Copious amounts of rainfall blues...

[domoarimato]

Man alive! It's been raining nonstop for three months here in central Oklahoma. After three years of crippling drought, I guess we were due for a little, but enough is enough! This is our seventeenth straight day of HEAVY rain. That, by the way, is a record. Our previous record of fourteen consecutive days was set back in 1937... Said period of rain ended the "Dust Bowl" saga that had plagued the state for several years prior. Certainly, most folks in '37 lauded that stayed period of precipitation a benison. From what I've been told by the old-timers, the sky would turn dark as night in midday, when those okie winds, churned up that red dust choking out the sun, and residents as well. We are all ready just four inches shy of our AVERAGE annual rainfall total, and it is still June. Forecasters are predicting at least several more days and many more inches of rain yet to come. My little garden looks just pitiful. it is a very rare occasion indeed, when the ground is even firm enough for my son and I to get in ther and pull the weeds. We are doing the best we can, yet i have nutgass as high as my cucmber vines in some less than well drained spots. Most all of my tomato plants leaves are yellowing more with each passing day. The herbs LOVE it. I have sweet basil (wich normally would be flowering by now, but is not due to the mild temps) that is four feet high, and almost as wide! Peppers look horrible... Only the dense super hot mostly ornamental black, and variegated foliaged ones are faring well (which strikes me as odd) Corn is holding its' own. Cucumbers are going nuts. Squash and zuchinni are producing like crazy, yet with six inches of standing water around them, it's hard to get in ther to pick them. Melons all look the worst of all.. Leaves are turning to black goo from the bottom up. Have this one weird vining fruit thing called Casabanna or Melocoton that I got from Jere Gettle that is LOVING it... Vines must be twenty feet long all ready, and flowering these weird hibiscus looking flowers all over it. Keep telling myself not to panick, and that after this is all over, the 'maters and peppers will make a comeback, and be stronger that before, but I have lost a lot of flowers on my larger fruited and later ripening ' maters, and I know that that can't be reclaimed, as the fruit grows smaller with each blossom cluster on most varieties. Some varieties that are faring well despite the deluge include (besides the cherry varieties, which apparently can only be killed by a really hared freeze LOL) :
Magnus- Prob 60+fruit between the two plants. Since this is an old fave, I am pleased

Prima- This is one tough lil determinate plant, as it has held up two drought conditions, two years previous, and the two plants prob have over 60 apiece! Not too mention, that there isn't a single yellow leaf on either.

Heidi- What more can be said about this one... Why on earth aren't the commercial suppliers replacin Roma, and all of it's selections with this one. Four plants loaded to the gills, not a hint of ber or yellowed foliage. One interesting footnote: all four plants are exhibiting some georgeous ribbing that I have not seen before (same seedstock from grown since 2003 when I collected a plethora of seeds).

Yasha Yugoslavian- This one is also a trooper. I haven't found a pink heartshaped variety that can do better in my climate than this one. I'll never grow Anna Russian again, as it has let me down year after year. In 2005, I harvest 22+ lbs off of a single plant... For a heart shaped 'mater, that's wormburners around here!

Green Giant, Kentucky Beefsteak, Neves Azorean Red, and of course (my mainstay of the past 5 years_ Florida Pink- The only large fruited varieties to have even set fruit yet. Of these, only Green Giant looks to have no signs of yellowing on any of the four plants. Also, each plant has at least ten or more greenuns showing!

American Beauty,Pink Grapefruit Truckers Favorite, Yellow Out Red In,Peramoga, and Valiant- All are loaded up. However, all are starting to yellow, and after we get some dry, and hot conditions around here, I don't expect much after the initial flourish.

The list of ones that have little or no chance of doing really anything other than producing a few specimens for saving seed is too vast to include here at this time. Perhaps, I shall start another thread entitled T.I.P and eulogize them at the proper time for bereavement...*

SURPRISES THAT I WOULD NOT EXPECT!:
Cherokee Purple, and Noire de Crimmee- Four plants of the former;three of the latter, are green, and lush as all get out. Flowering lijke crazy as well, and not A SINGLE GREEN FRUIT out of the seven. Cherokee Purple has been my be all end all main crop tomato as long as I have been gardening. I got the seeds from my grandpa... Whom I believe got them from Fax... Whom I believe got them from Craig... So that means that I have been growing this one at least since the early to mid-nineties. It has never let me down like this... Fingers are crossed that they will burgeon later in the season when we FINALLY dry out.
Enough caterwaulling from me. Hope everyone else is faring well this year! Oh and...
Happy Gardening 2007-B-ri