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wertach2

A rant! All of this rain I'm getting has ruined my garden!

In all of my 40+ years of gardening I have never had so much rain. I usually have to water every week after mid June! It's been a monsoon here!

I have had at least one downpour every day for a month. I have had over 20" in the last two weeks according to my rain gauge. It also has overflowed several times so there was more than that!

I've had hardly any sun for over a month! I would guess maybe 8 hours of sun in the last two weeks. I'm not saying 8 hours a day, 8 hours total!

Everything is shorter than normal and most are not bearing veggies.

My 4' high Merit corn is ready but has a bland taste, not sweet at all. I had to put on rubber boots and pick it in the rain. It didn't have many worms though, I think they drowned.

Tomatoes are 2' tall with small tomatoes on them.

All of my different types of beans and cow peas, which I'm normally tired of picking by now, haven't even bloomed, even though they are basically healthy.

And I'm not going to bore Y'all any longer by ranting about the weed problems!!!!!!!!

Comments (12)

  • sweetquietplace
    10 years ago

    I sure know what you're talking about! I've had the same thing in WNC and am digging my potatoes as they get any size on them. There's no way they can cure while sitting in mud.

  • farmerdill
    10 years ago

    Hey I am very thankful after enduring 5+ years of stage 4 drought. Granted it would be nice to have just the right amount, but that is too much to ask for. Yes watermelons and cantaloupes are fairing poorly. Lima beans not setting, getting a lot of rot in tomatoes. On the other hand, one of the best years years since I moved to Georgia for cool weather crops. Broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, etc were outstanding. bumper crop of English peas and onions. Never had pole beans produce in July before and they are still going strong. bumper crop of sweet corn ( Illusion, Celestial, Silver Duchess, Cameo, Silver Queen) just harvesting the Silver Queen but all of it has been excellent ( Just as an aside wertach Merit has never had much flavor me under any conditions.) Cucumbers are just coming in but look exceptionally good. ditto for peppers and eggplants. Always win some- lose some in growing vegetables. Biggest problem at the moment is inability to plant for late summer crops. Altho I have sandy soil it is a dogmire. Don't have boots so I revert to my childhood and harvest barefooted. I have done this for over 70 years and never had a perfect season. But all in all I am so happy to see this drought broken that I am dancing barefoot in the rain. Also we have not even been threatened with a triple digit day. A cool wet summer is welcomed here even if I have to pick corn in 18 inch crabgrass.

  • ltilton
    10 years ago

    I was watching that break on the US drought site, farmerd.

  • sunnibel7 Md 7
    10 years ago

    You all have my sympathy, we're pretty wet up this way, but not so bad it's causing any major problems and some things even seem to like it! Maybe this means we won't get a hurricane this year, eh?

    I really like the mental image of Farmerdill out barefoot in the dogmire harvesting from extra-tall corn. I do most of my harvesting barefoot anyway, but avoiding wet shooes has figured big in it this year. :)

  • hnycrk
    10 years ago

    Here in Georgia it seems like every day in the afternoon/envening there's these thunderstorms that pop up and dump a ton of rain on us all at once. There's never a chance for the soil to dry out. It's also the coolest July I can ever remember. Last year I was watering twice a week with 95+ temps for weeks, and no rain. This year I haven't touched the water hose, and haven't been over 90 for weeks. All in all I'm great full for all of the rain, espically since we're out drought here. But there is to much of a good thing, we need a good dry out. I'm curious to see what type of winter we have. Fascinating time we live in nowadays.

  • cugal
    10 years ago

    Ok............ I'm trying real hard here.......... to sympathize, that is....... Here in NE Kansas, the drought continues...... We are a bit cooler than last summer, but terribly dry! My garden has been a disaster three years running now. Even with drip irrigation, the water cost ls bankrupting me! Send some of that rain north, I'm beggin' ya!

  • nc_crn
    10 years ago

    It's so bad in NC/SC that things are well beyond "at least we're getting rain."

