Death in the Garden: The Woes of Gardening in a Drought
I had a rather sad, depressing week. There has been death in the garden plot this week. After nurturing my seedlings in the greenhouse for close to two months, I planted some of them out in the garden last weekend. I planted onions, broccoli, kale, tomatillos and cucumbers. They were the plants that were starting to struggle a bit in pots and needed to be planted out. We were well after our last frost date so it was high time they get planted out.
The problem? We are having a drought. Seriously, I feel like it is the Dust Bowl all over again out here. Normally this time of year we should be having a lot of rain and temperatures in the 50’s and 60’s. Instead, we’re having warm sunny days creeping up to the 80’s. When I planted this first round of seedlings out last week, the weather forecast was calling for a cloudy week with potential rain showers. Well, it rained but there were one or two rain showers that lasted about ten minutes tops. It did little to quench the thirst of our parched soil. Most of our land is in pasture and the grasses that came up this spring are dead and brown already and it is early June!
I’ve been having to hand water our garden everyday, sometimes twice a day. It takes me about an hour and a half each time. An hour and a half!! If I do it twice in one day, that is three hours of my time watering. We tried running some sprinklers but they were too powerful and ran our well dry temporarily. That was scary! We have a few soaker hoses but not enough to run through the whole garden at this point. So I hand water. But plants are still dying. Seeds are not sprouting. It is just devastating.
I cried when I saw that half of my cucumber transplants had died. Stems bent over, leaves shrivled up and crunchy. I was so exhausted by the intense watering schedule on top of everything else I need to do each day. I just couldn’t keep up with watering the plants as much as they needed it. I skipped one night of watering, figuring they had been watered that morning. But alas, the next morning over half were too far gone to be revived. And I cried.
Had I not nurtured these seedlings everyday for the last two months I probably wouldn’t have been quite so upset. But there’s a different connection to your plants when you raise them from seed. When you plant that seed in the soil, water it day in and day out, watch the seedling sprout and grow into a healthy plant. It is just devastating to see those plants die just a few days after being transplanted out into the garden. I now refer to the cucumber beds as “The cucumber cemetary.” I kicked into survival mode for the rest of my plants, fighting fiercely against this drought and doing whatever I can to salvage what is planted out there.
I’ve never had to mulch my garden beds before this year. We started searching for straw to buy but everywhere we called was sold out until the fall. We even put up an ad on Craigslist, but we became one in a mass of other postings of people looking for straw. We finally found a place an hour away so we made the trek. We were able to buy a 1 ton straw bale for $30, which I thought was a pretty good price considering how scarce they are! The same night we bought the straw, we went out to the garden and mulched every single plant out there. Since then, there hasn’t been any more plant death.
There has been a lack of seed germinating and sprouting due to the dry conditions. I’ve tried keeping the seed beds moist, but again it is an overwhelming task. The soil is just SO parched. Add to that the fact that the wind just whips through here most days, drying the soil out even more. I would soak the seed beds with water, only to look at them an hour later and the soil was dried out already. Unbelievable!! The seeds I planted that never sprouted: carrots, spinach, bok choy, lettuce, and kohlrabi. These barren beds in the garden make me so sad.
In mid May, I planted a 2 foot by 120 foot bed of peas. That is a lot of peas! Do you know how many sprouted? Not even ten. Just devastating. Peas were always so easy to grow in my past gardens and my first seeds in the ground each spring. The peas that did sprout are still so small, struggling to grow even though I try to water them everyday. They dry out just as fast as I can water them.
On top of having to water the garden, I still have seedlings in the greenhouse I have to water everyday. Plus eight new fruit trees in our orchard that need to be watered. In addition to that, I also have my perennial flower and herb gardens in front of the house that need to be watered every few days because it is dry. Some days it feels like all I get done is watering, just trying to help these plants survive this drought. With so much time and effort having to go into watering, I feel like I have little time and energy left for anything else.
Earlier this spring when we were getting our new 7000 square foot garden plot staked out and fenced, I thought the most challenging part of managing a garden this size would be weed management. We actually have few weeds coming up because it is so dry out there. I guess if I had to find a positive in gardening in a drought it would be not having too many weeds to pull!
My new gardening motto is “cut your losses, save what you have.” I’ve all but given up on having to hand water the seed beds. I focus my energies on watering the plants that are out there. We’re heading into town today to buy more drip irrigation for watering the transplants. This should make a huge difference in the amount of time I have to hand water. Maybe THEN I’ll have a little time freed up to reseed some garden beds and keep them watered so they actually germinate and sprout this time!
Do you have any experience gardening in a drought? Do you have any tips to share?
