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