Early Winter Coming? ...and Food Shortages?

Originally posted by virraszto
Worst tomatoes ever this year! And this is the year I picked to grow over 100 tomato plants. Out of 8 zuke and squash plants, only 1 squash has grown. Cukes did ok for the first couple weeks, then the plants all dried and withered up.

Bad year for gardening for sure.

Ditto that here in the Southeast. This is the first year in five that we haven't shared our yield with all of our neighbors and co-workers. It was kind of demoralizing. Even my flowers seemed to whither right in the ground. And that has nevah happened, even in the drought.

As for the leaves, they are turning and falling early but they did last year too - and we had an early fall and a colder than typical winter.

I am pretty sure that poor tomato plant you posted has been a delectable dish for a tomato horn worm. Those buggers!

Originally posted by hadriana
My dad - who is 73 and has been gardening his whole life as has a green ARM, gave up.

I'm noticing A LOT of that as I drive around the metro ATL area. Gardens just straight up abandoned. I fought the good fight and had the same results, wish I had given up sooner...

[edit on 17/8/2010 by kosmicjack]

I haven't noticed any signs of an early winter.

One of the signs to watch for here is the animals start their winter coat a couple months before cold weather.

Our goats, cow and bull have sleek hair with no signs of winter growth.

Haven't noticed acorns falling in abundance either. The squirrels are not hiding nuts and acorns yet.

I will come back to this thread and note any changes I see.

Good thread. S&F

Very interesting, i have noticed a few things myself, fisrt let me say i am in the Ottawa Canada area. This year i planted all my vegatables in pots.. the tomatoe seedlings I bought form the green house have been producing pretty good, every 2 or 3 days i go out and have at least 6 red ones.... the thing is the tomatoes have no seeds or very little, the taste is well just a bit off... i also planted some tomatoes that we started from seeds of other tomatoe plants from previous years, these are still all green so i am not sure how they will turn out.
My beans plants look great, tonnes of flowers but very little producers, we have only had 1 really good meal of them, usually i have so many i give them away, not this year..
The cucumbers are just so so, a few here and there but not like it usually is. at first we started getting some then all the flowers dried up and just left a little brown or yellow cucumber, not even close to big enought to eat, so i cut these all off, it almost seems cucumbers are over, even though they usually grow for at least another month.
Anyway i just thought it was cause we planted in pots and not in the ground directly, even though we faithfully water at least once a day sometimes 2 or 3 if its really hot.
And some of our maple trees are starting to change colors already... way to early.
anyway thats my 2 cents worth if its worth anything!


[edit on 17-8-2010 by lightmere]

Hmmm,. Sounds to me like you all should be stocking up some food,.
Maybe go to the farmers market and get some canning supplies.

I am sure this will be just the beginning then, if you all have had such poor yields

Originally posted by kosmicjack
I'm noticing A LOT of that as I drive around the metro ATL area. Gardens just straight up abandoned. I fought the good fight and had the same results, wish I had given up sooner...

You gave up?! Did it not cross your mind to adapt? Climate change is a challenge to the gardener certainly, but it is also an opportunity to experiment and find out what will grow under the new constraints. Spend next year studying the elemental effects on your garden, let it go fallow, that'll do it more good than anything and then see what grows naturally, that will help you to know what types of plants will thrive and which areas are particularly rich in natural nutrients. Nettles for example are a good indicator of nitrates. Either way, you give up, and nature will take over, learn from what it shows you, then begin again.

Here in Minnesota its like we are in a whole new summer. On the 14th it no longer felt like I was breathing soup in an oven. Since then it has been nice and cool and the humidity has been normal.

I got suspicious. I sure hope this isn't an early winter, but I think I smell a bit of winter in the air.

[edit on 17-8-2010 by Student X]

reply to post by KilgoreTrout


You know what!!?? You're totally right of course.

You have inspired me for the next round. My peppers did do great. I'll look into what thrives in similar conditions.

I mean, the garden is there. I may as well tend it and produce...something.

I have a wide variety of fruits and vegetables. This year my two peach trees were unusual in timing. My 'Sam Houston' who normally matures early in Late May to June waited until late July, almost two months off. My 'Babcock' seems to be fairly close and is fruiting now.

I am in the Desert Southwest. I planted 50+ tomato plants, half a variety of Cherry called 'Pink Pearl', and half a variety of a large potato-leaf tomato similar to 'Brandywine' called 'Rainy's Maltese'. My plants thrived and each plant is taller than 6ft. The Cherries are abundant but the large ones are no where to be found. I may have one fruit, plenty of blooms, but nothing that is taking. I think they are waiting for cooler weather to set fruit.

I had this trouble before with tomatoes and one year when the first frost of the Winter came and took out all my plants I was left with nothing but green tomatoes. Fortunately I learned to use ripened apples and bananas next to them and they all ripened and they made the most wonderful sauce. I was so pleased to have my cupboards full after thinking it was a total loss.

Something is off, I can tell with both my fruits and my flowers. The intensity of the Sun is more than just hot, as I can water something and in less than a day the ground is cracking open. I lost so much this year.

My latest crop to come to fruit are my Almond trees, the pods have split since yesterday and now in a few days they will begin to drop out of the trees. I lose them if I wait because it doesn't take long before the squirrels find them. Two season ago I had 10 pounds of Almonds, I am hoping to double that this year. This should be a good year for Pecans too, I typically gather over 100 pounds of Pecans.

I think next year will be the real challenge!

That Might be damage from ground-levevel ozone or ethanol emissions. witsendnj.blogspot.com...
This kind of damage is everywhere. Its scary.

Originally posted by Greensage The intensity of the Sun is more than just hot, as I can water something and in less than a day the ground is cracking open.

This is crucial, IMHO.

