We are in a gradual but accelerating cool-down into the next Ice Age.
10 years from now you will have forgotten about such things as orange juice, and no matter how you trim your apples and pears they will no longer bear more than a couple of dozen fruit.
Invest now in blueberries and lingon berries.
When things got tight about 3 years ago, I gave up on OJ and other juices. I made a decision to get my vit. C from peppers and tomatoes.
Fortunately this area grows Texican poverty food really well.
The down side is that I graduated at the top of my class from culinary school, and the major poverty foods (mexican, asian, italian) start to suck after a while.
The weekend before 4th of July, I'm going to have a proper 6 or 7 course meal in the style of Escoffier.
Once, this year. If I can manage it.
/johnny
Weather variability is larger during sunspot minimums and maximums. (the pattern was first observed about 200 years ago.) We are showing signs of coming out of the longest and deepest sunspot minimum I have witnessed. Past that, generalized long term weather prediction is not reliable.
Last year was a terrible gardening year. But my plum and persimmon crop were the best I remember. The garden problem was unusually "cool nights", and unusually wet conditions. This year is beginning on the opposite side, very dry, but still slightly cooler than normal.
I ordered 28 new fruit trees for the family orchard on Monday, and along with them 4 southern highbush blueberry plants. Next week will have a busy couple of days as I plant them. And a few of years of nursing the new plants until we see results.