Sun Damage

The effects of our heat dome/heat bubble weather event a couple of weeks ago are showing up more and more all the time.

When we were experiencing the 108 degree days I noticed the garden struggling. The few strawberries I was able to save from the family of raccoons shriveled up to teeny marbles. The gooseberry bush that had been loaded and within a few days of being ripe, cooked the berries in their skins. Several of the sapling fruit trees are looking wan and we may lose them.

In the forest we are noticing needles on the fir trees, some had turned yellow (meaning sickly) while others turned red (dead) right away. The east face of the trees, that was in direct sunlight during those hot afternoons were the most vulnerable.

Even on the forest floor, where the understory gets only dappled sunlight, evidence of damage can be seen in the mature leaves of the vanilla leaf and bracken fern.

The pointed leaves of the Oregon Grape have curled under with the intense loss of moisture during the heat event and the berries that had looked so pretty and plump before are now shriveled and have dried rock hard.

The forest is dry, we have had no rain since just before the heat streak. The skid roads are dusty.

We are noticing some of the young trees that have been planted in stages are not looking so healthy with some of them going from having great spring growth to dried up during that intense week. Seems like the trees that have been planted three and four years ago are having the highest mortality. Storm systems will be too late to do any good for these seedlings.

A good rain would help the forest and gardens, but as of right now, there is nothing in the forecast. We are expecting the official fire danger as regulated by the Forestry Department to increase as well as more restrictions on forest practices. We would not be surprised if we are banned from the forest including any work in the woods during August or before.