This post shared on: Homestead Barn Hop, The HomeAcre Hop, Green Thumb Thursday,
We aren’t dry, fortunately. Our problem was plenty of moisture, it brought on a healthy crop of weeds, in the corn fields. My father-in-law had them sprayed, liberally, by a crop duster. The pilot was over enthusiastic and the wind was blowing. Our healthy thriving garden is dead. Almost every drop of it. So are flowers and grass and a large portion of the tree row. This is especially hard for me because of my hatred of chemicals. To think of my child exposed to that makes me sick. We try to go mostly chemical free in the garden and now I am not sure if I want to feed my family what few plants survive. On top of that bugs are devouring my beloved pumpkins and today was hot and dry with the wind howling to burn up any green that was left. Not to whine or anything 😉
I feel your pain. Good luck with the soaker hoses, they work great. I also have, on my pumpkins, the irrigation systems, I don’t know what they are called, that have a hose to exactly where you want the water and then a drip line. Water doesn’t get wasted on weeds and is only used where needed. Love it.
Oh wow, that is so awful! I don’t think it is whining at all, it is us commiserating about our garden losses:) We just went out and bought a bunch of those irrigation hoses you mentioned. Now we just have to find the time to install them with all the little drip attachments! I know it will be a big project but SO worth it to get our stuff watered without me having to spend so much time out there. I hope your pumpkins pull through and survive 🙂
No soaker hose? Dig shallow trenches near plant rows and trickle water down the trench. You may have to run a strong stream down first to get the loose soil out of the irrigation trench. This is how my father taught us to water our Kansas garden. The water trickled for an hour until it reached the end of the row. We (children) were given the job of minding the trench to dam and repair breaks, and move the hose…mud + kids= fun! To give your peas a head start, soak them overnight in water. My mother-in-law grew and froze peas for her family of ten in her South Dakota garden each year and she taught me this (very necessary) tip.
Great tip about the trench Elise! I’ve never heard of doing that before but I bet it would work well- and save me having to stand there holding the hose on every.single.plant. I actually did soak my peas before planting them out, a great tip I hadn’t heard until last year. This morning I was out in the garden and decided to dig through the barren soil in the pea patch to see just what the seeds looked like. I didn’t find a single seed!! There were fourteen peas that actually grew out of the 100+ seeds I planted. The culprit? Not the drought but birds! We saw a lot of birds out in the garden the last two months but figured they were eating cutworms (we have a bit of an issue with them). Those little buggers ate most of our pea seeds. Sigh. I guess next year I’ll have to cover the beds until they start sprouting!
Birds got a row of my peas too…can’t imagine how I’d feel if they’d gotten them all! Grackles, I think. Praying you get rain soon.
I feel your pain. We moved here in Tennessee 6 years ago and haven’t had a good garden yet. Either too dry, or too wet. No matter what we do to save the plants, they still won’t grow good. I have to depend on my family to bring me Mississippi tomatoes when they visit, lol. The fruit trees that we plant will be fine one year, then one dies the next. Different spots each time. There’s no rhyme or reason. And if they produce, they’re gone before they have a chance to mature. It’s very aggravating.
Ugh, I hear ya. Here in NE Texas my garden starts off like gangbusters (with accompanying grass/weed pressure & constant maintenance) and then around the first of June the tap turns off and we struggle to offset the intense heat coupled with the dry. For the last 3 years in a row we’ve dealt with crippling drought. The straw mulch will help A LOT and if you mulch it deeply enough you won’t deal with resulting grass/weed seed pressures. Your drip irrigation will help bunches too. Here’s hoping there’s rain showers in your near future.
~Taylor-Made Ranch~
Wolfe City, Texas
Hot weather frustration. Here in Puerto Rico hot weather gives us that same frustration. We bury plastic milk jugs that have holes in the bottom, fill with water and top it with straw mulching for an easy irrigation method. Hope you get through the dry season. Hoping for the best
I have raised beds and last year despite daily watering they were drying out in what I thought was good potting soil. This year I mixed my own and added to already filled beds water retaining compost and garden soil (brand is Eco Scraps, it’s organic too). Those mixed with my well rotted horse manure have done wonders and I am only needing to water every few days or even once a week. I remember trying to grow a small garden when we lived in Dillon and it was so dry the plants died within hours after I watered one day. I too had started from seeds and was heart broken! If I still lived there I would give you a few of my cucumber plants to replace yours! Praying it rains for days for you soon!
I live in north central Texas and summer drought is a fact of life. A couple of years ago, we built three 4×8 sub-irrigated raised beds (also known in Australia as “wicking beds”). The beds are lined with a double layer of 6mm plastic, then we laid several lengths of perforated corrugated drain pipe (4″ diameter). On top of the pipe, we laid weed barrier cloth to keep the soil out of the “reservoir”. On one end, a fill hose is attached so that the end goes into the reservoir pipe (keeps it from getting clogged with dirt). on the other end is an over-flow drain. I attach a hose and top the beds off once a week. The soil wicks moisture upward from the reservoir, so there is minimal evaporation from the soil surface. We add mulch around the plants to further reduce evaporation. It has greatly reduced both the water consumption and the amount of time spent watering in the garden. A couple of weeks ago, we built two more such beds, for a total of 5 4×8 beds. I also prune the heck out my tomatoes so they transpire less water with excessive foliage. this also cuts down on disease.
