The dog days of summer

Its that time of year where you get so busy with the routine tasks and trying to survive the intense heat and humidity, that you end up forgetting about everything else.

With our record high temperatures and fantastic daily downpours, I've been spending every spare moment away from work and family just trying to stay ahead of the weeds ! Yes, the picture is not a patch of weed invaded grass, but a huge patch of sweet potato vine patch invested with weeds. I haven't been able to salvage the situation and had to resort in spraying the whole are with weed killer.

Let me tell you its NOT pleasant working outside when its 99 F (37 C) with 80% humidity, yes last Sunday and Monday we broke all previous records, the heat index was 116 F (46 C) !

In Vero Beach a little north from here, they recorded 102 F also an all-time record.

Don't get me wrong, Ive been patiently waiting for the wet season and now that its here at last, its unbelievable how everything has taken off (including the venerable weeds). Last weekend I spent 2 hours spraying the weeds with glyphosphate, unfortunately being the budget gardener, I bought the cheapest brand and that means to be most effective you need to have a day of no rain. The day started out bright and sunny with no indication of rain. I finished spraying at 8AM, then out of nowhere we got a thunderstorm at 10AM and I'm sure it washed off most of the weed killer. Its been raining incessantly since then, so I guess I'm going to have to wait and see if the weeds are killed or not. At least the brand I bought was much cheaper, it makes up to 21 gallons and only cost $14. The other brand I normally buy starts at $19 and only makes 10 gallons at the strength required to kill the weeds on steroids (it is rain-fast in 20 minutes though).