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Square Foot Gardening
melissa_houser

Tropical Storm Fay and SFG

Melissa Houser
15 years ago

I finally had a chance to assess the garden today, since it hasn't rained today at all.

My raised bed gardens actually did quite well through Ms. Fay. I have tomatoes growing up a trellis on one leg of my garden and they seem to all have survived the 15+ inches of rain we received with no ill effects.

Most of my squares are empty because I am waiting on my (self-imposed) September 1 plant date for most of my crops. However, my marigolds are looking pretty beat up right now, as are my green beans.

The beets, turnips and radishes all came through well, as did the okra and green pepper plant. My green onions also look pretty good except that the leaves are laying down. I can see them trying to go back upright.

Not doing so well are the cantaloupe, watermelon and pumpkin, all of which lost most of their leaves. They were already a bit weak from squash bugs attacking them, so that may have contributed. My nasturtiums look awful right now, as well, but I think they will recover.

I haven't mixed in my compost yet, but will probably do that tomorrow, along with giving everything a small dose of organic fertilizer, just to make sure that Fay didn't leach too much of the good stuff out of my boxes.

I took pics today, but they are all very dark since we still have a good bit of cloud cover. I'm just amazed at how well my plants survived the onslaught of water. I posted pics on the Florida forum of the street flooding we had. At one point, our street was at least three feet deep in standing water.

Comments (7)

  • engineeredgarden
    15 years ago

    I was wondering how you, and the others from florida were making it through Fay's onslaught. It's good that everything is ok!

    EG

  • Melissa Houser
    Original Author
    15 years ago

    Thanks, EG. Lots of folks have posted pics of their flooding over on the Florida Gardening Forum, but I haven't heard of anyone having major damage except for plants.

    One gal may lose her carpet from water seepage and another guy, here in my hometown, still had a badly flooded yard yesterday, but those are the worst of what I've seen so far.

    I believe that someone else is trying to organize a plant swap over there to help folks replace anything they've lost to Icky Fay, which is an awesome idea, IMO.

    I'm very lucky that I didn't lose anything expensive or irreplaceable.

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  • sarahs_eden
    15 years ago

    Lissa-
    I'm glad to hear your plants are (mostly) undamaged. Most of all, it's good to hear that YOU are okay. I was thinking about all of my co-Floridian gardeners in the last few days... we've been dry all week - a little windy, but dry - until yesterday morning and it's pretty much rained non-stop since then. We'll see... hope all your plants recover!!!

  • Melissa Houser
    Original Author
    15 years ago

    Thanks, Sarah. I tried to mentally prepare myself to lose my plants in the garden, but it's tough to face if it actually happens. I delayed a bit because I was so worried about my plants that it took me a day or two to go look.

    I've been wondering about everyone else down here as well, and it's good to hear that you are okay, and to see Cristabel and KatKin posting as well. :)

  • crystabel
    15 years ago

    Hey Lissa, glad you didn't get hit too hard. My biggest problem during the storm was the wind. It kept trying to knock my corn over, which thankfully isn't too tall to hold on right now. I put some garden stakes next to them to lean on and they held on like good little troopers!
    The peppers didn't do well though and lost all the leaves and I finally just pulled them and planted new ones. I ran out the night before the storm and snagged the one tiny pepper off the plant and ATE IT just to say I got one from my garden LOL.
    I'm going to hop over to the FL forum and check out the pics.

  • Melissa Houser
    Original Author
    15 years ago

    LMAO at you, Crystabel! I pulled one long pepper from my pepper plant as well, but haven't used it yet. It's looking like a stir fry ingredient here today. Amazingly, my 3 eggplant are still on their plant. Fay couldn't shake them loose!

  • engineeredgarden
    15 years ago

    The winds from the northern edge of this storm came thru here today. It was a little breezy! Them big 70 ft tall oak trees were swaying all over the place. Whew!

    EG

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