Share whats happening in your hometown, region or country that might not be in the focus of international media!
Please provide a general location. For Example:
Location: Southern Ireland
Picture: Cerberus heatwave over the Iberian peninsula and southern France
Location: Massachusetts, USA
First credible flood warnings in my area.
Some context: The region in which I live, after catastrophic flooding in the middle of the 20th century, domesticated and tamed all of the rivers. We have a system of dams and other flood control that mostly keeps our water levels very stable. New Englanders do not understand how artificial the stability of our water levels is, and the kinds of floods we used to have here before all the dams were built to make sure that never happens again.
But now we’re getting rainfall like never before, and it’s not like our dams are any better maintained than our bridges are - and our bridges are a known scandal.
Location: suburbs of Chicago, IL
While I usually live in NC, I am visiting family. In this particular brand of suburbia, every single day the streets are alive with the sound of gas powered lawn mowers and leaf blowers. While I watch the news drone on about petty celebrity drama, the graph breaking upward trend of ocean temperatures elicits barely a word from any news source, and people carry on paying to burn gasoline to make already short grass shorter and move the cuttings around.
Location: Southeast United States.
My local gardening groups are full of posts for failed or unusual crops. Tomatoes not turning red, peppers wrinkling. I’ve lost a lot out of my garden too, it’s alarming but I’ve been expecting this since 2017.
Culturally most people are only complaining about the heat, memes and jokes, the whatnot.
I’m not clear on how many people understand how serious this is. It still feels like people are largely business as usual.
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Location: Czechia
Absolutely no bugs or birds. It’s on the decline for some years but it’s just earily quiet this summer.
Do you mean that literally? As in no birds what so ever? If so, that’s just so incredible sad.
I’m not sure if you’re being sarcastic, sure I’ve seen some pigeons and heard a bird here and there. But sitting on my balcony, I just hear silence (and some traffic) where birdsong used to almost drown out traffic noise. Two trees in front of my home always had several bird nests, nothing this year. I haven’t seen a single sparrow or woodpecker which used to be common. And I’m barely seeing any insects on places that used to be full of them so I guess there’s just nothing left to eat.
I’m not sure if you’re being sarcastic
I was serious, I’m sorry if I came across as rude.
And I’m barely seeing any insects on places that used to be full of them so I guess there’s just nothing left to eat.
Thank you for sharing this sad news. The reason I asked is that I live in Europe as well, and if things are this severe in Central Europe, than pretty soon the shitshow will come for the rest of us as well. Luckily birds and insects are still going strong here in western parts of Norway, for now that is. Still we’re seeing more jellyfish in the fjords and less fish than before. We’re also experiencing more ticks than earlier years. Things are looking bleak indeed.
Hello neighbor. I’ll be vacationing in the Haugesund area this year.
Things are slightly better in Southern Germany than Northern, and Eastern Germany is declining slower still. The good part is that it’s partly reversible if you restructure agricultural landscapes. Though migrating birds cover a large area, where isolated national policies don’t help that much.
I’ll be vacationing in the Haugesund area this year.
Hi there, if you like hiking you’re in for a treat, just remember to pack your rain gear and prep for cool/cold weather. I live further north in the Molde area and funnily enough my neighbours are from Kiel and they left to get away from the crowdy area. Personaly I like it best in the southern parts of Germany and have been quite a lot in the Stuttgart, München and Ingolstadt area. Used to visit the Christmas market in Stuttgart before Covid, it was amazing.
Thanks! Give me a ring when you’re in Munich again.
Will do, ditto if you’re ever around Molde.
It depends now much industrial monocrop agriculture is nearby and how many local bird feeders are filled throughout the year. You can change the microenvironment in your own garden easily enough, but agricultural and environmental policy is harder to influence. Municipal level is usually where it ends.
Location: East Coast USA
I can’t be outside today because the air quality index is 118. Everything is blanketed in wildfire smoke haze from Canada. Huge swaths of the continent north of me is on fire. I wore a mask to do outside chores today, and can’t see myself getting outside to weed the garden in this. Plus the garden is struggling with the heat anyway.
Location: Northwest England
The weather has been mild wild lots of rain for the last few weeks. This is pretty normal for this time of year in my area. What isn’t normal is the regular torrential rain and thunderstorms every few days.
Thunderstorms usually happened a few times a year, not a few times a week. It’s so strange. Also the storms, usually, lightening, thunder, then a few minutes would go by before the next one. Now, it is constant, the flashes regular and the rumbling of thunder is constant with no breaks.
It is incredibly beautiful but not typical. I’ve only ever seen storms like this in Greece when I lived there.
Location: Central Germany
Cerberus heatwave mostly spared us here with only Saturday being a freakishly hot day (28°C --> 38°C temp jump for a day) but it showed me once again how badly prepared most older buildings are for what is to come.
We have been very lucky so far. It’s only a question of time before we’re hit by a heat dome like the one that wrecked BC.
I currently make about 100% of my power during the sunny days but it will take an upgrade and investment into a insular and black start capable system with a few kWh storage buffer to be able to run AC when the grid is down. Not cheap and will take some planning.
Location: Florida
In the past it was normal after driving the highways to have the front of your car covered in insect splatterings, especially during the two love-bug seasons per year. There was a small industry for bug wash, but nets, etc. After a long drive from one end of the state to the other you have to stop and wash the front of your car off just to see. Now, nothing. Nothing at all. First the tiny things go, then the small things, then the food.
