I feel for you. Being on a well, you have got to be cautious about watering the garden. Good luck.

We've been hit pretty hard here on the Eastern Shore...Somerset and Wicomico counties are having a huge problem right now. Luckily, it's only the shallower wells. The deep ones are doing okay for now.

Interestingly, one of the organic farmers said that they aren't having as much drought damage as conventional growers.

"Not All Farmers Suffer From Drought Conditions
By SHARON GAETA -- WMDT 7/27/2007

Even with the drought across Delmarva, not all farmers are suffering. Organic farmers say things aren't all that bad, even though we're about eight inches of rain below normal.

They have a different way of irrigating their fields. And that new method enables them to go for longer stretches of time without rain.

Organic Farm Owner Larry Ward says, "Well our farm has done a lot better than most farms. We grow organic so we have more matter in the soil which holds moisture better."

Organic farmers expect their sales will be better in the long run. But they won't know for sure until the end of the year."

Here is a link that might be useful: Delmarva Wells

And wouldn't you know it...not 3 hours after I posted that, the storms hit. They're saying we got 3-5 inches in a couple hours. Hopefully, some of it soaked in and will help with the wells, at least.

Here in Westminster, MD most of the big storms have been passing us by. Nothing from that 3 to 5 inch storm for us. We've lost a bunch of azaleas already and one dogwood looks pretty crunchy. Of course, my dumb dh insisted on putting the azaleas in the sun - I'm surprised they made it this long! Luckily we're on city water and no water restrictions yet. The flower beds on soaker hoses are doing OK.

All these three or four days of storms, and yet we got 1/3 inch Friday and 1/4 inch Sunday. It only wet the soil to 2 inches deep. I have lost Dawn Redwood, Azaleas and Hardy Kiwi. The kiwi was three years old and was being watered weekly. It might be just dormant. It's in a spot that's not ideal, but had been growing extremely well.

In East Howard county, no rain either. All the storms go north or south. The radio said BWI got .44" of rain yesterday. :-(

Luckily I'm not on a well, but I imagine this quarter's water bill will be astronomical!!! *sigh*

Jen

Yeah, the storms seem to die out before they get to us. I was hiking around Downs Memorial Park on the Chesapeake Bay in Pasadena last weekend, and even the big, old oak trees look worn and dry from this miserable drought.

I'm in southern Washington County and we got about 2" on Sunday. I'm on a well. I've lost a few plants and many of the trees look stressed out. My road typically has tons of wild raspberries and a few blacks. This year there was none and the plants have completely wilted.

I haven't watered my garden (except for some peppers in a raised bed and my onions...they love water) The tomatoes, 28 in all, look fine. I have a 150' of beans that are doing fine as well. My soil has lots of organic matter and it's well mulched.

I DO, however water my blueberries using drip irragation. (plastic jugs w/pinholes) If I didn't water them they would die. Even so, they're starting to show some stress.

Best of luck to everyone.

I think that there are localized or "micro-droughts" where areas the size of a few counties may get significancly less rainfall. Here it is the middle of the state. The Eastern shore has just gotten rain and Pennsylvania apparently as well. But Howard, Frederick, Baltimore, Carroll, Harford appear to have gotten very little. I have gotten 2 inches from April to August.

Here's a hardy kiwi. What's frightening is that is WAS being watered weekly.

{{gwi:1050868}}

I have seen several pines die from the drought, (it would seem). I have just now been seeing maples either dying or going dormant.

Here is one just across the street. This is one of about 30 maples and it's the first and hopefully only one to go. Trees are pretty tough, so it probably has the capacity to go dormant under drought conditions. Nevertheless, that means it's not building up reserves, nor probably able to grow much more roots. It will probably survive (?) but will be weakened. This has taught me to respect our need for water.

{{gwi:1050869}}

We've had less than 2" of rain since May 1 in Ellicott City. It seems that the storms always dance around us, and it's terribly frustrating. I'm very fortunate to have two gigantic cisterns that store several thousand gallons of water- allowing me to keep watering like mad even now.

We need a good tropical storm or two!

Mike,

Could you tell me more about how and where you have the cisterns? That's seems like a rare, and good, resource to have.

