rain, rain and more rain

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) housework.

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