Too Soon For Summer

Greenhouse Frame With 30% Shadecloth

Too Soon For Summer

The greenhouse top came off and was replace by a 30% shade cloth.  With the greenhouse cover on, the temperature was getting a bit hotter than the rest of the yard area.

Kind of a bummer, because it was helping to retain humidity a little more. With the wetted soil, the mini water garden and transpiration, the humidity is about 5% higher there than the rest of our yard area.  It is also about 5 or 6 degrees cooler than the rest of the area.

Or normal Phoenix temperatures are in the mid to high 80s and we are heading into the 90 degree weather already. Phew.  Some of these plants will have to be moved indoors when it breaks 100.

Phoenix, Arizona Climate Trends

This is also the time of year that we receive much less rain until the Monsoons come around...  And much longer days with the sun beating down on the little plants with a much lower humidity.  This is when the plants  start looking like they're passing out midday from heat stress.

June will be the absolute most tortuous month for us gardeners here, so we can slowly get started on getting stuff prepped to beat the heat.

But, back to the nicer April weather.

zWave Weather and Shade House Readings

After giving the now named shade house a watering on the soil and a spray down on the plant leaves the difference from our ambient temperature and the shade house temperature is noticeable.  The humidity sky rockets for a bit as well.

Making a regular study on this it may be a benefit to put a humidifier or timed misting system low to the ground.

Getting back to what is going on here this month.

What's Growin On In April

Fuyu Persimmon Blossom

The new persimmon tree has started blossoming.  The blossoms are so cute and many photos will be on the persimmon page.   We're learning about growing and training persimmons. I'm so looking forward to trying a persimmon, I haven't the heart to pick off the blossoms this year.  I'm not sure how harmful that is for the overall development.

We have a new purple honeysuckle plant, jasminum officionale (Poet's Jasmine), Attar of Roses, vanilla bean orchid, soursop and Phet Pakchung atemoya. We ended up replacing one of the Sicilian Sunshine Bay Laurel trees as the one started indoors completely failed. The replacement is quite robust!

We started a simple layer propagation of the Wisteria vine so that we can have our Cat-In-The-Hat duo, Thing One and Thing Two back. The original Thing One failed, and we're just going to clone up another one.

In The Hive

Honey Bee Hive

We haven't checked the hive for some time.  We've left them alone to completely fill up the full length of the 4 foot long top bar hive.

The bees kind of went cockeyed with the comb. This will make honey thieving a little harder when June comes around.

They have a lot of fresh comb, as indicated by the light coloring of the wax. There is some propolis deposited around many of the openings and the clear liquid honey is quite visible in the open cells.

Honey Bee hive

The bees still have so much emptiness left, we are not likely to get a split from the hive this year. maybe next year... We still have an open, unloved hive.