Hi All: I haven't measured the little water that we got, but even though I am in Montgomery County, MD, I am butting against Howard and Prince Georges Counties and we have had very little, during the winter and now. I water, but I hate to think about the bill. Some things I haven't watered until now and I will have to do something, or I'll loose the more recently planted trees, bushes, etc. This fall I am going to mulch, mulch, mulch -- the heat doesn't exactly make me very willing to be out there other than in the early morning. Also, the deer have finally taken note that what I have in the front (not fenced) is pretty jummy. The minute I staked and tied my tomatoes they discovered them. So we fenced that little bed in, temporarily. I think we are moving towards fencing everything in ASAP.

Jake- my two cisterns were built when my house was built- back in 1953. They are 3" thick poured concrete, all above-ground, and are 5x9 and about 40" deep. They sit behind a big garage, and each side of the garage has the downspout directed into one of the cisterns. It takes 2" of rain to completely fill both of them, and it's a heck of a lot of water. I have about 200 square feet of raised beds plus fruit trees and planted pots that need daily watering, and I have yet to run these cisterns dry. Every time I'm down to scraping bottom, we manage to get 1/3 inch of rain and I've got another few hundred gallons to water with.

Like Aug 3, severe storms north in PA and rain south of DC.

I could have spit on the ground and gotten more water than I did tonight.

Sunday, August 5, we got 1/4 inch.

Here it is Tuesday and storms to our north in PA.

I have gotten about 2 inches since March/April.

It's getting grim out there - trees in the Glen Burnie area of Anne Arundel county are starting to either die or go dormant, especially younger ones or those that were already in poor healthy. On my commute to and from work, I see plenty of sickly trees that are shedding leaves or that are covered in dead and dying leaves.

At least we got some rain last week, but still not enough...

We seem to get daily storms here in Manassas recently. It was enough that the bush down the road that I walk my dog by daily starting looking markedly more healthy. Before that, I was itching to somehow connect into someone's water supply and just water the darned bush--something the owner couldn't seem to do. I've been watering quite a bit. They hadn't and haven't imposed any water restrictions so I figured I'd try to make up for what Mother Nature wasn't giving us. But lately, the severest part of the drought seems to have broken and at least we're getting some storms, and some moisture.

I've been watering the heck out of everything in my yard and all my plants look great but we haven't bothered irrigating anything at the farm. I have about 8 acres of PG hydrangea that look like crap. The blooms are small and many have started to brown before they're completely open. Needless to say they were a waste this year.
Karyn

Ah, rain! Beautiful, beautiful rain. We got more rain in the last 24 hours than in the previous 48 days. Thank goodness, we were getting desperate.

Yes, I got one inch 10 days ago and 2 inches the past two days, August 20/21. Still when you're 14-18 inches behind....there better be a lot of rainy days in the future....
There was a story in a recent Balt. Sun. I think it said late September is the driest part of the year.

And even with these latest storms, there was more rain in PA and VA it looked like...

We got a good 1.5" to 2" the last couple days. Since it was rather slow and "soaking" I think it did some good - a lot of the trees on my commute to work look a lot happier than they did even a few days ago. I live in S. Howard County (North Laurel) and commute to Baltimore.

Along 95 there are a LOT of oaks covered in brown leaves, not sure if it's drought or that damn Oak Wilt though. A few maples have lost their inner leaves but seem to be holding the outer ones.

Still drought in September.

The Liberty resevoir is near as low as the drought in 2001 or 2002 in the north part near rt 140.

We got water restrictions in the city of Westminster, MD, several weeks ago. So now I am reduced to hauling a 2 gallon watering can (no hoses, sprinklers) to bring emergency water to those in desperate need.

We've already lost several azaleas over the summer (my husband was in charge of them). Dogwood and climbing hydrangeas leaves are crispy but plants might survive. A few of the ferns might have bit the dust.

I'm definitely doing more with drought tolerant stuff when I redesign some beds next year. I was going to do them this fall, but the ground is rock hard and I'm not allowed to water, so that would be pretty pointless!

