i suppose these endless showers, heavy rains and thunderstorms would be manna from heaven down here in the southern summertime. in spring’s beginning work ,these continual downpours bring garden work to a screaming halt. i paddle out in my boots
to feed the horses and check for any growth in the new asparagus bed. there is water
standing in the pastures and a long pondlike ditch where i carefully set out the new roots into to a very enriched bed. my fear is that they have rotted or drowned.
i have mentioned that we have sandy somewhat cohesive rusty subsoil with
pure dense red clay underneath. one year( ’94) after a stalled hurricane system rained out over us for days, we had a terrible (100-year) flood, bridges and some houses lost down-river…. my flourishing full summer garden just drowned. i console myself by thinking back…grateful that not much is out there planted yet.
as well as doing necessary greenhouse cleanup, bonsai pinching and pruning,
general repotting and( sigh)
even my just-sprouted seedlings are weakly reaching for light, and have that
frail spindly look. i was encouraged by the more typical springish warmup. now its
rather late to plant potatoes, if i were even willing to go press them into the quicksand that is my half-tilled garden plot (rot is assured). my heirloom seedling project is at a standstill….if the sun doesn’t come back soon, i must start over….. however if i am to have them ready to sell, it may already kind of past the time.you cannot ask very much for a smallish 3″ plant, even of some specialty variety.
i foresee a new road taken. we will have primarily an organic veggie booth at the open market…
i realize that i have much space out there, more than i generally use…and i can always plant
them out instead for sizeable crops of heirloom tomatoes, peppers and eggplant
to take to market.
this is one time that i can say “the sky’s the limit” and it is literally a negative truth.
this summer i will be praying for rain like everybody else, but at this xtreme
water-soaked point , i wish our limit has been reached, for awhile anyway!
waiting for the sun…. vty, J_lea
Ilona says
April 2, 2009 at 3:15 pmI believe in silver linings generally- I sure hope you find yours this season. If you had more hands the farmer solution around here is to hand dig trenches to a ditch to assure runoff for fields in danger of drowning. But that is back breaking work for one lone gardener.
the garden give us hope and sorrows and sometimes fruitful harvest. Thankfully fruitful harvests are the norm.
But I remember in the Laura Ingalls Wilder book that gave account of her early married years that it seemed there was one disaster after another. And I wondered how the human soul could bare it. But we do…often by the grace of God.
May the sun shine on your fields ( but not TOO much) May the seedlings be thrifty, and May there be a spring in your step!
flowrgirl1 says
April 2, 2009 at 3:39 pmLots of rain here too. Need it but would enjoy sunshine more!
johanna_lea says
April 2, 2009 at 3:57 pmi never stop springing, mentally.=}
and this too shall pass…
i had ditched the asparagus a few
days ago, and the ditches are now running over! heard on atlanta
NPR station this am that some areas
have gotten up to a foot of rain…great for the 10 year
drought in our water table,
but i am so over it.
i recall hearing of an ohio summer a few years back where it rained for months…the farmers
couldnt get into the fields to plant. the weather is always problematic, somewhere…
one place out west just had 70
degrees, than blizzard next day.
my situation really seems insignificant.
Rob (ourfrenchgarden) says
April 2, 2009 at 5:57 pmThat’s some rain event. (((up to a foot of rain)))
I don’t know how long it’s been overcast but I hope your seedlings don’t get too ‘leggy’.
Good luck!
Rob