hi ehignutt-- I agree even soakers mightnot keep up with this. i sprinkle my garden and then I consider the giant sponge effect of all the surrounding,hot and dry, ground..
All I can say is it makes me slightly grateful fo the five feet of snow
How do you survive a Mid -Atlantic heat wave ?
77*F and Thank the Lord, measurable rain early this am. Probably less than 1/2" but the grass and mosses are greener with that one little sip. Ric
Sally, those feet of snow where great insulators - my plants have bloomed more this year than ever! I'll take that snow over this sticky humid heat! I may even try a rain dance at this rate --- if I have the energy.
I remember as a kid that people used to cut ice blocks from rivers, lakes or ponds to store in an ice house for use in the summer. Hum, those piles of snow we thot would never melt sure did give a boost to our ground water, like a good soaking rain.
Hope any predicted storms and showers are soakers and don't just run off. Might pre wet some areas to encourage what ever falls to seep in.
There were thunderstorms out here last night all around us and we got not one single drop. It is cloudy today and they're calling for storms this afternoon. I hope it doesn't miss us again.
I'm sure the reason why so many things bloomed early this year was because of all the snow last winter. Snow insulates but it also puts nitrogen in the soil.
Any of the above reports could have been written by me. We too are suffering from the heat and crying for rain. Our decks were slighty wet this morning and same as Ric, the grass looks greener from even that little sip. Hart, our forecast is the same as yours and we too have had rain all around us several times and we miss it. This is our first real go with a veggie garden so John is upset about dryness.
I haven't done much gardening wise this summer due to the heat. I spend most of my time inside and only venture out after sunset some evenings. Many of the evenings are spent watering too. John has even hooked up enough hoses to water our vegetable garden which is some distance from the house. He has too much invested in terms of not only cost but of time and energy in the garden to lose things because of being dry.
Yes, we were lucky to have had the amount of snow we did last winter and we actually had some nice rains this spring too. Good thing too.
Here is wishing everyone wetter days to come. Hopefully this weekend for most of us. Have a good weekend whether you are wet or dry.
Ruby
Amen and Amen to that. It did rain some here this afternoon. I guess doing a rain dance helped. Surely is steamy though. I am concentrating the watering on the veggies. I can eat them. The other pretties will have to fend for themselves with an occasional help from me.
Veggies? You got veggies to eat? All I have picked is a handful of beans. Still waiting on some squash, cukes, tomatos peppers okra...Oh, I did get some potatos and made a casserole tonight very yummy!
It's been raining here for about three hours. So nice. I hope it rains all night. Aaaaaaaaah.
AAAAAHHHHHH! Happy for you! What a relief
Nice, we had some rain before I woke up and then 2 downpours...actually didn't have to water today...woo hoo!!!
75*F and Hallelujah a nice soft rain, I hope it last all day.Ric
JAN23 that rain your way just missed us. Got maybe two drops here. SUPPOSED to rain today but it's looking rather blue in the sky so far this morning. Means lugging water - again.
Jan, and ehignutt, the rain missed us, too. We are just south of Millville. The weather map is showing a huge front coming our way, though, and it's clouding over. Here's hoping. We haven't had any rain for a few weeks.
We do have veggies, though. I just picked some zucchini, and our peach trees are bearing. We always have a problem with brown rot, but if DH sprays sulphur it helps a lot, and even if part of the peach is brown, the rest is delicious. Eating them right off the ground or off the trees is like eating peach pie, they're so warm and sweet! The raspberries have dried up but I got about 16 quarts in the freezer. And I'm picking bush and pole beans. So the garden is holding its own even with the heat, but we do have to water - a lot!
AAHHH! Happy for me--getting the rain. Sorry,ehignutt! I hope this system expands to NJ later
Sally, it looks like it's coming our way and it's a pretty wide band. Yesterday I was at a meeting up in New Lisbon and someone pointed out the window and said, "It's raining!" We all stopped and watched in awe - it had been so long! Unfortunately none of it fell further south on our place. I'm glad you're getting some rain, though; I hope it's enough to make a difference, and is gentle enough to soak in!
