A Dry September

 17 Now Elijah the Tishbite, who was of the settlers of Gilead, said to Ahab, “As the Lord, the God of Israel lives, before whom I stand, there shall certainly be neither dew nor rain during these years, except by my word.”  1 Kings 17:1

The prophet Elijah shut off the rain for three years.  That must have been just terrible!  It was a very dry June.  It rained a decent amount in July and August, but now, it hasn't rained in a month.  I haven't looked at the rainfall data to see the trend on our little homestead, but I heard on the radio that we are 20 inches behind the average YTD rainfall totals.  That is a significant shortfall.

The fact that we keep a four inch layer of wood chips over the garden soil retains soil moisture.  In fact, we seldom have to do any irrigation at all.  But lately, without significant rainfall, I determined that if we wanted to have crops, I'd better water 'em.  I found the old oscillating water sprinkler that I hadn't used in over a year and hooked it up to the hose.  Well, it no longer worked.  It was pitiful watching it.

I went to the hardware store and picked up a new one.  It cost right at $20 and gave me sticker shock for a bit.  Walking by the clearance bin, I looked briefly at a sprinkler for $5.  I picked it up and came real close to bringing the $20 one back to the shelf.  Then I looked at the square footage of coverage for each.  The more expensive one would irrigate more land with less labor and time expended moving it around.  I purchased the $20 sprinkler and I'm glad I did.  I set it and forget it, and it waters 1/3 of the garden before I have to move it.

I have a big plot of sweet potatoes that are just about a week or two away from harvest.  I want them to grow to the fullest extent and have the soil slightly moist and pliable for harvest time.  Right behind that I have a couple rows of snap beans.  They are full of blooms and little pods.  Good watering will boost the harvest.  We always really enjoy fresh picked green beans wrapped in bacon for our Thanksgiving feast.

But the most important thing is to irrigate the rows of newly planted seeds that I need to keep watered so the seeds germinate and the little seedlings don't wither in the sun.  I have two rows of cabbage, 1 row of cauliflower, two rows of broccoli, two rows of beets, a half row of Swiss chard and two and a half rows of tomatoes.  Watering those things is crucial at this time until they get established, so I'll do it at least every other day until we have a soaking rain.  The 10 day forecast shows none.

In looking at the fall planting calendar, I still must plant (in this order): bok choy, lettuce, kohlrabi, radishes, carrots, mustard greens, turnips, and spinach.  I'll be planting several varieties of lettuce, carrots and spinach.  The sweet potatoes must be harvested first to make room for those items, though.

October Is Always Dry

Based on data we track, October is always one of the driest, if not the driest month of the year.  So far in October 2016 it rained only two days, netting a whopping 0.5 inches of rain.  The grass in the yard is dying.  There's no rain in the long range forecast that I see.  So I turned on the water sprinklers in the garden to try to give the seedlings some moisture to help them grow.  The dry ground sucked up the water with quickness.

I also asked Tricia to turn on the water sprinklers in the landscaping.  The camelias are loaded up with buds and I'd hate to have them drop them when they'll be blooming shortly.  Same thing with the azaleas and Lily of the Niles.

As I walked around to the back of the house, one thing caught my eye - we have dead leaves on our tangerine trees - in several places, too!  That has me concerned as this hasn't happened before.  I normally don't even bother watering the fruit trees as it hardly ever gets this dry.

But we've got a lot of fruit on the trees that is ripening.  We love all of our citrus trees, and I certainly don't want to lose them.

As I look on the ground under some of the trees, I can see several tangerines that the trees are dropping.  It is way too early for this to be occurring.  I can only surmise that it is so dry, that the trees are jettisoning some of the fruit so as not to be stressed carrying them and nourishing them.

I picked up the fallen fruit and made fresh squeezed tangerine juice using them as I'm not one to waste the fruit.  I chilled it and it was so good.  Tricia sent some juice to Russ at college.  That dude loves fresh squeezed tangerine juice.  It's so tangy and tasty.

So I ran a water hose out to our mini-orchard and turned on the water very slowly. I went around doing my normal chores as the water soaked into the ground beneath the trees.  I can remember one time on a trip to California, we toured an area that had almond and apricot trees growing.  Water is scarce in California.  The fruit and nut growers essentially built small levees around their orchard and flooded the entire orchard, allowing the water to soak in to the roots very slowly.  I attempted to do the same.

Thirsty Citrus

Pools of water beneath the trees gradually disappeared as the dry land drank it up. The roots beneath the surface of the ground absorbed the water and by the next day the leaves had better color and had perked up.

Hopefully this will help take the stress off of the fruit trees and they will hold on to the fruit.  Seems like only yesterday I was whining about how wet August was and now I'm lamenting about how dry October is.