Yes, it is raining, so what better time to write a guide for how to proceed with gardening when there is rain in the forecast.
I’ve tried to cover a variety of scenarios.
Scenario 1: There is rain in the forecast but it isn’t raining.
Obviously, for this scenario, you put on your gardening clothes and you head out to the garden and commence with weeding. You do not, under any circumstances, sit around inside waiting for it to rain. Get out there!
Scenario 2: The skies darken as you are working in the garden. See scenario one. Keep gardening. This is not the time to stand around looking up and wondering if it might rain. It might. It might not. But you’ll get more done if, while wondering, you are doing something.
Scenario 3: You feel a raindrop. Just one raindrop? Keep gardening until you feel a few more raindrops. Then head for shelter and wait to see if it is just a passing little rain shower. If it is just that, head back out to the garden once that little rain cloud does its little thing and moves on.
Scenario 4: You hear thunder. Yes, you most definitely should go inside when you hear thunder. Thunder means lightning; lightning means business, and not the good kind.
Scenario 5: It is pouring down rain. You can at this point stop gardening and head indoors. Make sure to grab all your tools!
Scenario 6: It rains, and then stops. What you do depends on how much rain fell. If it wasn’t much rain, get back out to the garden to finish what you were doing once the rain stops. If it is too wet, adjust tasks accordingly. Oh, you want specifics? Less than a quarter inch, keep gardening. Quarter inch to half inch? Whether or not to continue in the garden depends on what you were doing before it started to rain. Over half an inch? Maybe wait for the garden to dry out a bit before proceeding.
I hope this information was helpful. Perhaps it shamed you into action? Or maybe it validated what you already do? Or maybe it just gave you something to read while you waited for the skies to clear
Writing it gave me something to do while I waited for the skies to clear. And when the skies cleared, I checked the rain gauge. We got .49 inches of rain out of that mid-morning storm. Hmmm… now, which scenario applies to me?
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In other news, I officially launched my new weekly “In the garden with Carol” newsletter Sunday evening, with just those subscribers who specifically signed up for it on Substack. I haven’t moved over all the people who subscribed to my previous newsletter, but I will before the next newsletter comes out next Sunday. If you’d prefer not to get a weekly newsletter, you can let me know, and I’ll unsubscribe you. Or, if you’d like to be sure to get it, go over to Substack and subscribe there. You can unsubscribe at any time and it is free.
If the ground is hard and dry, I don’t weed until *after* a good soaking rain. If it’s a high percentage chance of rain and I have container plants to plant or small divisions of perennials to move, that’s what I do right before a good rain. But if it looks like rain could happen within the next hour, I pick chores that can quickly be stopped and the tools put away, like deadheading. Impending rain is not a good time to start a project that will take all day to finish, like digging up a ten year old hydrangea, dividing it into pieces, and replanting. Like you, I am always checking the weather and choosing the task best suited to the weather at hand, or predicted to come soon.
I use the 4Warn app to set up lightning strike warnings. When I’m outside it will tell me how far, or how close, lightning has be detected. So whether 11.2 miles or 5.8 miles, the app sends me an alert!