Finally some nice soft rain , it has been raining since 6 AM and I hope that it keeps on going. Even that I have been watering every day some of the flower beds are getting wide cracks from dehydration. I Feel almost out of place I don't have to spend 2 hours watering the yard this morning , this will permit me to bake some goodies for my husband, and catch up with few other things that have gone on the wayside due to the heat and so on. This morning we were on our way to the eastern shore and the rain was so heavy on route 50 that we ended up turning around at the Bowie exit and came back home......
And how do I cope with this heat? yesterday I spent the whole afternoon sorting my flower seeds alphabetically and downloading the sowing and growing instructions on a lots of them, now I have to do the veggie garden.... I must be bored LOL .Actually this permit me to see what need to be started from seeds in the fall or the summer for next year and also go ahead and plant all the things that should have been planted a month ago and still have time to start from seeds like marigolds, zinnias and things that germinate quickly and will last till frost...
orchid, you made good use of the time! I never spend enough time planning ahead. I hardly seem to get ahead enough to plan ahead.
Watch out--neighbor just called and said he has a tree down. We have had no wind but I'm not surprised the dry soil and stress has made some trees prone to fall.
We got rain, too.
orchid---
Not sure you were around tha MS Forum when I posted this beginning of this year...It is a nice site to save.....
Might help you with the seed organizing.....seeding...
http://theseedsite.co.uk/db1.html
It has been raining here too since early, early morning. They are calling for more and, maybe, even T-showers...
Gita
We are FINALLY getting rain - 2/10ths of an inch so far but it looks like it will continue for a while. I had to run out to put my garlic under cover; it's been so long since we've had any rain that I didn't think of protecting it at first!
Well, we are all such a happy bunch now. See what a little water can do? It seems to have rained a bit during the night here even though the sun is out now. It is some cooler today and that is much appreciated. I say - open up the heavens and send more rain.
I used some of the zucchini we are growing and made a delicious batch of zucchini bread yesterday. I also froze several containers of it to have later to use for making the bread too. John hasn't been to the garden yet today so I am not sure if he will be bringing any thing back with him or not. Yellow squash will be on the menu at dinner time today. Not sure how I will prepare it, but am looking forward to it.
I am really happy for those of us who had some of the precious wet stuff. Yep, those rain dances do work on occasion.
Ruby
It rained pretty much through the night here, most of the time a nice, soft rain that could soak in. We had been under a severe thunderstorm watch but while I could see and hear the lightning across the mountain, all we got was rain.
And it must not have been too bad over there because our power never went out. Our power goes out every time they have a bad storm across the mountain.
I'm still dancing, just in case.....
Oh Hart - If someone were to ask me my greatest pet peeve, the answer would have to be losing power. I know that I am totally spoiled but I truly find having no power to be very, very inconvenient. I become a grouch as soon as it happens. I have been without power enough times to know how lost I feel without it. I would have never made it through the pioneer days of this country.
I am thrilled with the rain we had last night!!!
Ruby
We have a wood stove and a gas cook top, plus kerosene lanterns, but when the power goes out we lose WATER, since our pump is electric, and that's a real pain. Can't wash, can't flush the toilet. We ended up getting a generator, with the excuse that we have freezers full of deer meat, chicken, and all of our summer veggies. It's come in handy several times since we got it.
We have almost half an inch of rain so far!
Same here with the water pump. We do all our heating with a woodstove and pellet stove so we have heat in the winter if the power goes out and I have lots of kerosene and battery operated lanterns, and a generator when it gets too bad but there's no way to run the water pump on it unless we wire it into the breaker box. I can always heat things on the woodstove.
Fill your bathtub with water if it looks like the power will be out for long. Then you have water to flush the toilet. Or fill water bottles with water. That's what I did last winter and we had plenty for washing and flushing. I probably filled 30 water bottles before that big snowstorm hit.
All it takes is one tree down to knock us out, sometimes for days but usually just for hours, and being surrounded by national forest, there's a lot of trees.
