July 25, 2024, What is humidity? What I have been doing since Franklin Co Fair?

image from The Old Farmers Almanac 

​WOW here we are 25th of July….wasn’t it just the 4th of July, wasn’t it fair time at Franklin Co.  I am still watering 6 wagons of plants.  With the help of grandsons, we started again with the unplanting.  You always ask what we do with the extra plants, we unplant and compost them.  Not my favorite thing to do, but if I work a couple of hours each day at it, then it will get done.  I found that I go out at 6:30 and work my 2 hours out there early morning it is cooler and I can work outside and inside the greenhouse not too warm. 
I will be at the Herb fest in Greene on Sunday July 28th.  I will have perennials, some annuals, houseplants, succulents, and of course what herb plants I have.  Look for the 2 SNAP on TOOL awnings in the park.  I can remember my first herb fest and it was at the farm that the cruise boat would stop for lunch on the Shell Rock.  We are looking easily at 25 years ago.  I remember I had  lisianthus plants and not many gardeners knew what they were.  Now they are a great plant to grow for bouquets.  I must really look to get the starter plants for these and haven’t had them since.  I will continue to look for plugs so I can grow them for your gardens.
It sounds like it will be warm starting Saturday through next week.  I will be around Thursday and Friday and all next week if you are looking for anything to fill in your garden space.  I might be in the house working in the office, but I will come out when I see you drive up.  Give me a call or a text 641-794-3337  cell 641-903-9365 to see if I have what you would like.  Of course, all on sale.  Trees, shrubs, perennials, annuals.  
Interesting article about humidity.  It's Not the Heat, It's the Humidity!
The uncomfortable weather of July is often due to humidity, not heat. Find out more about humidity and what it means to be humid!
In most of the Northern Hemisphere, July is the hottest month. But when folks grumble about feeling uncomfortable, they often say, “It’s not the heat; it’s the humidity.” Want to know if it’s going to be humid? Look up to the skies! Here’s how.
How Can You Tell That It’s Humid?
You can quickly judge moisture by glancing up.
A deep blue sky means dry air.
A light blue sky with a nearly white horizon means average humidity.
A sky that’s milky overhead is very humid. That’s the summertime norm in the Carolinas and the Gulf States.
Warm air can hold far more water than cold air. And the best measurement of the air’s dampness is dewpoint. That’s the temperature at which the current air mass, if cooled down, would not hold its moisture anymore, so its water changes from invisible gas to countless liquid droplets. It’s when fog forms and dew appears. When you breathe on a mirror, it fogs up because the cool glass has lowered your breath to its dewpoint.
What Is Humidity?
Let’s make sense of humidity. Bear with me.
Let’s say it’s early morning, the air is 68°F, and it’s holding all the water it can. This means that there’s fog outside or dew on the ground. Since this air is saturated at 68º, this air has a dewpoint of 68. Its relative humidity is 100%. The temperature and dewpoint are the same.
But six hours later at midday, the air is 95°F. This hot air is now capable of holding twice as much water, so the relative humidity is now 50%. Thanks to the increased temperature, the relative humidity has changed radically. Yet it’s the same air as before, moisture-wise. Its dewpoint is still 68°.
So, dewpoint is a much better gauge of air moisture than relative humidity. It’s the language spoken by meteorologists and weather nerds.
When Is Air Humid?
What’s important to know is that a dewpoint of 65ºF or higher means very humid air. A dewpoint in the low 60s is somewhat humid. A dewpoint in the 50s is pleasant. A dewpoint in the 40s feels wonderfully dry, like the air in Montana.
Here’s one more very cool fact: Air never cools below its dewpoint. So by looking up the current dewpoint, you instantly know the lowest the temperature can get to tonight. That’s assuming some new air mass isn’t marching in.
Taken from https://www.almanac.com/its-not-heat-its-humidity
Till next time this is Becky Litterer, Becky’s Greenhouse, Dougherty Iowa [email protected]  641-794-3337  cell 641-903-9365