Saturday, July 31, 2010

Hot and Dry

I had to get out at the crack of dawn and water our plants this morning. The temps are brutal right now with no relief in sight. I know a lot of the country is faced with the same kind of weather, so whining is not a viable option.
The garden is barely surviving. We have really good water right out of the tap, but it has chlorine added  which I'm guessing plants don't like.
We have an under the counter filter that makes the water we drink better than most bottled water, but that's not helping the plants.
Jilda's mom Ruby, who was a gardener extraordinaire, always said that "all city water can do is keep a garden alive. It will not thrive." 
I've found her words to be true. We do have a well down at the barn that has never gone dry no matter how hot the summer. We don't have a pump in the well, but we have an old fashion well bucket (bail) that you can lower down to the water with a rope and pull up water that's clean, tastes great, and is as cold as a Popsicle. 
I've considered putting a pump in the well and using that water hydrate our garden. I have a feeling that it would be as good as for the plants as a spring rain.
I'm not sure when the thermometer will recede. Some years it takes a hurricane in the gulf to move the high pressure off to the east and bring some relief to this part of the country.
I don't wish a hurricane on our folks who are already battered by the oil spill, but I sure would like for the days to cool off a bit.

4 comments:

  1. I have given up on the garden. The ground is so hard and dry that you can't even pull out a weed. We also water with 'polluted' city water, so it doesn't do much good. I am with you on the heat--we need some relief, but it is only the first of August, so it looks like we might be in for a long haul. I envy you your well. :)
    tm

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  2. So it's dry there too?
    Forecast shows the same conditions for the next seven days.
    Welcome to the south :)

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  3. Our monsoon finally showed up. We had a good overnight rain here, but some areas in the valley were flooded. Photos in the morning paper showed the usual stupid motorists caught trying to drive through flooded streets being pushed out of the deep water by bystanders. I'd send some of our rain your way, but don't know how to do that.

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  4. We got rain last night again. We've had it every day the past week but Friday. It's a hard extended rain, but so far no flooding in Louisville.

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