Southern Hemisphere Growing Season 22/23

[cbmnz]

2 hours ago, Tyrone said:

The images coming out of NZ are incredible at the moment. Large amounts of devastation. Gabrielle won't be forgotten. 

Here is a well put together gallery  https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/484213/widespread-damage-cyclone-gabrielle-in-pictures

The amount of large trees down just around local neighbourhood drawfs any event I can remember.

[Tyrone]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/gallery/2023/feb/14/cyclone-gabrielle-batters-new-zealand-in-pictures

Pictures probably don’t do it the remotest bit of justice. It’s hard to catch the reality of the situation in a picture, yet some of these pictures are incredible. 

[PalmCode]

My power went off again 10pm monday  just came back on noon today. I didnt have any major damage, just a few fallen branches.  It flooded  here, luckily not as bad as the last one 3 weeks ago but it was getting close. 

[PalmCode]

Its nice to have the sun back out today. My bananas here made it through the storm fine. I had to tie  this one, flowering, up to a post before the storm as its on a decent lean. I hope it holds it long enough for the fruit to develop. Its been a very good growing season for them here but  not so  much for my vegetables and other fruit trees, with all this rain.

[Tyrone]

I really feel for you guys over in NZ. You can't get a break. Massive flooding in Auckland a few weeks back, then a direct hit by a massive cyclone, a 6.3 earthquake yesterday near Wellington, and now there's a severe weather warning for thunderstorms, flooding and hail around the Bay of Plenty. Unbelievable. I hope things calm down for you guys very soon. 

[Cindy Adair]

So sorry for New Zealand. The dramatic photos remind me of what I eventually saw (after power returned in 6 months) following hurricane María in Puerto Rico 2017.

My heart goes out to all those affected.

[Tyrone]

This summer although mild has been a typical Mediterranean summer this year. Virtually zero rainfall (probably a record) but no heat waves. Nothing over 38C thankfully. Some years the summer is almost Oceanic with heavy rain bursts and thunderstorms, but not this year. I’m glad I have had irrigation. Nothing has skipped a beat in the garden despite the lack of rain. 

[Tyrone]

I think it's going to be a record year in the southern hemisphere. 

TC Freddy in the Indian Ocean a cat 5 cyclone formed near NW Australia and will travel all the way to Madagascar and hit hard, passing by or over Mauritius and Reunion Island. The distance it has travelled is a first for a storm that reached Cat 5 in the Indian Ocean.

https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2023/02/first-cat-5-of-2023-cyclone-freddy-weakens-to-cat-4-and-heads-toward-madagascar/

[Foxpalms]

2 hours ago, Tyrone said:

I think it's going to be a record year in the southern hemisphere. 

TC Freddy in the Indian Ocean a cat 5 cyclone formed near NW Australia and will travel all the way to Madagascar and hit hard, passing by or over Mauritius and Reunion Island. The distance it has travelled is a first for a storm that reached Cat 5 in the Indian Ocean.

https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2023/02/first-cat-5-of-2023-cyclone-freddy-weakens-to-cat-4-and-heads-toward-madagascar/

I have been following its progress on windy, it looks like unfortunately it will cause at lot of damage.

[Tyrone]

On 2/15/2023 at 10:27 AM, PalmCode said:

Its nice to have the sun back out today. My bananas here made it through the storm fine. I had to tie  this one, flowering, up to a post before the storm as its on a decent lean. I hope it holds it long enough for the fruit to develop. Its been a very good growing season for them here but  not so  much for my vegetables and other fruit trees, with all this rain.

Your bananas look way better than mine. I don’t have any flowers on mine yet. Hopefully we have a frostless winter this time round and any flowers that form late set fruit. I lost my last bunch to 3 nights in a row of frost last year.

[PalmCode]

1 hour ago, Tyrone said:

Your bananas look way better than mine. I don’t have any flowers on mine yet. Hopefully we have a frostless winter this time round and any flowers that form late set fruit. I lost my last bunch to 3 nights in a row of frost last year.

Hopefully you will get a frostless winter, then you will have a much better chance of them flowering, when they get old enough. Its always a shame when frosts get these. 3 nights of frost in a row will definitely knock them.

 What variety  are you growing? From what i remember, only one variety is allowed to be grown in Australia, right?.

My ones are growing well. Now Im looking to try the Blue Java variety, if i can find some for sale here. They look cool and have larger fruit than the ones I'm growing now.
 

[Tyrone]

7 hours ago, PalmCode said:

Hopefully you will get a frostless winter, then you will have a much better chance of them flowering, when they get old enough. Its always a shame when frosts get these. 3 nights of frost in a row will definitely knock them.

