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ErnieCopp

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Not much to do in my garden today, but had a delicious Garden Dinner. Caramelized Onion soup, Thin Cornbread with lots of Crust, and perfect ripe sliced tomatoes.

Ernie
 

wolffman

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Yan, we started the drought in 2011. It was a really bad year. Then we stayed fairly dry through 2014. Interestingly enough, I have never produced tomatoes like I did in that drought year. Not a single drop of water ever touched the foliage, maybe that had something to do with it. Who knows?
 

w_r_ranch

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Actually the drought started in Oct. 2010. 2011 was the driest year ever for Texas, with an average of only 14.8 inches of rain. 2011 also set new records for low rainfall from March through May, and again from June through August.

Here is the month-by-month historic data going back to Jan. 2000:

http://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/MapsAndData/DataTables.aspx?TX
 

Ibtsoom

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Messages
156
Location
Hitchcock,Tx
Planting Zone
9A
Picked a few more peppers and cukes yesterday. Pulled up the crab traps behind the house and had 15 big male crabs so that's what we had for dinner along with corn on the cob and some more dewberry pie.

Man we seriously need a break from the rain for a bit .. not that I'm not thankful for the rain but it'd be great if it didn't happen all at once. All you guys that are affected please stay safe and don't drive through any high water - just not worth the risk.
 

wolffman

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Well, the poor little lady who worked at the convenience store was found in the creek yesterday. She was 73 years old and was just a nice little lady. She would always ask me how my day was going and I would bring her tomatoes from time to time. She drove into the high water early tues morning and didnt make it. She'll be missed by many.
 

w_r_ranch

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It's raining here again...

I had to take my truck in the dealer Wednesday & my normal back road route was closed due to high water. The main road over the Colorado River was open & you should have seen the number of people taking pictures/movies... you think they had never seen a river at flood stage before. It was the same sight yesterday when I picked my truck up, wall-to-wall gawkers, LOL!!!
 

Mike

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Location
Kentucky
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6b
you think they had never seen a river at flood stage before. It was the same sight yesterday when I picked my truck up, wall-to-wall gawkers, LOL!!!

I dunno, by the sounds of some of the documentaries you see on NetFlix would make you believe the Colorado River was nearly dried up by the time it gets down to Texas with all the states sucking water out of it. :confused:
 

w_r_ranch

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Mike, its a different Colorado River than the one that formed the Grand Canyon & empties into the Gulf of California...

Our Colorado River is the the longest river (862 miles) in Texas & both its source & mouth are within Texas. It flows generally southeast from Dawson County through Marble Falls, Austin, Bastrop, Smithville, La Grange, Columbus, Wharton & Bay City before emptying into the Gulf of Mexico at Matagorda Bay.



The above pic is 'normal'... Right now it is all under water (except for the tree tops). It's at 37+' & peaked at 41+ ' last night. The bridge in the background is where I crossed yesterday.
 
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wolffman

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Mike, its a different Colorado River than the one that formed the Grand Canyon & empties into the Gulf of California...

Our Colorado River is the the longest river (862 miles) in Texas & both its source & mouth are within Texas. It flows generally southeast from Dawson County through Marble Falls, Austin, Bastrop, Smithville, La Grange, Columbus, Wharton & Bay City before emptying into the Gulf of Mexico at Matagorda Bay.



The above pic is 'normal'... Right now it is all under water (except for the tree tops). It's at 37+' & peaked at 41+ ' last night. The bridge in the background is where I crossed yesterday.


La Grange?
 

wolffman

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My grandparents used to take us there when we were kids. My grandmother was at the nursing home there until her passing about a year ago. Neat little part of TX. Luke loves the drive up the hill lol.
 

Rahab222

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Messages
354
Planting Zone
9B
Ernie;

Thanks for your concern. My section got 12 inches of rain in five hours starting at 10 p.m. Memorial Day night and I finally went to bed at 3:00 a.m. Tuesday when I saw we were in a small lull with a tail of rain still to come through in about an hour - 4:00 a.m. I was really concerned because as they began to report bayous out of their banks; they reported that the headwaters of my bayou was out of its banks. That means the water in my section runs to lower lying bayous/areas and others took the brunt of Brays Bayou's overflow. The sky was so angry looking and in all my life, I've never seen it look like that. Non-stop lightening strikes with several houses in the area on fire as a result, but fire/EMS personnel couldn't get through either due to flooding or cars stalled in high water. The Rockets basketball team had a playoff game that night in Toyota Center. This also meant all the Sports Bars were packed with fans watching the game. They held the 10's of thousands at the game until 1:00 a.m., but I guess they could only hold the crowd so long until they became overly angry. This release of patrons resulted in TONS of cars underwater throughout the city and traffic backed up on the freeways to the point of where you could basically walk on them. Houston was a nightmare. I lost power for about 3 hours. The house shook with the non-stop thunder and all the glass in the house kept rattling - for five hours - while the worst of the storm moved through. It was crazy. All the school kids were out on Tuesday due to flooding and employers told employees to stay home because there was no passage through the city for any distance.

