Gardening in WET Weather

Gardening in Wet Weather

 It's rained here in East Tennessee every day for the past couple of weeks. The gardens are looking lush...too lush for damp days. What do we do when the ground is saturated, the sun only periodically peeks out but not long enough to dry out? Here is the list that ran through my mind as I worked amidst the raindrops yesterday.

Look closely at the water droplets on these leek seed heads, bowed over from the storms.

I went through three skirts
yesterday with all the mud
I kneeled in!

1. No excuses, put on your gardening hat and muck boots and visit your garden daily. If you're like me you get "cabin fever" during rainy spells, so when the rain slacks suit up and head out.

 The rain produces hefty harvests in our garden, so if I miss a day of harvest I soon have large squash and EVEN LARGER zucchini! I need to harvest daily, rain or shine. As I harvest I continue to pull weeds that are growing equally as quick as the soil is "sweet" and they are much easier to pull now.

These paths are mulched with commercial landscape fabric.

2. Mulch the paths. This is easiest done in the spring when you lay out your garden, but if need be, do it now. We've experimented with heavy duty landscape fabric on the paths in some of our garden that will last several years. We also use hay under the plants and in some paths. This allows me to walk in my garden without sinking up to my ankles! (It really helps to keep the weeds down in your path, saving a lot of time and energy. This is the no-till section of our large garden, so the weed seeds won't be tilled in.) So far I'm LOVING IT as I don't spend hours weeding there!

After we hill the potatoes (to the left) we mulch heavily with hay, straw, or oak leaves. With a thick layer of mulch, there is very little work to do till you start digging your potatoes.

3. Mulch around your plants when planting, or once they are established. Again I use shredded oak leaves mixed with hay under my plants. There are many benefits to this, but in rainy weather it prevents the mud splashing up on your plants causing disease. It also will hold in the excess moisture, for the pattern for us is there will be weeks of dry weather in August. 

4. Remove the lower leaves on your most susceptable plants when planting your garden. The first "seed leaves" only wither and drop eventually as the true leaves appear. But the yellow leaves, leaves in the mud, and bug eaten leaves are all signs of plant stress. I carry a harvest knife with me in the garden and use it to easily remove leaves. Then the plant can put all its energy into fruit production rather than healing the damaged leaves.

These Rutabaga leaves are showing stress, so I pulled off the outer leaves as I worked my way through the muddy garden.

I have to keep up with my squash and zucchini maintenance, but the benefits are well worth it!

Zucchini & Squash- As you pick your squash, remove the older leaves behind the new blooms and ripening vegetables. Because fungus can take a plant down quickly, we usually planted 3 to 4 batches of squash for a continual harvest here on the farm. With this method of cutting/pulling off the older leaves though I was able to harvest from the same planting well up into fall last year! Always leave the leaves by the blooms and vegetables until you harvest them. The "bush" plant continues to grow outwardly, so leave a wide path on either side to use this method. By doing this, there is plenty of air flow allowing the plant to dry out between showers IF the sun decides to peak out for a spell.

I lost two squash plants and a few of these 8-Ball Zucchini to the weather. But if you keep up with trimming the older leaves (and a few of the thicker new leaves) you'll create an open stem that can dry out. Air flow is KEY. 

There are too many leaves on this zucchini plant. 

I hope you can see where I've cut the thicker stems off on the "stem" of the plant as it produces. It continues to grow out, so there is an "ugly" stem...but it gives a much longer harvest.

This is the trimmed plant when done. You don't need allllllllllllll those leaves, but leave enough so the plant can capture the sun's rays. 

The same principle works with cucumbers. Thin the lower leaves especially, but ultimately all the way up the vine. Leave the newer, healthier leaves.

Cucumbers- Grow vertically....period. Left to wander in the garden they sit in the mud day after day where bugs and disease will overtake them. 

Next, I recommend thinning leaves to allow air to circulate. The plant doesn't need all those lush leaves to produce. Again, look for the yellow, bug eaten leaves to remove first. Keep an eye out for a white dusty coating or even white or yellow patches. These are the first signs of fungal disease. I snip these off too as lately it's been toooo wet to take other measures. This is a great time to harvest as you'll find them easier now. Wash your knife between plants to ward off spreading any disease. 

5. Provide support for your plants. If you've been reading carefully you'll see the running thread of air circulation. Plants that are supported won't be laying  on the ground rotting or disease ridden. The vegetables or fruit will also be cleaner to handle. We tie our tomatoes and peppers using the Florida Method. (Google it.) We add additional support as the plants grow above the strings. We also use hog panels (or cattle panels found at Tractor Supply or a Co-Op) to create arbors for our cucumbers to climb on in our cottage kitchen garden. 

This is an example of support I use in my cottage kitchen garden. A leftover piece of hog pannel is attached to the top of t-posts with tomato twine below. I have cucumbers planted in this bed with the supports all ready to go! This is the second crop in this bed this year. Earlier this season this bed held our snap peas. The supports will last throughout the season. 

These tomatoes are growing on a raised bed and are supported with tomato twine. 
The peppers below are enjoying the same environment and support. They are thriving with lush foliage and fruiting in abundance. 

