spuds, you will not know if they are early, mid or late season spuds.. could be nothing wrong with them per say just there time.. only the dig will answer the question 🙂 keep us posted

They were the seed potatoes in bags. Norland and Yukon Gold. Don't normally have to dig up until September and here we are in the middle of August.
This is the earliest even for them.

Got the potatoes dug last weekend, didn't even get a wheelbarrow full. Ah well, thankful for whatever we get. Will be changing it around next year.

Got up this morning and the temp in the backyard is 1 degree. Looking on weather network it says it is 0 here. Needless to say, quite a drastic change from the heat we have been having.

We are just starting to have cooler nights, so still very hot days 30 plus but we are starting to get down till 14 or 16 at night and that better cooler evenings are starting to effect the garden, this is a good thing here.

The garden is still going quite strong at the moment as it should be.. Its going to be a interesting fall because it was to hot and dry for me to plant out end of july first part of aug for fall planting so that is happening now. we will see how the crops do.

This was a good Year for my apples.

anyone put in a rain garden?

http://www.raingardentour.ca/ontario.html

I am really think we are going to make this happen given the shift in rain patterns we are getting here. I will be hiring out to bring in the big hi hoe to get it dug and such

We don't have a rain garden, although we do have a pond in our back yard. We don't plant it with anything though. Haven't kept fish in it for a few years either.

Strange thing happening with our carrots. Planted the box with a couple different types of carrot and now have a couple of them that have apparently gone to seed. They have sent up the long stems with the flowers at the top. Haven't ever had that happen with just planting seed before. Only had it happen with planting out carrots from the previous year. This box was not used for carrots last year.

First time gardening in decades. No flower on tomatoes, beans
Carrots and beat stems are tall but very small actual growth.

Me, weather or ???

Hi Clarence

So many questions to ask.. like when did you plant beans and did you buy tomoato starts or did you start them from seed.. my self-seeded tomato's are just now in full bloom and producing.. where as my early started tomato's have been producing since july. Did the heat stunt the beans?

Overall, its very odd that you have no flowers on either tomaoto's or beans at this time of the year in a garden, so something has gone wrong but I can't say its the weather per say.. I have a general feel of where you might be and if I am right then I do know from fellow gardens on my main Ottawa garden group that a number of them had total slow down/no growth in the major heat wave unless they were doing a small garden and watering all the time.

However the last three weeks have been a good mix of weather/water and we are all reporting excellent garden growth, productions and yields increasing. The carrots and beets are a little more easy to guess at.. typically when you have lots of top and not much bottom growth its a soil issue.. it means that your soil was to rich in nitrogen. Normally it just means that you used a good amount of compost to feed the soil that year.

https://www.gardeningknowhow.com/edible/vegetables/carrot/carrots-not-forming.htm

Sorry I can't be of more help here.. if you want to tell me about soil, about water plan, about set up, I might be able to offer more ideas..

This was a tough year to keep up on watering. Hard soakings almost every day just to keep things alive!
Already we are seeing a few varieties of cherry tomatoe die off completely and all but 2 plants are now dying off or complete gonners.
We have taken a long hard look at what we have in storage still, as well as a change in what we eat. Prtially due to a change in family members and partially for health reasons.
I think we will be almost giving up on in ground planting next year and really expanding the raised beds.
Lots more greens for fresh, and some frozen and dried.
A major reorganisation is coming next spring as for gardening.
We have been monitoring our foods that we eat and plan to plant to produce as much as we can of our vegetable needs.

Fun enough I hear you on this one Denob, I am doing a major flex on the farm in some ways a well and for sure will be expanding our gardens in a big way over the next couple years. The price of everything is going up at the store but fruit, and fresh veggies are very strongly going up and I think its going to just keep going that way.

I am lowering my meat production and increasing my garden production ratio's.. I am still finding balance in regards to my milk and milk products levels.

Peppercorn, we just got a hit with a storm that dumped 1 and half inches of rain on the farm in 20 min. Here and then gone..

on the other hand that was the best view of have seen in how the water is going to collect and move in our new front year without the big trees and that was good information to have.

The price of everything is going up at the store but fruit, and fresh veggies are very strongly going up and I think its going to just keep going that way.

I think so. I have already reconsidered my attached green house I started, it will have to be bigger to include gardening and firewood storage, and I will have to either get my well going again or run a line out to the duck pond to ensure lots of water for gardening. I didnt ramp up my watering as fast as I should have and first the heat hit the garden hard, then it was whipsawed by real cool overnight lows, and all this smoke could not have helped. Just these little things have really taken a toll on production, even my potatoes are doing lousy. I have seen trees around here that not only has their leaves already turned yellow but they have fallen completely off and its still Aug??

I was driving around today with the radio on, and on some phone in gardening show it seemed like everyone calling in was complaining about their gardens, either how slow things were growing or how little production. The gardening expert they had on was attributing this largely to the persistant smoky conditions we have had all summer.

I did notice this year that berries when washed seemed dirtier than in previous years, or so I thought, maybe it is from the smoke.

I think there is a clear connection between the smoke and the poor crop. It’s as if when had no sunlight for weeks on end!

It just occurred to me I havnt hit float in a long time, this smoke has knocked solar power way down, its like October sunshine wise, so its not just gardening that's taken a hit.

I just went and looked at Edmontons on line array and compared Augusts production to previous years and its way down with the worst days for August recorded this year when compared to previous years. August 12 the 3 kw array produced just 500whrs, not enough to run a fridge. It took until Oct 25 last year before we hit such a low number, this is leaving me thinking this type of smoke is a serious problem for solar power! as well as plants.