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Daily Archives: September 3, 2014

T’storms

As in one of the more prolific storms that have hit us this summer. Almost half an inch of rain in ten minutes last night.

To me, thunderstorms and massively heavy rainfall impact my garden. To me, that garden is a luxury and not my life. I feel for all our local farmers dealing with these deluges.

At least I got most of my tomatoes off the vine yesterday morning, before the skies opened.

I did learn one very important lesson from my winery friend. When the weather is periods of heavy rain for much of the summer, leave your weeds around your vegetables. Some vegetables, like my tomatoes, don’t like more than an inch of rain a week. The weeds compete for all that moisture, and the tomatoes do better. In periods of drought, you need to weed aggressively.

This year, the weeds may look bad, but they are keeping my tomato plants from rotting.

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I have learned also to go out there and pick the tomatoes before they really split open, and are prone to rotting.

Every year poses new challenges. This year, cool rainy weather. Did you know we never hit 90 degrees here in August until the last day of the month?