Heatwave has broken

Kubota RTV in its parking space. 

What a relief!  A couple of days ago, the heatwave broke. Yet, although it's cooler, we are having strange weather for these parts. Sunny, with passing showers, humid with thunderstorms in the afternoon, including lightning which has been so rare here. More like NJ than Eire. 

I'll take it. I was finally able to weed all over and to work in the polytunnel. Hurray! 

I have become a saviour of scores of butterflies that get caught in the polytunnel and can't find their way out. Such gentle creatures. Some don't even want to fly off right away. 

Ghost keeps me company like a puppy. She is so cute and so entertaining. She helps with the weeding but doesn't like when I steal her favourite grasses. She whacks me gently and tries to hold down the grass so I can't take it away. 

Everything is far behind this year. The grapes are minuscule. I'll need to thin them out as there are too many clusters. I left all the leaves for shade in the heat. But maybe as they grow, I'll have to trim back some leaves. 

In the polytunnel, we have installed an automatic watering system with soaker hose and smart timer. I found the smart timer in Lidl for €25, later on sale for €20 so I bought a second one. Programmable with an app, the frustrating setup (which requires a 'Zigbee compatible gateway' but only mentions it on the box in tiny type) took hours and got nowhere on the first try. Once I learned that a Zigbee compatible gateway is basically an IoT gadget available through Amazon for ~€20, I ordered one and had it delivered in two days with free Prime shipping. Then it was easy. We have it coming on for 10 minutes every 4 hours starting at 7 am. We'll be able to use the second one on the other side of the tunnel or out in the garden. 

We hired a 'gardener' for the rest of the garden who will come once a week to trim bushes, strim edges, mow the lawn, blow leaves and trim up trees. Basically, he'll do the tidying up while we concentrate on the planting and management of the vineyard and orchard. That will make a huge difference. He's very neat. 

I am loving this 'room'

Beans and courgettes have come up in record time

Soaker hose in place and a few things planted.

Self-heal has created a carpet of purple on the promenade

Half the floor is complete.

The smart timer

Wildflower plugs in all the disturbed ground
and a hydrangea in front

Wildflowers and another hydrangea in front

Back doors now open all the way.

New shelving in place. 

Hot, hot, hot!

Digital Microscope image of Solaris grape cluster

We've had temperatures approaching 30C for about a week now. No wind. No rain except a few quick but drenching thunderstorms with lightning. That's very unusual for Ireland and more reminiscent of New Jersey. We have not watered the vineyard. The Rondo and other vines are doing reasonably well. The Solaris are hugely disappointing. Many of the buds have turned black and appear dead. None of the buds has bloomed yet. Could they be dying of drought? Or is it disease? So disappointing but then many things are in the garden this year. I don't know how farmers do it. 

Alex mowing the vineyard 

That's a loaner cutter not the one we bought

Navigating the equipment is not easy

The vineyard before mowing

Solaris grape cluster

Temps hit 30C in the shade at our house

 

Grapes not happy this year but vines still okay

 

Nice looking Rondo cluster, but late.

Meanwhile, we've made great progress in the polytunnel. Half of the tunnel floors has mesh sheeting and gravel. The first two beds are partially planted and everything is already coming up. We've gotten a smart timer for the soaker hoses and programmed it for short intervals of repeat watering throughout the day. The only thing is, we can't go in and work on stuff as the temperatures are reaching 48C inside. One of my potted plants has cooked. The doors are open but even the fan, which I tried didn't help. (BTW, there has been a run on fans in Ireland. You can't buy any now.) 

The RTV (Rough Terrain Vehicle) is working out quite well for Alex and he's quickly becoming used to manoeuvring it. He's mowed the vineyard twice and the lower field as well so no more docks. He's also using it to bring stuff back and forth from the boat dock so it's being very useful. 

I've been kayaking or swimming or both every day in this heat. It's just impossible to work in the garden or in the greenhouse and polytunnel when it's this hot. At least the water has warmed up some so swimming is reasonable. It won't last. It's supposed to break tomorrow. 

We've even switched from down comforter to blanket for the first time since moving here in 2008. At least it's not over 100F which they are enduring in the Pacific NW. 

Hot on the Quay

Thunderstorm approaching

Harvest moon reflected in the Bay

Laying the mesh

Laying the gravel

Very nice

Half the floor is done. Can't do more in a heatwave.

Vodka and tonic for refreshment

Lookin' good from the 'residential area'

And Alex's RTV fits in nicely. 

A slightly confused thermometer

Candles do not do well in polytunnels in a heatwave

Stuff growing in the beds

Getting out on the water to stay cool

And picnics on the islands

The vineyard nicely mowed

Buds are flowering, finally!

 

See the flower spikes sticking out?

I have been checking daily if the vines have flowered. It's been so cold this year. Yesterday, I finally saw evidence of flowers on the Rondo vines, but none on the Solaris yet. In fact, the Solaris seem to have a few buds dying off -- turning black and remaining tiny. Last year, the Rondo started blooming on the 8th of July. This year, not until the 13th. 

