Dear Dee and Mary Ann and Gardening Friends Everywhere,
The other day on the way home from work, I stopped at a garden center and bought some grass seed and on impulse picked up the 2011 Old Farmer’s Almanac. I guess that means I am officially looking forward to next year’s vegetable garden and am ready to give up on this year’s vegetable garden.
We are dry, dry, dry. It is so dry that even the thistle are wilting. That’s dry, fellow gardeners. There is no way to water everything I have planted, so I’m spending my time watering the trees and shrubs, not the annuals.
It is so dry that I don’t think the little bit of produce that I’m getting from the vegetable garden now is worth the water it would take to keep it going. Late next week, I’ll harvest the compost from the compost bins and then pull out the spent vegetable plants and refill the bins. I hate to do that when our first frost is still at least a month away, but there is no good reason to put it off.
It is so dry that I haven’t had to mow my now dormant lawn since August 6th, a full month ago. Even when I did mow the lawn the last time, it didn’t really need it that much. And I don’t think I’ll need to mow it again unless we get some rain.
On the bright side, as I noted above, the dryness has weakened some of my traditional stands of thistle that pop up here and there in the garden, where I pull it over and over again, year after year. Maybe the thistle will disappear from those spots forever? I can only hope so.
I also can only hope and pray that we do finally get some rain, even if it revives the thistle, so that I can continue with my plans to plant more shrubs and perennials in my new garden borders later this fall. I’ve ordered some bulbs to plant and the garden designer is coming by mid week to talk about what we should do next, depending on how this fall progresses – if it starts to rain again or if it stays dry.
I’m an optimist by nature, so I think it will rain, and we’ll add more plants to the garden this fall. Then next spring I’ll once again be out in the garden planting my peas for another season starting in mid-March, we when have traditionally started our letter posts for the season (if you consider doing this two years in a row a tradition),
Until then,
Carpe hortus,
Carol
have you considered snaking a soaker hose through your vegetables? We wound one through our pumpkin patch well before it exploded and set it to go for an hour or so every few days (have backed off now that they're established) and it exploded. we use the spongy-kind (not sure how else to describe it) and it's been like night and day from before we set it up.
Good luck!
Feeling your pain! Spent all day moving sprinklers around even my well established garden areas. Hadn't done that for years! I'm with you though, on already planning next year's garden. Always fun to read your post.
I am so sorry. I had a year like that and I never want to have another one.
being optimistic on worst weather is the best we can do… the rain will come! ~bangchik
I'm also vegetable gardening in Indianapolis, and it really has been bone dry this summer. This being my first year, if it weren't for the small size of my garden, I couldn't keep up with all the watering. I hope this was an anomaly and the next summer is better for us Indy gardeners!