It unfortuablty also triggers the usual idiots here [as in: here in Germany] that think this is the navel of the world and are shrugging heat waves in other places of because their stupid asses are not sweating. Behaviour like this is so fucking frustrating and one of the main reasons I am very skeptical about humankind surviving in the long run.
The only thing that will curtail the conspicuous consumption here is poverty. (Un)fortunately that is coming, fast. And a nasty side effect will be dysfunctional political landscape. Wagenknecht should do her thing already, if only to limit the damage.
Location: Offline
It’s been several weeks since my last post. In that time, the garden has come along nicely. As a refresher, it’s a first year garden built on poor soil that I’m building up.
My irrigation canals are preventing pooling, and seem to be distributing the rain well. We’ve had bouts of erratic weather, but in between those bouts it has normalised a bit compared to the spring. I’ve had to continue manually watering (no auto irrigation set up yet, and not consistent enough rain). A lot of the young trees that I planted early in the year have died. A few are hanging on. One is doing quite well, but it’s only ornamental.
The corn is all over the place in terms of height, but maturing well nonetheless. I’ll get quite a few ears - I might even have enough to eat a few, haha.
My sunflowers are decent. The heads are maybe a bit small but these are new varieties, and there are numerous heads per most plants. I have one very tall sunflower that hurts my neck to look up at.
Two types of buckwheat, which are my first time growing but they seem to be quite at home pretty much anywhere I plant them. Same with one of my amaranth varieties. My barley varieties both did nicely as well.
The squash are miserable but flowering anyway. Peas are thriving in tilled and lightly amended amended soil. Tomatoes are finally hitting a growth spurt and I have one that has started producing, but the sprouts were temperamental about soil so I only have a handful of plants.
I think the drought was not good for my soil bacteria. I will have to continue adding more. I buried some used grocubes full of fertilizer and inoculants awhile back, and I have a massive cabbage growing there. That whole area is particularly productive, so I’m sure I need to amend the other areas a lot more still.
Grape leaves are being eaten alive but the fruits are slowly developing. I have a huge muscat plant that was here when I got the place, but it has never produced fruit. I will work on that one for next year. If nothing else it might make nice grafting stock.
My hops are miserable. I had one get eaten to the stump twice, so I potted it and brought it inside, and it is thriving. I’m going to need to improve the area where they are, and probably trim some trees to allow for more light. I don’t think I’ll harvest any this year except maybe from the inside plant (which has taken over my exercise bike lol).
Green lettuce did well. Red lettuce sprouted and went straight to bolting. I think I planted them at different times, though.
The peppers (many varieties) are not really doing to great. Some of them were discount store buys, although a few were grown from seed.
A whole bunch of things never sprouted. Berry plants might need more acidity still. The new fruit trees are mostly still hanging in there - more than most of the tree types - but not all of them. Rhubarb is a bit sad. I lost my potatoes somewhere under the grass.
Most of the seeds will be collected for later seasons. Some remnants will be allowed to spread naturally. The leftover annual plant matter will be used for mulch and compost. Perennials will be left and will likely get covered in late autumn for protection.
Not a ton of pollinators, but some. Loads and loads of bitey bugs. I have 4 or 5 bottles of anti-itch creams sitting next to my desk.
All in all, something seems to have changed in the weather and it must have made the garden happy. That was a pleasant surprise. Hopefully we can make it through to harvest without any major losses, and I’ll count this year as an unexpected success. It started rough and I see crops are failing all around. I know the only reason my crop grew is because of diligent watering, but lots of farms don’t have that option.
Thanks for keeping these coming. It sounds like you could profit from splitting your plot into experiments, including baseline for control.
How is your soil pH doing? Have you considered paying for soil analytics once to check for potential problems?
I’ll be adding some wild type sunchokes to my grass roof this autumn. The last time I used commercial cultivars which became a pest but never flowered.
Most of the new plants I add are eaten alive by snails and bugs. Jerusalem artichokes seem to thrive and bear fruit, which is rare.
It sounds like you could profit from splitting your plot into experiments, including baseline for control.
I have a few informal experiments going, but unfortunately I did not have the time to do anything like that properly this year.
How is your soil pH doing?
Alkaline. I’m working on bringing it down. It’s going to take awhile to get the whole area adjusted. It’s not awful, though, the berries are hanging in there well enough.
Have you considered paying for soil analytics once to check for potential problems?
Yes but I’m poor on cash and poor on time so I haven’t done it yet. I’ve done some home tests so I have a basic idea of the major nutrients - severely deficient, except a few spots with potash content. I had very little success with growing anything in the local soil. Some things are in entirely outside-sourced soil, and a lot of other things are in a mix of the original soil and the imported soil.
my grass roof this autumn
I’ve always wanted a green roof (unless you mean a thatched grass roof - I’m going to assume not, haha). I’m not sure my current place is ideal for one, so I will probably end up just painting the roof with one of those white coatings that reflect the heat. I’m also thinking that a reinforced roof would be rather wise in a state of collapse…
Most of the new plants I add are eaten alive by snails and bugs.
That’s always annoying. I have pest problems but they aren’t that destructive. Not much you can do at the sprout stage, except to sprout them outside of the ground and transplant them when they’re a bit bigger.
