Hot Enough For Ya?

I have lost count of the number of extremely hot and humid days we have had in my part of northern New Jersey, part of the New York City metropolitan area, this week. Four? Five? Does it matter when the prediction is for more of the same?

I suppose temperatures 10 degrees above the normal for this time of August and humidity more likely in a tropical rain forest than the former temperate zone that is New Jersey is a good thing - compared with killing floods once again striking Louisiana a few short years after Hurricane Katrina.

How bad has it been? So bad that finally, after four years of working at home in an office that faces southwest, MH and I bought curtains and rods and he spotted and assisted me as I installed them all. Yes, I used a power drill. Yes, I stood atop a step ladder hoping I would not topple over. Yes, I used a level to make sure everything was straight.

Office curtains Aug. 2016 (Margo D. Beller)

It was only this morning I realized the patterns don't exactly match. However, the room is dark and helping the AC and fan make it cooler.

The heat and humidity have not stopped the goldfinches and chickadees from visiting the dwindling thistle seed in the sock feeder. I have not been able to stand on the enclosed porch for very long, even with a fan on, to see if the refreshed hummingbird feeder is drawing anything, although I notice the joe-pye weed is flowering and that has brought the bees.

Meanwhile, the same heat and humidity that makes me feel like the walking dead until I put the house AC on is doing wonderful things to the plants I have outside in the sun and on that enclosed porch.

The cannas, which are tropical plants, have grown large and their foliage is bigger than dinner plates. They are also sending up flower shoots, red trumpets that will be attractive to hummingbirds and others. The orchid I keep on the back porch has been loving the humidity and showing me its three white flowers all summer, and the Chinese evergreen is sprouting new leaves, something it doesn't do much when it is inside for the winter in a heat-dried house.

But it is the peppers that have really thrived.

I have one plant I planned to keep alive over the winter inside until I discovered it was infested with white flies. It got moved to the one sunny spot on the enclosed porch until it became too cold, at which point the worst foliage was removed and it was brought back inside and kept in a dim corner apart from the other plants until I could finally put it back in its usual sunny outside spot - at which point the temperature dropped. So this plant has been through a lot and I finally cut off the top of it and hoped for the best.

Italia peppers, Aug. 2016 (Margo D. Beller)

Well, below are two of the three fruits I have picked from this plant once the peppers turned red. (This is a sweet pepper and gets sweeter when redder.) The top pepper is what I usually get, most summers. The bottom is a monster that is the biggest I've ever grown.

Peppers, even sweet peppers like these, like it hot. I'm not sure if the humidity is helping them directly but the nightly thunderstorms we've been having during this period have kept down the white flies and the aphids that usually bother my other plants.

At the farm markets, the tomatoes have started coming in and I have several on the window sill to ripen. The zucchinis are huge and somehow, despite the heat, there is still lettuce and cucumbers and even rainbow chard to be had.

The people who don't believe in global warming say, "It's summer. Get over it." Those who see this tropical weather as unnatural hope it doesn't foretell a return of the polar vortex and above-average snow this winter, as some predict.

As usual, there is good and bad with everything. So as the plants thrive, I wilt.