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At the old garden, I had 2 big trash cans that I kept filled with water. The cans got sun in the afternoon & the water warmed up. When I planted zinnias, I used a watering can with a sprinkler head & watered the rows with that warm water. The seeds came up within days.

Here, I have a small electric on-demand water heater in the shop bathroom so I used warm water on the zinnia seeds I planted. Again, they came up quickly. They’re still pretty small so I’m using tepid water rather than shocking them with cold.

Whatever was eating my basil quit once it started gaining some height. The produce section basil, in the shop bathroom window, has grown to at least 2 feet! I cut them all back and took the cuttings & put them between the baby zinnia rows. The basil smell is heavenly & I am hoping the deer will smell it & think ‘nah, not something I want to eat!’ I always protected the zinnias at the old garden until they were 6-8 inches & then never had a problem with deer eating them. They might eat tender young zinnia plants and we chased a herd of 4 or 5 out of the yard last night so that made me nervous.

I never gave it much thought until I met my neighbor buddy and he had prior cow mineral buckets in his garden and filled them with water. He would scoop from them to water his plants individually. Didn't want that cold well water for his maters.

He's also not into weeding and didn't see why he'd want to water his weeds using a sprinkler.

I'm not really sure which one was the priority though. I had heard about black drip getting hot but never heard any details about the effects.

Kinda makes sense when looking at my soil temps today with 98 degrees 2 inches down -- 80 at 5 inches. My current tank temp of 80 ain't nothing compared to well or tap water that's 55-65 degrees or a fresh tank about the same. I guess it depends on how much cold water you're putting into the hot soil too. I'm not worried about drip, drip, drip now.

Got my mulching done including covering the drip line, so that water should be down in the 80s from now on and the soil being under mulch, ought to bring that top 2 inches down from 98 frikkin degrees.

Here we put a lot into seed tray temps but don't think much about soil temps which can and should actually be cooler and I've never set a heat mat for 98 frikkin degrees. And then direct sowing into 98 --- nuts.

I'm going to sow replacement seeds for what didn't germinate and see if the results are different.

I mulched the bed with maters and peppers with alfalfa hay. Some high dollar compressed stuff a neighbor didn't need. That along with that bed being loaded with goat manure, I don't think I need any amendments for a Fall planting. Alfalfa is a nitrogen source. Gave some to the new goat momma too. Both momma goats seem more attentive and momma-like with these twins.

As far as questions about a subject like irrigation water temps, I'm loving perplexity.ai, AI generated answers. It's my default browser's search engine.

It was nice getting some things done today. When I first went back to work after having sat on my butt for 9 months, I had an excuse to now sit on my butt for my two days off to rest. Then swapping to 4 - 10 hour days, kind of had an excuse to sit on my butt for the day after and day before the work week but didn't do much on the middle day off either. I also had zero to spend and doing things costs money, period. I was falling into a lazy trap though and broke free today. Having a $150 waterpump to put on and being able to spend $35 today to do it made a big difference.

Haha - I was out (and then “out” with an early crash to bed) yesterday afternoon & evening. Now I’m up, way too early...

So, Pollard has beaten me to it and covered the irrigation temperature issue pretty well. (There’s a pun in there somewhere!) I do avoid watering from a “hot hose” (run until lukewarm) this time of year. We get some really cold downbursts in t’storms sometimes, but generally I’m more worried about the storm itself, or, really cold precipitation. (Hail!)

I save rainwater when practical, but, I really need a dedicated setup and large barrels to do that effectively after the spigot turns off (usually in early July, for us.)

Poor germination, I suspect from uncontrolled soil temperature is my biggest problem. I have the damdest problems getting Opo (or snake gourds), for example, to germinate. When the soggy soils killed off all my Opo except one in a pot (doing well), I tried starting some more, but not one has germinated. Too warm for them now @ my upstairs “plants window”, I guess, even though it’s a “tropical” plant... The already in small starter pots tomatoes are mostly doing well though. (My determinate varieties usually fizzle out in August, so, I’m going to try planting some late to see if I get any harvest in Sept.)

I collect and use rainwater in the spring, but really need a dedicated setup and large barrels to do that effectively, esp. after the spigot turns off - usually in early July, for us.

Of note / in the other direction: I’m convinced now that Roundup works much better with rainwater than our hard well water. Apparently, minerals in the well water tend to neutralize glyphosate-based herbicides.