Hart, we always did keep several five gallon jugs with water on hand just in case the power went out, but it was a true pain, and back when we had two small kids it was even worse. Our generator will run the whole house now, even the a/c, but only until our tanks run out, and LP gas is expensive, too. Our woodstove is soapstone so it doesn't have a high heat index; I imagine we could cook on it but the surface never gets really hot. Makes more sense to use the gas stovetop; that's why we have gas instead of electric, although I also think gas is more responsive for cooking anyway!
Being surrounded by lots of trees definitely isn't a bad thing, unless there's a danger of fire!
Love the quiet around me with no ac s running. The many birds around were truly exuberant in their songs, especially the pause after the first good downpour early this am. Rain/drizzle/mist all day today...tomorrow should be lovely. Feeling quite blessed and grateful here and happy that my mid atlantic neighbors have also been showered
We have a wood and coal stove which we use for heat and can cook on. Flushing water is in the pool, unless frozen. We have a couple small generators in the neighborhood we can pass around to run freezers and 'fridges. We have candles and lamps for more than decoration. The best "new" thing are the solar landscape lights, we just grab a couple out of the yard and we have lights that are even safe around the grand babies. You can play cards with a couple of those, and the kids think it's fun. I would like to get or build a small generator that would run the well pump and appliances. Ric
Yes Judy, I was out giving s yard tour and noticed the robins all celebrating the rain!
Ric good tip on solar lights!
I had a clipping once about a system for emerency power, using a 12 volt battery and an inverter (I think) something I could buy a the marine store to make limited DC power for the well or sump pump.Personally I used to like the excuse for no TV for the kids, and found it very relaxing to have the natural evening dark come on before bedtime--course that was all befroe my DG addiction
What kind of solar lights do you use, Ric? I've always been underwhelmed by their effectiveness, but they may have come out with better models now.
We always liked the Little House on the Prairie aspect of being without electricity, and we didn't miss it except for the water. We don't have a pool, but we do have a river we could scoop water from if we needed to, but not for drinking.
Neat idea to have a communal generator!
They are just the cheap kind we picked up at Wal-mart cost 2 or 3 dollars each. We put them near the walk ways out by the drive way and by the gazebo. Holly
Thanks, Holly!
We have a solar light on the outermost two poles of our dock, so that the few boats that pass by at night can see the edge of it. They actually work pretty well. But the more attractive ones on our walkway don't work well at all.
These work pretty well, Ric has great night vision but I don't and it is really nice if I come home and forgot to leave a light on or just want to grab something from the garage. They are all atleast 1year old and some could be older than that. We took them camping with us and used them around the tent stakes so I didn't trip over them when I made my midnight runs to the bath house. LOL Holly
This morning the Carolina wren is signing his little head off , it had also a bunch of babies...they are all over my veggie garden looking for things to eat. Yesterday I planted the pink Gaura that I got at Lowe's for .83 cents and some coral bells that I got for .99 cents.I am really into bargains. The other day I went to HD with a friend of mine hey had they phaleanopsis orchids in a basket ready to go to the shredder according to one of the employees. so we looked for the Bell person who let us have them for $5.99 each and they were fine blooming plants . Why cant bell do like Lowe's and discount the plants instead of trashing them. Another reason why I shop at Lowe's more than HD.
Yesterday I took advantage of the cool weather to add some support to my raspberries that were flopping all over the place, add netting to my cucumbers and my tomatoes that seem to want to take over the garden and climb in the trees next door. A lot was accomplished i hope that we have more days like yesterday , I rather be outside than inside in the AC because of the heat....
Glad you got some rain GG. Did you get some, too, ehig? Hopefully so.
Ehig and I got rained on together while we were exchanging hollyhock seeds and plants!
Our garden was so happy this morning! We picked beans and peaches, and everything was sparkling. A woodthrush was singing quite close to us; such a lovely, lovely sound! That's what makes gardening so wonderful.
Jan, did you get rain? It looked like quite a wide band. We ended up with a mite over a half inch. More is predicted for Tuesday. Dare we hope???
only 1/4 of an inch here yesterday, it was sooooo humid that everything stayed damp
What a shame, Jen! That looked like such a big storm on the radar, too. I would have thought it would have reached you!