We are plant people, and plants are probably more important to us than the house we live in. When we were pressured by temple authorities to move out of our last house into this one 13 years ago, we wrote into our contract that we had two years to remove plant material from the old property (the house Sankirtan lives in now).
So I am not sure if this Dwarf Alberta Spruce has been in its current location for 12 or 13 years. What I am sure of is that this is the first time we have had such unrelenting soil moisture saturation that it is showing symptoms of drowning.
This quince was planted here after we moved in but it is at least 10 years old. This is also the first time it is showing excess moisture symptoms, the browning leaves.
It doesn’t seem to be affecting the fruit yet, which can be seen in the picture, but if we don’t get a chance for the soil to dry out soon who knows?
I am also losing newly planted berries to drowning, here is one of several raspberries that have succumbed.
This is unfortunate because several of them bloomed this year. I removed the blossoms because I want the plants to concentrate on forming roots, but it was a sure sign that I would have had raspberries next year. It is hard to imagine the survivors are setting much roots in the waterlogged soils.
All this has been to demonstrate how unusually wet it has been here this spring.
The berries are even planted in raised beds. Because the ground is sloped where I planted them, I made terraces, but even on the upper sides the paths are lower than the bed except in the last bed which is the raspberry one. Plus the slope lessened there so the bed was only a few inches above the lower side path.
All this damage had happened before we had another rain which produced an inch and 80/hundredths of rain (4.57 cm).
One problem is that all the runoff water from the front of the house flows around the side and into the the upper side of where the berries are. This will be a good thing if it gets dry because I could make little mini dams to catch that water and help them through dry spells. It is a bad thing when we have what is probably the wettest spring I have ever seen here in 35 years.
Plants can take being soaked in the root zone for a while but do need to dry out once in a while. I know certain plants like cattails or rice can handle the constant moisture, but not most of those which are regularly grown for food crops in our area.
Yesterday, the day after the 1.80″ rain I went out and dug deeper trenches in the berry paths to assist drainage. I should have dug them deeper but I live in this cage of fatigue where what I know and want to do and what I can do are separated, but I did get them down some. As I was digging I saw this:
That’s right, that is algae growing in the paths, and this on a sloped area where it is draining constantly. There is basically a wet weather spring constantly flowing from the moisture in the front yard working its way down hill through the soil and surfacing in the berries. I can see every uneven place in the horizontal paths because there are puddles.
After doing the trenching I finished caging the tomatoes in my garden. They are in a higher, better drained location and flourishing. The earliest planted ones are setting tomatoes and I have at least one the size of a quarter. They have been loving the rain, if anything could use a little more sunshine.
I was tired but still went to istaghosti at the temple. Afterward I came home and was treated to one of the most exciting thunderstorms with lots of lightning and rolling thunder that many devotees had ever seen, as was commented at breakfast this morning in the temple. It was beautiful but in my rain gauge this morning is another 1.85″ of rain.
Rain in the forecast for each of the next three days.
Gurgle gurgle.
June 18, 2009 at 1:19 pm
Prabhu,
What is the point of caging tomatoes? I am growing patio tomatoes as well as, jalapenos, bitter melon and lima beans in containers on my balcony this year. (an urban gardening experiment) So far all I have done is put bamboo stakes to reinforce one pepper and one tomato plant as well as put chicken wire for the beans and bitter melon. The tomatoes and peppers seem to be going strong but, the vine veggies seem to not like containers so much as they are much scrawnier looking than the ones we planted in the ground at the temple.
Anyway, I’m relating all this to you, in hopes you can share with me some gardening wisdom.
June 18, 2009 at 9:18 pm
Yes, this is the wettest spring i have ever seen. The hardy pecans are suffering, i hope they make it. Chinese and Dunstan chestnuts look good but the Carpathian walnut leaves are turning brown on the tips. A sure sign of drowning.
How are your nut trees doing?
June 18, 2009 at 9:19 pm
btw, the chakra is up!
June 19, 2009 at 7:03 am
With tomatoes there are two options — let them sprawl or give them support.
In North Dakota with the desiccating winds we used to let them sprawl but with the high humidity here and greater rainfall it is better to give them support to keep them off the ground.
Plus it makes picking easier and you can fit more into a given space.
For support there are various systems like tying them to a stake, trellising, or cages. I like the cages because it takes less attention once the cages are up, no getting behind on weavng or tying.
I haven’t been up the hill for a while to check my nut trees. I am almost afraid to look.
Good news on the chakra, I want to see how visible it is from the Palace.
August 9, 2012 at 12:27 pm
where did you get the rain gauge? Been searching for that type. Thanks, Kat
August 9, 2012 at 1:01 pm
I bought it at Tractor Supply company, which has a local for us outlet and is a chain across much of rural America.
http://www.tractorsupply.com/
I looked at their website but it said the gauges are in store only.
I entered my zip code in the pop up and it gave a list of stores nearbly