Water-logged Garden

It has been raining quite a lot around our place.  Just when the ground is about to dry up, I hear the rumbling in the western sky signaling the next line of thunderstorms rolling through.  I have several varieties of heirloom tomatoes planted in the garden, including Black Krim, Thessaloniki, Amish Paste, and Abu Rawan.  I'll show those photos below.  I have Money Makers, Arkansas Travelers, and Valenciano Yellow Tomatoes still left to plant, but the ground won't dry up!  So those 3 varieties, coupled with about 1/2 of my peppers wait patiently in my little hothouse for dry weather.  The other half of the peppers are still inside under the grow light.  Some of them are about to bloom!  C'mon dry weather...


The remainder of my toms and peppers not in the ground yet

Let's go on a little tour of the garden.  We'll start on the northern-most side.  On the right side that I almost cut out of the picture, are several cucumber varieties that will vine up the cattle panel.  Then we have a row and a half of garlic.  The other half is Irish potatoes.  To the left of that, are Chinese Mosaic Long Beans and Fava beans. 

You can see that I've taken hay and have place it between the rows.  This hinders weed growth, helps the soil from getting compacted in the walkways, helps to retain moisture in drought situations, and finally, is good organic material that becomes part of next year's soil.

Next I have 6 rows of Irish potatoes.  They are really looking good - One of the few bright spots in the garden.  Everything else is a little yellow and sickly looking, but a few sunny dry days will solve that.  You'll notice between these rows I've mulched with live oak leaves that I mowed to chop them up and then raked, loaded into wagons and placed between the rows.  One more advantage of this is that after a rain, you can walk down the rows and not get your boots muddy.


New Potatoes

I skipped over the Rainbow Swiss Chard, Parsley and Kale, Green beans, Roma Italian Beans and Dragon Tongue beans, but as we move southward, the garden slopes and you can see the water between the rows.  The corn is not looking good.  I may have to replant.  These rows need some leaves/hay down, but although it's on the list, I haven't gotten to it yet.

On the left hand side I have a row of three varieties of squash followed by the remainder of the Bull's Blood Beets and then another row of several varieties of squash.  My thought process there is to harvest the remainder of the beets and build the center up with straw for the squash to grow on.


Soaked/Saturated

As we move further south, you can really see the water stacking up where the tomatoes are planted.  The land slopes to the south and west.  I had Benjamin help me yesterday and we dug a hole at the far end of each row.  Using #10 cans, we dipped out the water and threw it out to the pasture.  I don't want the tomatoes to scald and die when the sun comes out.  It took a long time to dip it all out.  Today more water is back.

I was telling Benjamin that when I was his age, my Dad planted soybeans.  Inevitably, after we'd plant, a gully-washer would come down and the little beans would be in danger of scalding.  In order to prevent that, we would walk across several hundred acres of beans doing a job we called "puddling."  This entailed using a shovel to dig a small ditch from a puddle of water that the young beans were standing in to a larger ditch that would carry the water out of the field, thus saving the beans.  It was hot, back-breaking work.  I was telling Benjamin that I used to wish there was an easier way.  Technology finally brought us steel wheels to put on tractors and four wheelers.  You could simply drive through the puddles and the water would fall into the deep ditches made by the steel wheels, saving your crop.

Benjamin didn't say it, but I'm sure he was wondering where the steel-wheeled tractor or four wheeler was! 

Water logged garden

This final area contains cabbage, Detroit Red Beets and Mammoth Red Mangel beets.  I need to harvest the rest of that and work up rows and plant the rest of the tomatoes and peppers.  Tick Tock, Tick Tock.  I need some dry weather, though.



The last remaining spot in the garden to be planted.

I also have two types of gourds - luffa and birdhouse, and a bunch of herbs growing in seed starter pots that I'll transplant when they get older.  I'll work up a place in the yard for my watermelon, cantaloupe, honeydew, and okra.  Lots left to do...