It's been a bad year in the food-producing part of the garden. The cold snap after everything started to grow stopped many in their tracks. I think we have two crabapples. Most of the cherries shrivelled and fell off. We have a good number of pears on one tree but the second looks like it's dying. There's definitely a fungus or something affecting the fruit trees and the roses this year, and the aphids were unstoppable. It's so frustrating. 

The new Kubota RTV is working out well. It can mow the vineyard efficiently and effectively. Alex even mowed the rest of the field as it had lots of stuff the donkeys don't like to eat. It also helped move topsoil from the trailer to the polytunnel, although it couldn't pull a full trailer load - but even Lilly, our VW Passat, strained under the full load. We needed two trailer loads of topsoil at €50 each to fill the raised beds. Fortunately, Alex spotted an ad in the local paper for 'quality screened topsoil'. It turned out to be at the MayoCoCo Landfill and it was not screened. Full of shale but good loamy soil. I've been picking through the rocks as we fill the boxes. Apparently, good topsoil is very hard to get here now. 

We are making good progress there. It's getting exciting. I've planted out some of the remaining lettuce seedlings and some tomato plants. I hope they weren't too stressed waiting for transplantation to recover. We have a lot of learning ahead of us as we learn what works in a polytunnel and when. 

Plant sale

 

Third heatwave hits California

Miguel Ramos, of Salem, Oregon, reaches up to pull the leaf canopy over pinot noir grapes on Thursday, July 8, 2021, to shade the fruit from the sun, at Willamette Valley Vineyards in Turner, Ore. (AP Photo/Andrew Selsky)

People started to prepare for the third record-breaking heatwave of the season throughout the West coast. Workers in several West Coast wineries are trimming less of the leaf canopy to keep the grapes shaded and prevent sunburn.

Temperatures have soared into the triple digits in California, Arizona and Nevada. Hundreds of deaths have been recorded as attributable to the heat. OSHA adopted a heatwave standard to protect outdoor workers from heat-related illness. Oregon and Washington were among the first states to adopt the new OSHA emergency rule for employees working in extreme heat.

Meanwhile, in the Atlantic, TS Elsa, which had been the first hurricane of the season, fizzled as it brought heavy rains and flooding to the US East Coast. Compared to last year, it has been a most unusually quiet season in the Atlantic. It's almost like waiting for the fuse to reach the powder keg. 

Scientists say human-induced climate change is definitely what is causing the West Coasts' disastrous heat and drought. Meanwhile, scientists also believe that anthropomorphic climate change was also at fault of the 'catastrophic' French frost that decimated one-third of the crop in Burgundy, Champagne and the Loire valley. The frost also affected our growing region and everything is about a month late  this year. 

For us, it's been an unusually cold and dry early summer, so the grapes still have not flowered. But everything started growing exponentially last week and the grass definitely benefited from its first trim in a while. Alex is getting used to the new Kubota UTV which purrs along quietly at slow speed. The mower machine is separately petrol-powered and very annoyingly loud. I hope the one we ordered is more environmentally friendly. But now that we have this UTV, Alex has mowed the vineyard, the field, and even deployed the lobster pots using the UTV to deliver them to our boat, Moytura. And the benefits are already evident. 😎

Today's acquisition

The new equipment ('toys') arrived. Just in the nick of time. The grass in the vineyard is about as tall as my legs. Ghost won't go in that field anymore. She'd disappear. 

The quad is gorgeous. Kubota. It fits in the polytunnel. 

The grass mower is borrowed as it's hard to get new equipment in right now as a result of Covid and Brexit. It may take weeks to get the one Alex ordered. Scary looking thing. 

The donkeys stopped by and I gave them a little treat today. Carrots! They were happy. 

Fires & drought plague the US west coast

Russian River

A major heatwave hit the entire west coast of America last week and was even worse than predicted when a heat dome settled in.  It exacerbated what was already one of the most severe droughts in the region, prompting experts to warn that this could be the worst wildfire season ever. 

The Salt Fire north of Redding California near the Oregon border has consumed more than 11,000 acres and numerous homes and structures. But there are many more fires raging in all the states affected. Authorities warned not to set off fireworks for July 4th celebrations. 

The Russian River Valley where much of California's wine industry is situated is under extreme pressure. The Russian River serves as the main source of drinking water for more than 600,000 people in Sonoma, Mendocino and northern Marin counties. Some of the richest farmland in the nation is being left fallow because the water is running out. 

But it's not just California. Oregon's Williamette Valley suffered unprecedented extreme heat during the heat wave. No one knows how grapes will fare under these conditions. They are hoping that it is early enough in the season for the grapes to be able to withstand it, but Pinot Noir is particularly sensitive to heat. Most of the region grows cool climate grapes, and temperatures were 25 to 30 degrees above normal. 

This is what climate change looks like.