 What variety  are you growing? From what i remember, only one variety is allowed to be grown in Australia, right?.

My ones are growing well. Now Im looking to try the Blue Java variety, if i can find some for sale here. They look cool and have larger fruit than the ones I'm growing now.
 

Yeah mine are just cavendish bananas. Interesting you mention the blue java. Bunnings in perth were reportedly selling them. Are they cold tolerant enough for cooler climates. I know nothing about them. I threw really rich chicken manure on my bananas and they’ve gone real dark green and growing fast, but no flowers yet. Still they look nice and tropical. 

[Tyrone]

We had a humid 29C day today. I was sweating like a pig working in my humid nursery. 

My wife was checking on the state of affairs in NZ this arvo. We cancelled our holiday to NZ the other day which was disappointing. Reportedly the Whangarei quarry gardens have been destroyed. Heartbreaking and I feel for the owners who said they are $500000 in debt with no real way of going forward. The whole area is likely to have slips. The bridge and cafe are ruined. Really sad. A lifetime of work gone. 

[Tyrone]

It’s been the driest summer I can remember here. 9mm since Dec 1st 2022. Dry as a chip. The normal summer here has some reasonable rain every 2 weeks. Not this year. Wet until November then - nothing. 

[Phil Petersen]

On 2/19/2023 at 1:06 AM, Tyrone said:

It’s been the driest summer I can remember here. 9mm since Dec 1st 2022. Dry as a chip. The normal summer here has some reasonable rain every 2 weeks. Not this year. Wet until November then - nothing. 

Super dry here by our standards too. Have had 48mm this year so far with only 18mm this month. Very parched and all the surrounding hill pasture is dead and bone dry.  Forecast to have 40mm in the next 5 days which will be fantastic if it arrives.

[Tyrone]

It’ peaked at 31.4C with peak dewpoints of 22.2C today. The warmest min I’ve ever recorded was 19.9C this morning, but it only dipped below 20C for about ten minutes, it sat above 20, 21C all night. Very warm and humid here.

[Tyrone]

Actually it finally peaked at 32.6C with a peak dew point of 22.9C. It felt like Cairns today. I don't think I've seen a dew point that high without a burst of rain first. It's been blue skies all day. 

[Tyrone]

TC Cyclone Freddy past by Mauritius and Reunion as a cat 5 on Monday about 120kms from Mauritius and basically did nothing. Thankfully. On the satellite image it looked menacing. Just like staring at the eye of the tiger walking close by. A direct hit would have been terrible though. Unfortunately Madagascar was hit by it yesterday, and its caused damage and one person I read has died.

[cbmnz]

Flag leaf so bananas comming, mine always do this in Autumn, not Spring. I know this time to leave the bunch on, even in winter.

 

[PalmCode]

7 hours ago, cbmnz said:

Flag leaf so bananas comming, mine always do this in Autumn, not Spring. I know this time to leave the bunch on, even in winter.

 

 

good luck, hopefully they turn out better this time.

[Phil Petersen]

36.8mm total has fallen here yesterday and the day before, we are having a temp dip taking maximums down to 15deg, Mins to 9deg. That rain was sorely needed and hopefully will get some more today. Back into low-mid 20s by the weekend and through next week - so things will keep moving along here. Second spears of the summer are opening now on most of the chathams rhopies. Hard to keep track of the many kermadecs but they are behind that pace and likey prioritising new roots after big up-potting in spring. 

[Tyrone]

It’s raining here this morning thankfully. It will clear up soon. We’ve been having quite warm weather the last few days, much warmer than this time last year. We’ve had 2mm in the last couple of hours. Not much but I’ll take it. The weeds will probably burst forth in abundance now. But it’s enough to wash the dust off the vegetation. Some may make it into our water tank too. 

[richnorm]

Hosing down again, another month or two of rain in a day!   More slips no doubt,  but at least those flooded out of their homes will not have returned.

[Phil Petersen]

11 hours ago, richnorm said:

Hosing down again, another month or two of rain in a day!   More slips no doubt,  but at least those flooded out of their homes will not have returned.

Looks like Northland copped it again and flooded 🥺. Some concerning warm and wet easterly flows onto the NI in the next week. We got 40mm+ over 3 days down here but could do with more. Hope things can dry out up there to assist recovery. What a crazy summer up north! 

[PalmCode]

It flooded again where I am. We would have got atleast 100mm yesterday . This is getting worrying, as there could be more slow moving lows making direct hits in the coming weeks.

 

[Tyrone]

13 hours ago, richnorm said:

Hosing down again, another month or two of rain in a day!   More slips no doubt,  but at least those flooded out of their homes will not have returned.

