Garden started out great as usual,, but after weeks of flooding rain it is looking pretty sad. Tomatoes are rotting and not from BER, squash is turning yellow, greens have sun scald. Ground is so saturated that the stakes to hold up the peppers and eggplant will not stay upright and neither will the ground hold the peppers and eggplants upright. Guess I can start growing sideways.
I know the feeling. I am not growing veggies but am loosing many plants because of the constant wet and no sun. Lots of annuals have just floated off to the garden in the sky and I am not sure my Rose bushes are going to make a comeback. My Yarrow, Bugloss, Cardoon and Tansy are really suffering. The Canna on the other hand are sitting in a nice size puddle and loving it. We have sun trying to shine now and supposedly the rain is to be a lot less for the coming week with almost full time sun and temps in the 87-90 range all week.
Who would have thought we'd be water gardening in Texas? I managed to wade in and pick beans and get two cucumbers out of the garden this morning. The squash is done--just couldn't manage to survive the wet. Some of the cherry tomatoes are beginning to ripen. I'll have to get out the kayak and go pick them! Corn has survived, and the second planting will be okay if I can get in to weed it. We harvested onions yesterday, and if it dries out a bit more, we'll be digging potatoes on Monday. So far the herbs and flowers are doing okay, and the roses especially seem to like all the moisture. So many folks around here just couldn't get a garden planted, so when we have too much of anything, it isn't difficult to find someone to take our excess veggies!
Yes,, Canna`s are like that Toni, they love wet feet. My vegetables do not. My potatoes are in the little garden and are literally growing out of the ground. Will start on mine thjs week too. Big garden is not so bad. Little garden is waterlogged and I am growing webbed feet trying to pick stuff. Good thing MG is that we still have time for a second planting of squash and I may do more potatoes. Onions were already too old when they were planted because of the rain. Will do a few more onion sets when I get the others pulled. Glad for a little dry weather.
When I planted the first Canna's back in 2003, I knew they would do best in moist soil, couldn't give that to them but wanted them anyway. They adjusted and bloomed their hearts out every summer on being watered just a couple of times a week. Now that they can actually get the moisture they like, I should have blooms like never before.
You will have to post some pics of your canna`s. Even my old climbing rose is losing leaves and turning yellow from all the water.
Mart, If you need new tomatoes and there aren't any to be had down there, I have a tray of big beef and a few other odd ball tomatoes I can send you. Let me know if you need them.
My home town in NY is flooding also. Saw pic's of the Main St. Water over car doors. Lived there most of my life and never saw flooding like now.
I managed to weed around the pepper plants and actually had one Corno di Toro big enough to pick! I got into the cucumber patch--oh, lordy! There were many, many nice sized cukes, and two Algonquin war club sized ones. I'll slice them on the diagonal and put them under tuna salad for lunch tomorrow. I even got some ripe cherry tomatoes! Squash is done--just got washed out, but as Mart said, a second planting is possible. I'll try it and see what happens. Donna, what was your NY hometown? We lived in the Rochester area for about 25 years and survived blizzards and ice storms, but no flooding. With warm sunny weather predicted for this week, my husband has said we'll be cleaning up, weeding, mowing, and generally doing ourselves in for the next few days.
Texas folk (toni, MG, & Mart) & Donna I am so sorry you all are being swamped with water, but do hope things will be drier & you can replant. Weather in NE has been the opposite: less than an inch of rain for the whole month of May. I am lugging water to my plants, particularly the transplants.
Wait, Mary... it is coming. We had no rain either for the last 6 weeks. Since Tuesday night we have had several inches. It is saturated here right now.
Carolyn---It is saturated here now too! It rained all day yesterday & all last night. The weather really does seem to go west to east in the northern US. I am glad though, it has been so dry, my major activity has been watering vulnerable perennials & new grass at home, & all the transplants at the community garden. The community garden has a spring & a hand pump which of course keeps breaking. Picture me with bulging muscles from lugging water!
This is the first year in almost 10, that I haven't been dragging hoses and lugging pails of water from the rain barrels to water plants almost every day from March through Sept. Most storm systems coming across the U.S. move onto shore on the west coast between the Canadian border (in the winter) and southern California (Spring and Summer) and travel across the U.S. to the east. Some of ours come up from the southwest in the Spring too and then there are the almost rare tropical storms or hurricanes that hit the Texas Gulf Coast and move north.
It's been rainy here too. I planted some new flowers over a month ago, most of them drowned. I put some peppers in big pots this year to keep them from drowning, but some still didn't make it. Alot of my drought tolerant stuff like certain salvias are on the verge of death. The sunflower and Hyacinth Bean Vines I planted either turned to mush or got washed away... no sign of sprouts. I think I only watered my flower beds once this entire year. Same with the containers... well... maybe a couple of times. But the rains have stopped for now so I will be feeding/watering those containers this evening. Toni, my cannas have just now started to bloom.