Here in GA we had a drought for 5 years. During that time we moved into a new home and had to do all of the landscaping. We spent several years planting and struggling to maintain our shrubs and trees. But that was easier and more predictable than just trying to maintain my gardens this year, even after the drought had already ended.

Reply to OP:

Calgary, here. And I've been all around the west coast this summer visiting family. Here's just some of what I've heard:

-My family in Port Alberni, BC: "Worst year since we started" (they grow hops)

-My family in Nanaimo and Victoria BC: "Weirdest weather I've ever seen in 15 years living on the Island" (Backyard vegetable gardens

-My Dad in Calgary: "Geez, I dunno what everyones' problem is, my tomatoes are doing fine" (He has a bit of a green thumb, =P)

-My friend David, from Saskatchewan: "Only 25-40% of the crops are going to come in this year"


As a gardener and someone who closely follows the weather, I can tell you that this has been one of the strangest growing years I can remember. We've gotten enough rain, enough heat - enough everything! But it's all just somehow managed to show up at the wrong times.

Starting in the spring, we had an early thaw, and HOT weather in february. And then a wicked blizzard. Same thing again in march, everything started to get green and bud, and then two wicked storms killed it all. And again.

All summer long it's been severe weather and two much rain, and when the sun finally comes out, it doesn't go away for weeks on end, and everything fries.


I'm not personally worried about food shortages, but I can tell you this will be a bad bad year for harvest. Prices for local fruit and veg will be up, that's for sure.

As for the winter... I think you're right on the money. Early winter, and a cold wet one at that. It's going to be nasty. I've personally given up on this year, and am already working at getting my gardens ready for next year, which hopefully will be a bit better.

Weird weather though, really weird.

I'm glad someone started a thread about it, because quite frankly, it's all anyone up here in Alberta can talk about!

reply to post by kosmicjack


It wasn't a tomato hornworm that did that, it was me. I trimmed off all the brown withered leaves and that was all that was left. I had one tomato plant that a tomato worm got to, but I yanked it off and got rid of it before it had time to do much damage. I check all my plants for tomato worms, bugs, etc every day. The Japanese beetles I save to feed to my toads at night.

About the only thing that did really well this year was my watermelon plants. This was the first year I've grown watermelon and so far I got three nice sized ones and several more to come.

Oh, and something I find really weird is all my volunteer tomato plants look beautiful. I have several volunteers and one of them started growing out of a bag of dirt and in two weeks time went from a seedling to a pretty darn big plant with a nice thick main stem. No tomatoes yet, but I'm sure they will be nice ones.

[edit on 17-8-2010 by virraszto]

Here in South West Michigan the geese are getting ready to head South but the weather is HOT. It'll be in the high 80's this next week. Crops are fine blueberries are great $$$$. Looks like a long winter will start in about 2 weeks perhaps 3.

Here in South West Michigan the geese are getting ready to head South but the weather is HOT. It'll be in the high 80's this next week. Crops are fine blueberries are great $$$$. Looks like a long winter will start in about 2 weeks perhaps 3.

Sorry triple post . Dang Comcast!!!

[edit on 17-8-2010 by mikellmikell]

Tulare/Kings County California. This is your bread basket, our backyard garden did just fine. Tons of tomatoes, cucumbers and squash but my family also runs orchards. Problem is the state cut our water off; to most of Kings county and much of Tulare county. The San Jaiquine River and the Saint Johns River didn't start flowing until June and stopped flowing about 2 weeks ago. Needless to say our orange trees, pistachio trees and olives are all in jepordy this season. Neighbors with grapes said their harvest was worst in many many years and vast swaths of land between I-99 and I-5 are nothing but dirt. Now we are hearing rumors of this "S 510" bill making it illegal to grow your own food. All I know is nearly half of your produce comes from California and they've been running amuck with our water for almost a full year now.

In Kansas City area.

It was a very wet June-July then turned hot. Not that unusual except one of coolest Junes. It has been off the scale with humidity all this summer.

In last week things have started to turn brown, grass, trees; again not unusual just about a month behind a normal summer for this area.

This June and July was like monsoon season with humidity in the 60-70% (dew points in upper 70's on many days). It was weird to have a morning low of 70 and fog, in Kansas City.

Last week, 103 degrees air temp, feels like 120. It was hot all week, today in 70's with, you guessed it, more rain.

Even the flowers my wife planted, in pots, died off but not from heat, but root rot from constant rain.

Wow. Thanks everyone. Great info.

RE: soil cracking - happens here too. Hours after a rain or watering. Also - the sun's effects have been right weird for past few years - leaves curl mid-day, and many leaves and fruit mutate. I swear it's the sun's rays doing it...

Will walk my dog, check out the neighbors gardens again, and get back to you all. ...Am hoping to borrow a camera and take pics of my little yard and gardens.

Hi, sofi, interesting thread.

SE Michigan here.
Tomatoes are thriving, more than we can eat, as usual. One plant is six feet high, same variety I've grown, never go this big.
Cukes are going crazy, plenty of fruit.

Tried pattypan squash, not enough female flowers, big disappointment.

Herbs thriving (dill, flat parsley, basil)

Out local county farmers market had plenty of produce last weekend and the new crop of local honey was available for sale. Apples are starting to be harvested.

Weather has been quite warm and very humid....more so than some years.

My peas and beans aren't doing very well, I think it's because of lack of sufficient pollination. Plenty of flowers but not enough seedpods.

malnutrition... wireless signals... I wonder what's killing the bees...

Next year I will try set up a beehive in my parents backyard and plant bee-friendly flowers on my apt. balcony and parent's yard to do my bit.

It's hard to keep active when it's so hot and muggy like it is now. I want to take a siesta but I have to pick myself up

I live in Southwestern BC, coastal climate. Winter won't hit us very hard in this corner.