It’s a bit of effort and $$ up front to build the wicking beds, but they’ve really paid off in the long run!
Forgot to mention, on top of the weed barrier cloth, we put soil heavy in organic matter and I mix in lots of composted guinea pig poop and hay (don’t do the hay if your compost isn’t hot enough to kill weed seeds!).
Get some row cover to help you with seed germination. If it’s light enough cover it will hold moisture in but also won’t heat up your plants anymore than they already are. And I agree with the soaker hoses!
There is something drastic going on with the weather that is for sure and I think is manipulated by a certain group.. We have had so much rain it is unbelievable. the sun rarely shines. I have never seen anything like it in my whole life and I have always lived here on the east coast of Canada. Someone is ruining our life on earth. it was the same all winter and last summer too.
Hello, I feel for everyone struggling, these are hard times and it is very discouraging to work so hard on something only to have it die. I have found in my experience, that the more organic material you use in your soil; be it your flower beds or garden, the less you will have to water. For example, I put in new flower beds last fall, did not till a single plot. What I did was started with plain black and white news paper ( no adds or the like ) and lay these down 4-5 pages thick ( can do thicker if you have the paper ) in the areas that you want to make your beds. Water the paper well and on top of this place a thick layer of leaves, water these well also. The reason for the newspaper and leaves, is to kill the grass and weeds and add a layer of organic material to keep moister in the soil above it.
I used sandstones that I hand picked out of creek beds, along the rivers edge, some I got free off of craigs list. Point being, you’d be surprised how frugal you can be if you keep your eyes open 🙂 After you have edged your beds the way want them, fill with top soil and compost mix (avoid using clay dirt, which is abundant here in the Midwest). This would be the time to add partially composed manure, layer this down under the top soil and on top of the compost, putting the manure here will it will decompose faster ( cow is the best to use, I use horse when I can find it, but we have a pot belly pig that poops plenty ( lol! ) so I use that alot). When you have the beds filled the way you want them, again add a thick layer of leaves to the whole bed and water well. Basically what we haver done is create a compost bed 🙂 and come spring you will have a bed ready for planting.
Come spring you will find lovely composted, worm filled gold 🙂
Do not remove the leaves from the beds and as you dig holes for your plants, turn those leaves into the hole. Be sure to dig down past where the grass was and turn that soil in with everything, so that the soil is loose and roots of the plants can go deeper. Now you are ready to put your plant in. For the next couple weeks, until your plants are setting roots on their own, be sure to check the soil around your plants and water every couple days. Once the plants root system is set, because of all of this wonderful organic material you have lovingly incorporated into the soil, it will not be necessary to water but maybe 1-2 times a week, depending on your climate. Your soil will stay moist and the plants will grow deeper root systems.
This is a great way to create more flower beds and With a little tweaking raised vegetable beds that will love love love you for it! 🙂
I feel so sorry for those trying to grow a garden while experiencing drought conditions. I hope you can begin again. I know your irrigation system will help a lot and deliver water directly to where the plant needs it and the straw mulch will help keep the wind from wicking the moisture out of your soil. I am looking forward to the rebirth of your garden. Thanks for sharing at Green Thumb Thursday.
You have my intense sympathy! We went through the same thing in Texas in 2011.
Don’t forget that you can mulch with things other than straw. Newspaper and cardboard work really well. You can also use shredded paper, which is great if you have old stuff you can get rid of out of your files! Just make sure not to include anything glossy, or heavily colored. And, although they’re tough to find in a drought, leaves and grass clippings are another alternative.
Going forward, you might look into hugelkultur, which uses old and rotted wood buried in the soil. As it breaks down it adds beneficial nutrition and organic matter to the soil. And don’t forget about daikon radishes (aka fodder radishes). If you plant them in the fall and overwinter them, they grow 2-3 ft down and after they die they leave organic matter and “tunnels” in the soil. Enriching the soil will enable it to hold more water. I know these things might not work right now, but keep them in mind when things get better. And they DO get better, I promise.
Hang in there.
I see you recieved lots of tips already. I have one more, that I didn’t see here. Maybe not fit for your entire garden (that would take lots and lots of buckets), but absolutely doable for those plants you really want to do well. Look at http://www.globalbuckets.org/ for instructions on how to build containers for your plants that minimize the amount of water you need per plant and help you save time and water.
Good luck gardening! 🙂