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Feast or Famine

wordwiz
12 years ago

Or in this case, floods or drought. This has been a very trying spring, to completely understate the situation. For weeks, the only way I could get the garden in shape to plant was to cover it with plastic and wait for two dry days so I could till it, cover it for a few days while the rains returned, then remove the plastic, till and plant it. Frustrating, to be sure.

So what happens? I finally get a piece of decent ground I can use, it finally dries out enough so it can be plowed and tilled. Rain is forecast for Saturday, Sunday, Monday and Tuesday, so I spent Thursday at least getting some tomatoes planted.

Surprise, surprise - all the forecasts for rain were 100 percent wrong - make that 99.98 percent. We had 15 raindrops on Saturday and four yesterday. Now they are saying no rain until at least Thursday but temps in the low to mid 90s.

I have not been over to see how my transplants are doing, hopefully they are surviving. I tried to get their roots into the moist soil - hopefully I was successful.

Of course, there are a couple of bright spots! All that grass that was plowed and then tilled is having a hard time surviving, for one. If the plants survive - maybe a big if - they will have very good roots for later this summer!

Mike

Comments (6)

  • myfamilysfarm
    12 years ago

    Yes, Mike, it's either lots of rain/heat or whatever OR NONE. One person stated that 'farming was a crap-shoot' and I think that basically covers it.

    Maybe you can get some water over there to water a few plants at least. Or maybe Mother Nature rained on your area and not elsewhere, I've seen that happen before.

    We mudded a hundred or so tomato plants and about 50 zucchini on Sunday about 1 hr before it looked like it would rain, then nothing. But the neighbor was able to get some animal corn in on Saturday. It rained abit after he got home.

    We still have about 200 zukes, 400 tomato and 200 pepper plants yet to get in. Not counting the winter squash and pumpkins that is needed.

    Marla

  • dirtdigging101
    12 years ago

    I hear you loud and clear and that is why I'm putting all profit from my small operation into hoop houses of some type. I already have drip irrigation but I do need fencing to keep the dear and rabbits out. I am going for less square feet and higher quality output. I had a large hoop house some years ago but moved to new land. I am going in the next few weeks to see a grower who is about 40 miles from me with a large Haygrove [spelling?] system as have never seen one up close. then the issue what will be the cost.

  • californian
    12 years ago

    The idea of depending upon rain to water your garden is hard for me to comprehend living in southern California. Here it usually doesn't rain any significant rain for seven months in a row, including just about the whole growing season for a vegetable garden. We get 95% of our rain in the winter and late fall, and the other 5% in the rest of the year. If you don't water with a hose your plants just don't get watered. We had a couple of years in a row where we only got seven inches of rain total for the whole year. This year we got 18 inches total, which is way above the average of 12.8 inches total for the year.

  • myfamilysfarm
    12 years ago

    Californian, we can and do get 12" in a month, sometimes in a week. I can't tell you how many inches we average, but if I had to guess, probably close to 40" between the snow and rain. Myself, I couldn't image only 12".

    Marla

  • cowpie51
    12 years ago

    Very wet May in Michigan. Very dry June so far.

    That is definitely feast or famine. Mark
    (Worwhiz, do you have any pictures of your garden by the freeway that you are leasing from the city ?)

  • myfamilysfarm
    12 years ago

    Mark, you have been so busy that you must have missed the updates for that location. I don't believe Mike is able to plant anything there due to the massive amount of large rocks. He is having to rebuilding that land.

    Marla

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