Last year was such a long, miserable winter here. We had rain/snow in the foothills until Memorial Day weekend. We usually have at least 25-30 days per summer of over 100-degree temps here, and we had FOUR last year. FOUR. Most of the summer stayed in the mid to upper 80s and low 90s.
While that may seem wonderful to some, and while I'm not a big fan of 100-plus-degree weather, this is central California's agricultural area. A lot of crops were lost last year because it never got hot enough for them to ripen in the fields. The tomatoes were bitter and small and pithy & a lot of growers were hurt by it. Even in my own garden, tomatoes I had planted in March which I usually harvested in May-June-July and on into late September/early October didn't even START ripening until after the 15th of September, and we all of a sudden had about 30 pounds of tomatoes! The vines had been heavy HEAVY with huge, lush, green tomatoes that never did turn red. My zucchini plants, which normally produce an ungodly amount of zucchini (enough to feed a small village) produced THREE edible fruits last year and the plants got half the size they normally do. It just didn't get hot enough.
I am soooo pleased to see an early spring this year and have already started my garden and cannot WAIT to get lots of luscious goodies so I can learn to can and preserve. I got a vacuum sealer, too. Hehehe life is good.