Friday, June 14, 2013

Need an ark

I knew we had a lot of rain recently, since I am trying to get the final things into the garden in between showers, but I was not thinking that much! Thursday I got the weekly issue of the UMass Extension Vegetable Newsletter with their late blight forecast for the state. My town is lucky to have an agricultural  reporting station just a mile from me. Scanning the table, I was astounded to see that  Bolton reported on Thursday that 10.7 inches or rain had been recorded (not estimated) in the past seven days! And Thursday afternoon through Friday morning we got another 2-3 inches.

 

bliteast

 

So what does my garden look like after all that? To see, you will need to put on some rubber boots or Wellingtons. Your garden clogs or Crocs will not do. Here we go. Below, the paths around my raised beds have 3-4 inches of water in them. The beds are sitting in the water but at least the plants are high and dry.

 

my_garden1

 

These beds are my newest and were placed off soil level on concrete blocks, once I realized how often the garden floods. You still need your waders to garden in them.

 

my_garden2

 

While all the plants look in good condition after 14-15 inches of rain in ten days, four of my Lipstick peppers have developed some sort of fungal crud (below). I think this may be leaf mold (Fulvia fulva). I am going to try a copper spray but I may have to destroy all of these plants to save the rest of the peppers.

 

pepper_pox

 

The other bright/high spot in the gardens is the Girl Scout plot with its newly installed raised beds modeled after my own. Even with the flooding in their plot, all plants are high and dry and just needing a little warmth and sunlight.

 

girl_scouts

 

Hopefully we get some decent weather and this can all dry out. Regardless, it is shaping up to be a very challenging garden season.

4 comments:

  1. 10.7 inches in one week, yikes! That's mind boggling to me. We've had barely a couple more inches than that for the YEAR, and the rain year (here at least) starts July 1. It has been a very dry year here, the average for the year is usually somewhat more than 20 inches. But 10.7 in a week....

    Hope you dry out and get some sunny weather soon, and that your poor peppers recover.

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    Replies
    1. And no big storms, just days of steady rain that add up in the end.

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  2. That is a mad amount of rain. Whilst we aren't quite as dry as Michelle you've still had more rain in 10 days than we have all year. Since Jan we've had 12 inches and four of those fell last week and I thought we had a ridiculous amount of rain then. 14 inches must bring with it a whole lot of problem I can't even begin to imagine. Hope it drys up for you soon.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. We have lots of wetlands that can absorb that much rain. The big problem is the cold, rainy days and high humidity is ideal for fungal diseases.

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