I went out to check on my garden on Weds. Almost every tomato is cracked from excess water and another one has blossom end rot. I haven't been back there since because I haven't been able to spray the Nitro-Cal due to the continuing rain. Today is the first day it hasn't rained and it's 94 degrees right now. Summer has come to Houston with Memorial Day. I had hoped to be able to get the Nitro-Cal sprayed this weekend, but we're already under a warning for a new system that is supposed to come through around 10:00 a.m. on Saturday. I have never in my life seen so much rain for such a lengthy period of time. The city is still under a flash flood watch until Monday, from all the runoff.

I guess I need to get out early and pull the rest of my potatoes before they rot in the ground. I hope to do a closer inspection this weekend unless the weather turns really foul. I was wondering how Wolffman made out, just down 36 in Needville. Now I see they got blasted, too. W.R. didn't do too bad, considering what happened in the city.

I am praying I don't lose my whole garden.

Thankful everyone else appears to be okay. I'll let y'all know what the weekend assessment is.
 

wolffman

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Good to hear you made out OK through all that Rahab. I was able to harvest potatoes just before the storm, and the tomatoes were making a small comeback. Then the storm hit, and they got submerged in a foot of water. It's a total loss now. We have green beans, carrots and a few other things in the raised bed, but everything else is gone. Just glad that we didn't get water in the house. The water came about 3 feet from the garage, I would have never thought it could get that high. I was out with a flashlight at 3:00 am between storms and it was surreal.
 
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w_r_ranch

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Picked 3 cukes & 36 peppers from the garden.

Made stuffed jalapenos & baked potatoes for supper.

Also made a small batch (about a quart) of jalapeno sauce.
 
M

Mr_Yan

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Harvested more lettuce and spinach for a lunch salad. This harvest brought my seasonal total to a pound.

Yesterday I planted my community garden
6 pumpkins (in ground)
6 butternut squash (in ground)
4x4 area of spinach transplants (raised bed)
4x4 area of turnip transplants (raised bed)
2x4 area of lettuce (raised bed)
2x4 area of carrots (raised bed)

High in the mid 70s, tonight's low in mid 60s, expect an inch of rain over night. Tomorrow's high in mid 60s
 

Rahab222

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Messages
354
Planting Zone
9B
Wolffman; "Surreal" is a very good word for our Memorial Day storm. I opened the front door around 2:00 a.m. to check the flooding and a bolt of lightening came straight up from the middle of my street. It was blinding. I don't think I've ever been that close to lightening. I let out a startled curse word and shut the door. I may wait to spray the Nitro-Cal on Sunday since the forecast says we might get a stretch without rain after this new patch passes through on Saturday - three fronts colliding from the west, north and south. Glad to hear your family is safe with your new, baby girl!

Your tale of the convenience store woman is also "surreal". My cousin's best friend was in the house swept away at Wimberly, along with her husband and two children. It was a family weekend with the grandparents there, as well as another sibling and her family. The friend's husband was found the morning after being swept away by the Blanco River tidal wave. He has been released from ICU, but is still in shock and not talking to the press. Searchers found their 6-year-old son deceased on Friday, on the northern side of San Marcos. The mother and 4-year-old daughter are still missing. My cousin's husband, son and brother are all part of a search team made up of church members and emergency response personnel from Corpus Christi. For those of you who pray, please keep this family in your prayers, as there can be no closure for family and friends until each one of these are found.

Stay safe gardening buddies!
 

Mike

Might know the answer
Messages
976
Location
Kentucky
Planting Zone
6b
So the garden bed was moved last week, this weekend I filled it back up with new soil. I really hated the soil from last year. This years soil I like much better so far. Also mixed in some vegetable garden soil from Lowes as well and transplanted my tomato plants then covered their side of the bed with fin pine mulch.

Want a garden that looks super clean and maybe even a little professional? Fin pine mulch will do it, looks great! To top it off it will break down into compost further enriching the garden!
 
M

Mr_Yan

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Want a garden that looks super clean and maybe even a little professional? Fin pine mulch will do it, looks great! To top it off it will break down into compost further enriching the garden!

I'm a big fan of mulch in the garden. Have you watched the Back to Eden Film? Cool idea about no till gardens with a lot of mulch use. I do think that they gloss over a few important points in his garden system but over all the mulch use is really cool.
 
M

Mr_Yan

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May 30th is heavy wool sweater weather to work in the garden here. 50° F and light rain. About to go out and make soil blocks to start another round of seeds.
 

Ibtsoom

Well-Known Member
Messages
156
Location
Hitchcock,Tx
Planting Zone
9A
Pulled weeds and picked cucumbers.. Cooked a brisket and sat around.. Didn't rain much on me yesterday. I did notice that one of my fruit trees has succumbed to all of the excess moisture as it sits in sort of a low spot in the yard.
 
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