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

[organichris]

I know you guys are due for rain. I was born in Shawnee, and grew up south of Tecumseh where my mother still lives. I know its been very dry the past couple of years.

Last fall, when visiting my father-in-law in Hominy (northeast Oklahoma), I decided to do him a favor by burning off all his garden stalks and whatnot. I forgot all about the burn ban, and needless to say I'll never do that again. I had forgotten how quickly a grass fire can get away from you. Luckily some neighbors helped me fight it, and we had most of it put out by the time the fire department and the cops arrived. I was sure they were going to fine me, but they had mercy on me because I was straight up from the gitgo, and they were a couple of good ol' boys anyway.

Up here in northeast Kansas its been raining for the last couple days and its going to rain tomorrow, but we're actually below average. We're supposed to be under a flood watch tomorrow, but I'm not sweatin' it. What few plants I have are doing fine.

[michael johnson]

I know just how you guys are feeling-we are absolutely flooded out over here in the Uk too, we have had two months of daily torrential rain.

Somehow we seem to get all the rain that drifts over from the USA about a week after you get it.

I think we all shall have to change over and diversify from growing tomatoes to rice paddy fields instead.

The only problem with it all-is where is all the water coming from- and is it going to cause severe drought in some other country where the rain should have fallen instead- at the moment its up to 46 degrees in greece and Turkey raging hot and people are dying because of it.

[oldgaredneck]

and here in central Georgia we are in severe to extreme drought - definitely a crazy year for weather.....

[dcarch]

Things are quite wet in Texas, I understand. I hope everyone is O.K.

dcarch

[bbjm]

Things are really wet here. My plants look great so far, but this rain has parked over us and doesn't appear to be moving. I took the opportunity to foliar spray with fish emulsion. I'm not sure it does any good, but the stuff smells so bad, I thought the smell would dissipate fast in the rain. Plants probably didn't get much goody out of it, but it made me feel good.

Ate my first large tomato of the year yesterday. It was a Rutgers and quite bland and watery. Pretty bad really. Probably the weather.

[organichris]

bbjm,

Over here in Lawrence, this is the third day of rain. We're about an inch below normal for this time of year. I'm not concerned that the rain will adversely affect my plants, but the flavor of the tomatoes is a concern. I haven't harvested any yet, but they're ripening as we speak. I hope they won't lose any flavor because of the abundance of rain.

[veratrine]

So that's our yearly rainfall total in LA. 3.2 inches. Driest year on record, ever. It would be nice if we could somehow average, wouldn't it?

[spyfferoni]

I don't know what I would do if we got that kind of rain. We are usually in a drought. The drought conditions improved the last few years, but I think were on track for another bad drought. It is hot and dry outside!!! We put in sod a couple of weeks ago and had to water it 4 times a day, and now we just lowered it to once in the morning and once in the afternoon to keep the heat at bay and from drying it out. We have some bad wild fires already, I don't want to think how bad its going to get in the coming months.

Tyff

[bbjm]

Organichris, -- We have been living under the same rain clouds. Check your inbox.

Bret

[organichris]

So today the rain let up, and I got a chance to take a look at my ripening tomatoes. They probably still have a week to go, so hopefully the flavor won't be affected. But I noticed a couple of them have some cracks. I thought I would have been able to get through this year with no cracks, because I was doing so well up until now. Oh well...