 

41 minutes ago, PalmCode said:

It flooded again where I am. We would have got atleast 100mm yesterday . This is getting worrying, as there could be more slow moving lows making direct hits in the coming weeks.

 

It’s just so unfair to you guys with what’s happening over there. You can’t even recover from the previous blow before the next one comes. One after the other. Let’s hope something breaks the weather pattern your part of the world is in very very soon. At least then you can catch your breath and take a well needed rest. 

[cbmnz]

54 minutes ago, Tyrone said:

 

It’s just so unfair to you guys with what’s happening over there. You can’t even recover from the previous blow before the next one comes. One after the other. Let’s hope something breaks the weather pattern your part of the world is in very very soon. At least then you can catch your breath and take a well needed rest. 

Nice looking palm in the center of that photo 😒 don't know if it's worth trying to salvage. Yesterday was unpleasantly cold as well as rainy, the second day like that this Feb,  just to add insult to injury. My lawn is noticbly soft underfoot in a way that usually only is in July and has hardly been at all the past few years.

[cbmnz]

Minor of course compared to what others just few hundred km North and South East are dealing with.

[PalmCode]

3 hours ago, cbmnz said:

Nice looking palm in the center of that photo 😒 don't know if it's worth trying to salvage. Yesterday was unpleasantly cold as well as rainy, the second day like that this Feb,  just to add insult to injury. My lawn is noticbly soft underfoot in a way that usually only is in July and has hardly been at all the past few years.

I would have tried to if this happened 10 years ago, but crossing that river now and bringing it back over would be a bit much for me. I allready have enough Nikau anyway. Hopefully somebody keen enough gets it.

Edited February 25, 2023 by PalmCode

[cbmnz]

19 hours ago, PalmCode said:

I would have tried to if this happened 10 years ago, but crossing that river now and bringing it back over would be a bit much for me. I allready have enough Nikau anyway. Hopefully somebody keen enough gets it.

Oh, that's a wild one on public land.I thought it was one of your own. This is a council maintained official site, shows the extent of what is going down atm

[cbmnz]

After all the doom and gloom the sun did come out today. One photo is my garden, other two from an afternoon  drive to the coast. Not sure what sort of Phoneix palm that is.

[Tyrone]

48 minutes ago, cbmnz said:

After all the doom and gloom the sun did come out today. One photo is my garden, other two from an afternoon  drive to the coast. Not sure what sort of Phoneix palm that is.

You live in a beautiful part of the world. One day I will finally visit it. 

[PalmCode]

20c at the moment. Had more heavy showers, rain over night here.  At least we're getting plenty of fresh water to collect and drink.

It might be hard to see but this bunch of bananas is just turning yellow on the tree. It flowered back in early June 2022. Time to cut it off.

 

Edited February 26, 2023 by PalmCode

[PalmCode]

excellent result.

[Foxpalms]

54 minutes ago, PalmCode said:

excellent result.

What type of banana?

[PalmCode]

1 hour ago, Foxpalms said:

What type of banana?

Lady finger banana.

[cbmnz]

6 hours ago, PalmCode said:

excellent result.

Awesome, that's a guide for how long I will need to leave mine on the plant also. Only problem is they may get frozen, will just have to take the chance. Buldge of the flower is just becoming visible.

[Tyrone]

Well that was probably the driest summer on record down here. I think we may have made 12mm in the 3 months of summer. March so far looks like it may be transitioning to something a tad more moist. Windy.com has my ten day accumulated rainfall forecast at 34mm, which will feel like a real soaking if it happens. This summer has been more like a Perth summer if you look at rainfall. However it has been a humid summer with a fair amount of cloud cover and warm nights. I’m glad I’ve got good irrigation. My house water tank supply is looking a bit sad. I think we are down to 50% and I’ve never seen it that low in the 9 years I’ve been here. The last few years at this time it was almost full or over flowing. I had to stop hand watering with house water about a week ago when I realised just how low we were. 

[Tyrone]

Just looked at the synoptic charts and we are expecting some light thunder and rain from about midnight to sunrise which will be awesome. 

[Tyrone]

Was just looking at the low that was TC Freddy that started around the Kimberley’s at the beginning of February in WA and traversed the entire tropical Indian Ocean grazing past Mauritius and Reunion Island, hitting the southern part of Madagascar and then continuing into Mozambique, well it’s not finished yet. It’s expected to go back into the Mozambique Channel reintensifying as it sort of wobbles around aimlessly with a central pressure down to 958hPa at one point. There’s no stopping that thing. It won’t die.