    It's straight up ruining crops...home garden and commercial farmers.

    It's raining so much that crop issues common to too much rain such as fungus effects aren't as much of an issue as the ground not getting proper oxygen or nutrient exchange thanks to how soaked everything is staying.

    4.5" in May...10" in June...1.85" in July (so far)...in central NC.

    Even though things have slowed down a bit in July, we've been seeing rain almost every day without enough time to dry the ground out.

  • arwen2
    10 years ago

    I would love to have a major dump of rain! 3 weeks and not a drop. It has rained to flood proportions all around us. I can only do very limited watering because we are on a well and have livestock that have to be watered. We had drought conditions last year as well. It doesn't help that it has been 90+ every day and the forecast is for more of the same this week.
    Weather is the gardeners worst enemy. Bugs can be dealt with, weather can't .

  • rayrose
    10 years ago

    I might as well jump on board. We've gone from a 5 year drought to rain every day. I have a sump pump under my house that hasn't come in five years, and now it's working over time. I guess we can all blame it on good ole global warming. Although I have a very good crop of melons, they won't ripen and I know are full of water, and when they do ripen, will probably taste like mush. I've also got the worst case of fusarium wilt, I've ever seen. It spreads like wildfire with all the rain. I'm thankful that most of the varieties that I grow are tolerant to it. It's also helping to spread fire blight in my apples. It's a daily chore to prune out the strikes. It makes one appreciate everything that the farmers of old had to contend with on a regular basis. So we really shouldn't complain so much, because we can all go to the grocery store and buy anything we want. We grow things because we want to, not because we have to in order to eat and feed our families.

  • cindy_ga
    10 years ago

    The rain has been pretty intense here in Middle GA - everything is growing mildew. It's 1:45 pm and it has not rained yet today and I'm constantly checking the radar... it's supposed to be dry. It's hard to believe.

    My raised beds have been an enormous benefit - usually they dry out so fast, I spend much of the summer hauling hoses and changing out what got shorted on water so I could water something desperate. This year I'm hearing squooshing sounds when I walk between garden beds. My tomatoes are so sad - lots of disease, tho they are still sort of producing. Hardly any bird damage this year. The okra is pitiful. The peppers are worse and I have no idea what is wrong with the eggplant other than too many flea beetles and too much rain.

    My beans are growing by leaps and bounds, but almost no flowers on the limas and no pods. The rattlesnakes are growing, but even they are looking sad and are slower than usual. I'm hoping that the predicted dry for a few days will help me get some harvest. My corn mostly collapsed and is growing horizontally. (First year growing it for me.) This is the first year that I have had tarragon actually live tho. And I had a bumper crop of garlic and onions.

  • wertach zone 7-B SC
    Original Author
    10 years ago

    farmerdill, I agree that Merit isn't very sweet, but I don't really like the super sweets! I grew up eating field corn, it didn't have an actual name just a number, that I don't remember!

    My Silver Queen is almost ready, I'm hoping for a little more flavor from it.

    A guy that I work with and lives close to me brought in some Hybrid Super-sweet Corn last week and we grilled it. It wasn't sweet either.

    One of my neighbors, that has a dairy, has sweet corn for sale. I stopped by and asked him about how his tasted. He knows that I grow my own and wasn't buying any. So he knew he wasn't losing a sale. He said his was bland too.

    I asked him if I could buy a dozen ears of the field corn he was growing next to his garden for silage. He laughed and said that it tasted better than his sweet corn. He gave me a dozen and it was better! LOL

  • Kiter5
    10 years ago

    I am kinda new to gardening. (well, anything more than sugar snap peat and tomatoes)
    I Just got back from vacation- it was really rainy while I was gone and rainy before I left.
    My butternut squash and watermelon- which were young/small- all seem to be rotting. thankfully, there are more flowers and the hope of drier days. (my zucchini is very HAPPY in this rain! I have frozen shredded zucchini to keep me swimming in zucchini muffins all winter!)

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