The picture says it all. While the shade temperature may be 35 at the moment, this figure means nothing to my poor kitchen garden which sits on a concrete deck in full sun. I put my mercury thermometer out with the plants, but got alarmed when the mercury rose rapidly towards 50, which is the top of the thermometer! I've been in a science class when a thermometer exploded and am not keen to repeat the experience. Instead, I substituted my digital thermometer, which has now hovered in the 46 - 47 degree area for about an hour.
My chillies are loving the heat with the jalapeno thriving. Coriander, on the other hand, is not a fan of heat. According to http://www.tropicalpermaculture.com extreme heat causes a flower stem to grow and leaf production to cease. That's exactly what's happened here as you can see to the right of the thermometer. The good news is that coriander seed is edible (and tasty). The bad news is that I have heaps of coriander seed that I bought from the shops a while ago. I don't have any fresh coriander!
You can just imagine what it must be like for this plant ... imagine the temperature of the soil it's trying to grow in! It's not just the temperature of the air but also the soil temperature that makes so many plants suffer. Have a lot of experience with this myself up here in the north.
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