Well, it has been a nerve-wracking few days here at my Sanctuary Garden. After two weeks without any rain, I received a total of 2.6 inches of it between Monday night and Wednesday morning. More than enough for a week’s watering! Then, there was Tropical Storm Andrea heading our way with a forecast of four to five more inches of rain. Certainly what I did NOT need! It’s funny how I wasn’t worried about the winds or what the rain would do to my house or property. My first thoughts were on my garden. Yes, like a doting mother, I worried about my plants. Would they drown? Would they fall over? Would I lose all that beautiful fruit growing? Well, the eye of the storm passed a few miles to the west of my home around daybreak this morning, and I ran outside as soon as the rain decreased to a drizzle to
Why was I so concerned? Before I went to bed last night, I saved a screen-capture of the Weather Channel’s map. Lots of color but raining too much to check the rain gauge in my garden. Like I could do anything about it, right? But I wanted to know…how bad is it in my garden?!
Tropical Storm Andrea on Weather Channel map June 6, 2013 at 10:30 EDT
The white line on the map is the projected path of the eye of the storm.
I am happy to report that it wasn’t nearly as bad as I anticipated! As of 8:30 this morning, my rain gauge had only 0.8 inches of rain from last night. Yes, that’s a total of 3.4 inches in four days, but it could’ve been so much worse. I think my plants’ roots are going to be okay. No pools of water in the raised beds, so everything drained well.
I did have some branches come down.
Branches down near my patio ~ from Tropical Storm Andrea
This is why dead branches on trees are called widow makers. (Never pitch a tent under them!)
Thick branch imbedded in yard after Tropical Storm Andrea
Many of my pepper plants were keeled over, so I’ll need to stake them in the morning after things dry out a little.
Pepper plants needing to be staked after Tropical Storm Andrea
Thankfully, most of my tomatoes were fine. I found one branch that was broken about 3/4 of the way through that I’m trying to save by propping it up (and hoping it heals). I don’t think I lost any other branches. I did have a couple plants that needed to have the stakes uprighted.
Roma tomato plant leaning over after Tropical Storm Andrea
I noticed that I have some new tomato branches with Septoria Leaf Spot beginning. Tomorrow morning I’ll be chopping away to remove those. My order of copper fungicide will be arriving the beginning of next week, so I will spray all my plants immediately. Tomorrow I’ll also prune to thin out the tomato jungle that bed has become with all this rain! Got to keep the air flowing between the plants.
I have five Red Creole onions that I’ve let go for seed that were practically lying on the ground. I leaned them against the fence, so I think they’ll continue to live (and go to seed).
Red Creole onions after Tropical Storm Andrea
So, overall, I’m quite happy that the storm didn’t bring as much rain as forecast, nor did I lose any plants (so far). I think my garden made it through okay. Unfortunately, this is just the beginning of hurricane season. May it be a slow year!
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Did Tropical Storm Andrea visit you? How did your garden fare?
Sanctuary Gardener 