by Higgenbotham » Tue Jul 15, 2025 12:40 pm
Higgenbotham wrote: Sat Jul 12, 2025 10:59 am
We got another 2 inches (July 7) after I posted this, bringing the total here to about 7 inches. That additional 2 inches did some damage as it left the area around the garden with standing water for several days.
When a garden area floods, it takes about 5 days to totally assess the damage, so by late tomorrow. Early next week I can post that, then circle back to the general discussion about location and resilience to heat and extremes in rainfall.
The left third is thriving, the middle third was damaged but will mostly survive and the right third is mostly dead. The dead areas will be replanted in August for a Fall crop. The vines that have lived will likely carry through the Summer all the way to the first freeze (because they are cherries; otherwise they normally die in the heat).
I expected any flash flood of over 4 inches of rainfall in a short time to be a problem. If the weather changes and we get more frequent flash floods of over 5 inches in future years, I will have to dig a trench and put in a drainage pipe. I'm not expecting flooding of the frequency where that would be justified. Continuing to build healthy soil will increase the amount of rain it can absorb.
Also, production over the next month or so will drop even on the healthy plants because there was a lot of blossom drop due to the excess rain. As of today, though, production hasn't dropped as tomatoes are still ripening on the dead plants.
Finally, the left third will do most poorly in heat and drought, while the right third will do best.
[quote=Higgenbotham post_id=91452 time=1752332372 user_id=100]
We got another 2 inches (July 7) after I posted this, bringing the total here to about 7 inches. That additional 2 inches did some damage as it left the area around the garden with standing water for several days.
When a garden area floods, it takes about 5 days to totally assess the damage, so by late tomorrow. Early next week I can post that, then circle back to the general discussion about location and resilience to heat and extremes in rainfall.[/quote]
[img]https://i.postimg.cc/8cXmJxp1/20250715-112028.jpg[/img]
The left third is thriving, the middle third was damaged but will mostly survive and the right third is mostly dead. The dead areas will be replanted in August for a Fall crop. The vines that have lived will likely carry through the Summer all the way to the first freeze (because they are cherries; otherwise they normally die in the heat).
I expected any flash flood of over 4 inches of rainfall in a short time to be a problem. If the weather changes and we get more frequent flash floods of over 5 inches in future years, I will have to dig a trench and put in a drainage pipe. I'm not expecting flooding of the frequency where that would be justified. Continuing to build healthy soil will increase the amount of rain it can absorb.
Also, production over the next month or so will drop even on the healthy plants because there was a lot of blossom drop due to the excess rain. As of today, though, production hasn't dropped as tomatoes are still ripening on the dead plants.
[img]https://i.postimg.cc/VktGbs35/20250715-121122.jpg[/img]
Finally, the left third will do most poorly in heat and drought, while the right third will do best.