The next point is elevating your beds. The last two pictures are examples of our raised beds in our canning garden.

6. Elevate your growing beds to protect from the inevitable storms. We have several kinds of beds this year to try out different growing methods. (These were my choice:) We're supposed to wait till the end of the growing season to evaluate, but I can already tell there are benefits to the raised beds. 

We have two kinds of raised beds. One type is simply a layered bed in our canning garden. We sandwiched layers of leaves with compost, dry grass and a natural chicken manured based fertilizer to create a raised bed that has taken minimal weeding/upkeep. On either side of these beds I have industrial grade landscape cloth. It took a bit more time (it was fun though!) to create initially, but the labor savings FAR OUTWEIGH the effort. These beds are taking the rain without missing a beat! We have onions, squash, peppers, and tomatoes growing in these beds. The tomatoes even look healthy! (We had MASSIVE disease issues last year as the field used to grow tomatoes commercially.)

The other raised beds are found in my cottage kitchen garden and are made of wood. We used a mixture of compost, garden soil, coarse grade vermiculite, and peat moss to fill them. Here I grow by the Square Foot Method (we have used this mehod for over 25 years). During rainy weather intensive growing can be more susceptible to disease...again because of a lack of air flow. So don't crowd spring plantings when rain is most often a problem. 

2'X8'

4'X8'
The cucumber in this picture is being trained up the hog panel arbor with Dollar Tree tie supports. You cut it to the length you need. When I don't need it I simply twist it around the arbor and know right where to get it when I do.

My rainy day "lawn mower".

7. Keep the grass clipped up next to your verticle supports. In the cottage garden I keep the grass clipped alongside the beds. BUT we've been unable to fully mow when we needed to last week...and now this week it's a regular meadow out there! Now I love Red Clover, Wild Carrot, and even flowering prickly Wild Lettuce, but I'm ready for the mower to take it all down! Yesterday I had to take steps beneath the cucumber arbors to cut the grass by hand with my harvest knife. The lower cucumber vines couldn't dry out unless I did. So keep an eye out for grass or other plants crowding each other so they can't dry out.

8. Rejuvinate with a folier spray. What?! All that means is get some seaweed/fish emulsion from the garden store or gardening center of your hardware store and mix it in a cheap one gallon sprayer. Lastly spray your plants. This is a quicker way to give your plants a quick "pick-me-up" rather than fertilizing through the rain soaked roots. The leaves absorb the essential minerals through the their pores (called the stomata),especially from the underside, so spray from all angles first thing in the morning. 

This is the mulched half of the garden so far. Our later planting of canning tomatoes, a second planting of corn, winter squash and sweet potatoes were well weeded today  as the sun came out for a couple of days! This side of the garden will soon have a layer of mulch on it. It REALLY TAKES THE HARD WORK OUT OF GARDENING!

9. Do only essential work in the garden when you have a period of rain. Our eagerness to get the plants or seed into the ground often further compacts the soil as we wade through the garden to plant. Eagerly walking through the garden compacts the soil which won't allow the air and water to penetrate properly even after it dries out. That is why I highly recommend mulching the pathways in your garden. You can replant, weed, and pick produce without compacting the soil. 

10. Choose NOT TO GIVE UP! When the rain comes, the weeds grow tall, our plants lay over in the mud, we all lose heart. But make it only a temporary set back. 

Vent your discouragment in your garden journal, then list what you'd do differently from this post to remind you before you plant next spring. 

While it's still raining visit your garden center and get plant supports, folier spray and a one gallon sprayer. Then once the sun comes out and the plants have dried a bit, get out there with your muck boots on and help things stand up, pick the vegetables, prune lower leaves, pull the weeds you can reach from your path, and then give the plants a good "pick-me-up"with a folier spray. Watch God heal your plants....or not. It's a learning journey!

If you've read all 10 tips, take one minute more to think about the benefits of the stormy days that the Lord allows in your life. What do you do to weather the storm and come out stronger than before?

1. Like visiting your garden daily, cultivate a daily prayer time. This storm may simply be in your life to turn your eyes to Jesus Christ.

2. I can look up a lot of garden wisdom in books from our personal library. When the winds blow in your life don't be distracted with what your friend says, or the answer you found on Google! All the wisdom we need comes from Him who controls the winds! Jesus Christ left us a book of wisdom. Read your Bible daily!

3. In the midst of a storm, lighten your load. In the garden I cut off lower leaves, but in my life there are often extra activities, to-do lists, entertainment, and other's expectations that I need to remove from my life...to focus myself on Christ's all sufficiency in the midst of my storm.

4. Pull the weeds! Storms often reveal an area(s) where I am not pleasing the Lord. My sin weighs me down so I feel like I'm wilting. 

Turning to my Burden Bearer (Psalms 55:22), climbing my High Tower (Psalms 18:2), or even snuggling "under His wing" (Psalms 91:4) after a good heartfelt confession often hides me from the storm till I'm strong enough to stand in the winds and cry, "I have nothing to fear, for the God I serve controls this storm!" .

All the vegetables and flowers in this blog were picked in a rain shower.

Abundant Blessings,
The Farmer's Wife,
Val