Posted on 08/05/2008 9:05:55 AM PDT by SJackson
My dogs monitor tomatos for ripeness. When they're ripe and no ones looking, they eat them. I'll start keeping track of the date.
That'll certainly add weight to the scientific consensus concerning man made global warming.
Here’s my contribution:
Last year there was a freeze in April. It got the peach blossoms. No peaches
This year there was a cool and rainy May, June, and early July. The heat racheted up in the past few weeks and there have been some solid hot nights (an old backyard gardener told me this was necessary for tomatoes, melons and summer fruits). Combined with the rainwater, Peaches.
I happen to participate in the Audubon CBC every year, but I don't do it for the "citizen science" of it. I, and just about every other counter I know, do it because we love birds and birding.
My advice? If you like to garden and keep records, do it because you like to garden and keep records. But, jeez, don't pretend you're doing something to save the planet.
Gardening PING!!!!!!!!!!
I wonder why farmers for the past hundred or so years didn't just write the date down?
Why bother planting corn “when the oak leaves are the size of a squirrels foot” when they could just use a set date?
Garden ping.
My garden shows no sign of global warming. It’s the same every year, I plant too early, then a cold snap comes and I cover everything up.
Then it gets really hot and I water everything.
We’ve actually had a lot of rain during early summer.
I’ve been getting lots of greenbeans and tomatos, once my freeper friends advised me on how to eradicate the blossom end rot. Been giving them to my Mom’s elderly neighbors.
I do have to add some lime, but the coop is out of it. I’ll do it before next planting season.
Observation: Not nearly as many raspberries on my backyard bushes this year. I suspect (through direct observation) that my kids are eating them.
Headline: Overpopulation is also leading to localized food shortages. Children hardest hit.
Every oldtimer I know used the “Farmers Almanac.”
They can tell you what to plant when the moon is full, etc. Amazingly it works.
Freeper Billhilly is a bird watcher too. Billhilly, meet flycatcher. Flycatcher, meet billhilly.
I’m far from an expert, but have enjoyed the birds using my feeders and birdhouses I put up this year.
I have a lot of birds of prey (big hoot owls, hawks, a few eagles) and those beautiful woodpeckers. I also have a lot of bats at night that swarm my motion lights and one street light we had put out here (otherwise nighttime would be pitch black).
That reminds me, I need to refill my hummingbird feeders. I also have a lot of hummers.
Not to mention no uniform standards of observation and self-selection of observers inclined to report changes they think are associated with globull wormening. . .
I used to do the Feeder Watch but I quit when I caught myself inflating numbers so I could be ‘Cool”. I would imagine a garden survey would be very subjective to the gardeners whims...
We’ve got some severe global cooling going on here in northwest Montana.
We had a bunch of snow on June 10th from which my tomatoes have not recovered. I have about three tomatoes. Last year I had dozens. No salsa for me this summer!
Last year 20 out of 30 days in July were above 95. This year, there were none. It’s actually getting into the mid 40’s at night and we have been about 80 during the day.
It’s been rather pleasant!
Exactly. "Sure, my azaleas bloomed late this year, but I reckon that's because I didn't water them as I ought to have, so that don't count. My tomatoes, on the other hand, are really doing fine. I'm gonna mark that done as a Global Warming factoid ..."
I guess you'll find a little of everything here.
Yes, we're a lonely bunch, we birders... ;)
LOL!
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