The drought continues... and the recent heat hasn't helped. We may get some rain today or tomorrow, but I don't have my hopes up. We are just too dry and it is just so late in the season. *sigh*

About 10 whole minutes of rain last evening, and I think we got some more overnight. I hope my new hydrangea bounces back - it was looking pretty sad.

Finally rain!!!!!

It hasn't rained like since March/April. Early October had rain but it was only 1/4 inch at a time. Now I've gotten about 4" in Reisterstown by October 27 over the past few days. Would have been nice in July/August!! But I'll take it.

My rain guage measured 5.4 inches in the last couple of days. My neighbors basement flooded! Christy, Laurel, MD.

We only got about 2.5 inches in my part of Westminster, but I was happy to get that! Now maybe I can pull a few weeds!

Living in the desert this summer, I've long since forgotten to turn over trugs left outdoors. When I was puttering this morning I found a plastic carrier with no less than 6" of water in it. And the digging was easy today. Ah, let this not happen again in winter, that would be 3 feet of snow? (if 1" rain = 6" snow?)

Got about 4" here in NE Baltimore County. Frost/freeze warning on for tonight. Hope it will dry out just a bit so I can start digging dahlias. Got brugs, gardenias etc inside today. Steve in Baltimore County.

Major digging and dragging in of the tropicals here too. Had an upright elephant ear I potted up that is 6 feet tall!!! Whew!

Looks like most of the state got at least 2 to 2.5" - not enough to end the drought, but probably enough to put soil moisture on the roots of plants before winter.

I got about 5.6" in Howard County.

I'm a lurker, usually hang out on the cooking and harvest forums.

Some of my azaleas are dying, or parts of them are, mostly the ones getting full sun. I would guess it's the drought, but could it be anything else? These are "old" plants, probably planted about 20 years ago.

I know we are still down about 6" of precipitation. It looks like the promised rains for tonight may pass us by again.

I've lost several azaleas, even in shady areas. I also lost a few where I work. 20 years -- I'm not sure if that is the life span of azaleas??

I also lost two forsythia to drought!! (Sunny spot).

I lost an azalea, but it was a very old one. I'm not sure that it was the fault of the drought.

This thread is from last summer.

So are you saying you lost the plants due to last years drought or are we in a drought still?

Personally, the the last couple of months have been a bust for me because every time I wanted to do yard work, it was raining. Only in the last couple of weeks has it been dry most of the time.

It's proably from last year, since parts of these azaleas are dead, but I think we are still in a drought, at least here in central Maryland, it seems like most of the storms pass us by. We are in a drought watch area.

According to the government drought monitoring site as of today's May map, most of Maryland is in the normal range at the moment. Exceptions are southern Maryland and the eastern shore which are abnormally dry or in the beginning stage of registering drought. But, the prognosticators are saying that this area has equal chances of going either direction: above or below normal precipitation.

I'll add a couple blueberries to plants stressed last year and which did not make it through the winter. The resevoirs around Baltimore aren't full. The BWI weather station got a couple large storms last year that we in central MD did not. In April/May the resevoirs should be full. They aren't, but the recent rains have helped. There are some local weather buffs who have more accurate rain records for our micro-climate area. Even for the offical records, though, I though we were still behind.

Considering that we've absolutely been deluged just in the last day or so, I'm kinda hoping we can put this whole drought thing to bed. And next time, could we get 5+ inches of rain over a span of a few days instead of a few hours?

Anyone in serious need of water for their garden can take all they can help themselves to from my basement.

Suja

I just started making and selling rain barrels at home. I couldn't find any I liked and a lot of the online shops charge more than $30 for shipping. I think I'm going to start offering 30g and 55g barrels to my neighbors and others near Crofton, MD. I can get the materials locally and can even deliver them on my bike!

If you need any, let me know. I can make you one or give you all the details about making your own and linking them too! Beats paying for h2o and dealing with the drought...

mk

I went to a workshop at the Isaak Walton League and got a big one for free earlier this spring, but they only had a limited number to give to the registered participants. We learned that you can get some big tax breaks for doing water run-off mitigation on your property. I've got two soaker hoses running off mine, but it's still been overflowing a lot lately. No tax breaks for me, but I'm getting plenty of exercise toting water.