Post-rain clean up

This Friday brought record breaking rain to our area. Many people got flooded basements and cars. We were lucky not to get any damage on that scale, but getting 15cm + of rain over a short period of time was hard on the garden. The ground was saturated and soft, and some of the newer areas had standing water well into the weekend. It took about a day to clean up the damage. There might be damage that I can't see yet either. A sudden downpour / inconsistencies in watering can lead to a lot of problems such as cracks and blossom end rot in tomatoes, and cracked carrots. 

Tomatoes

My biggest concern was my tomato plants. I use cages for most of my determinate plants, and with the saturated, soft ground, many of the cages toppled over. This caused some fruit to fall and in many cases, some branches (including the main "trunk") to break. Since the ground is still waterlogged several days later, any attempt to right the cages fell short. Ideally, I would love to put a T-post in each cage, but budget wise it's not a great option. I was able to rescue 6 used T-posts from an old fence, though.

The solution we opted for (Ray's idea) was to run a T-post at both ends of each tomato row, and one in the middle (so, a T-post every 18 feet - or about 6 tomato plants in between each pair of t-posts). Then, I ran a heavy-duty rope very tightly from one post to the next, which I wrapped around the upper hoop of each tomato cage as it crossed it. Thus, the tomato cages are being held upright and centered. So far it seems like a good solution. In the future I may set up my tomato cages like that at the start of the season, to prevent any accidents.

Once that was done, I did a big round of tomato picking. I picked up any tomatoes that had fallen to the ground, even green ones, and any tomato that had started to "blush" (change colors). This falls into my regular pattern of picking up all the "blushed" tomatoes once or twice a week - I don't wait for them to turn completely red. It is a little-known fact that from a flavor perspective, it doesn't matter if you let tomatoes ripen "on the vine" or not. Picking them early protects them from pests and bruises, and in this case, lightens my plants, too. In this case, I had an additional reason to pick the tomatoes - excessive watering can make tomatoes crack or get blossom end rot. I am hoping that by picking them quickly I will have pre-empted that.

The green tomatoes that had fallen to the ground won't go to waste. We'll make some fried green tomatoes, and maybe some green tomato salsa. ​

Green and blushed tomatoes after cleaning

Onions, potatoes and other root crops

My second point of concern was any crops that might be sitting in standing water - for example root crops (potatoes, turnips etc) and onions, because they might rot. I inspected all those crops and luckily most were in well drained soil. My potatoes in particular are on high ground and seem like they'll be fine. The only crop that looked at risk was my onions. Onions can rot if they are in wet ground, and I noticed standing water in the part of the garden that holds my onions (up to my ankles in the alley). I rooted around the onions a bit and noticed that some were in completely soaked ground - the kind of ground in which any hole you poke with your finger fills with water instantly. I pulled those onions right away. I'll trying to dry them for now, but I'll likely use them right away.

Compacted soil

Something to watch out for after a rain storm or any time the soil in your garden is soaked, is the risk of compacting the soil. In my case that means being very careful to only step in the alleys in my garden. It can be hard to be disciplined about this especially when you are anxious about fixing things that have gone awry, but it's well worth it - I don't want to lose the soil structure I've worked so hard to build up. If my garden didn't have such healthy soil, the damage would have been much worse. I remember the first year I started my garden, the soil was very compacted and 100% clay. It was a wet spring, but nothing like we experienced this Friday - yet there was standing water everywhere. I lost almost all my tomato seedlings. I had to dig moats in between rows and plant everything on mounds. My garden has come a long way from then, and the resiliency it built up really showed on Friday.

Finding this picture perfect tomato cheered me up