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Florida Gardening

The rain is drowning my plants!

12 years ago

Hey everybody

I canÃ¯Â¿Â½t believe this! My bell pepper plants were doing so well they had as much as fourteen on a single plant and now because of this rain that has been going on for the last two days they are starting to fall off. I had to construct a little tent for them so that they will stop getting soaked. Some of the flowers on my tomatoes are starting to fall too. Is there anything else I can do to help them recover? Maybe I should add bone meal or something. Before I took up gardening I liked rainy days now not so much.

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Comments (6)

romy6
12 years ago
I bring my pepper plants in the garage or porch on days I know we are gonna have tons of rain( only if you are using containers). There isn't much you can do about over-watering other than add more nutes and wait it out . Bone meal can take up to 6 weeks to take effects. Try using liquid ferts at 1/4( such as fish emulsion and seaweed extract) strength every time you water couple for fast results. I do feel your pain though. Good news is we should have some nice weather for the next month unlike are northern friends.
Ecopal
Original Author
12 years ago
ThatÃ¯Â¿Â½s a relief, Even when its not raining its so cloudy that it might as well be night time. I do use both five gallon buckets and fish fertilizer but I have no garage. Oh well, even if they do fall off they will grow more right?
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Susie, first of all the rain is not the tree's problem. A potted citrus tree setting in the rain, even a lot of rain is good, as it helps adjust the pH and also flushes the soluble salts from the container. Your tree's problem is the potting mix the tree is growing in. If the medium was a well draining mixture, as is required by citrus, the tree would have benefited from the rain. Unfortunately, your tree's potting mix did not drain as a mix should, and held the excess water instead of passing it through. What your tree suffered from, was not all the water, but actually from a lack of air in the root zone. The air was replaced by the excess rain that was held by the containers "soil", and the roots suffocated. You need to transplant your tree into the proper potting mix. There are several worthwhile formulas. An excellent medium is CHC's. You can see hundread of threads on this forum about the use of CHC's as a growing medium. Use the search box on this forum. Millet
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gatormomx2
12 years ago
Ecopal- there is no zone or city linked to your user name so I can not tell where you live.
With heavy rain, I am guessing south?
Up here in north Central Florida, I am wondering- what rain?
The weather pattern gave it all to you and left us dry!
Ecopal
Original Author
12 years ago
Thats right I live in Hialeah. And apparently from what I see its going to be day three in this depressing series of damp darkness. Its 10:00 am and it almost pitch black outside. So now my plants are getting too much water and virtually no sun. I was finally doing things right and making some real progress. But apparently nature is not on my side.
Yme405
12 years ago
Same thing going on over here on the west coast. We have some hope though, supposedly after this nastiness moves off later today we should be seeing only 10 and 20% chances of rain, lots of sun and cooler temps for the next 8 days. Hopefully that forecast holds and we can dry out some.

I have a light shade cloth attached to posts that runs the length of my plot. Works well in difusing the impact when the rain is a downpour, but yesterday was mostly sideways. Luckily I planned to pull my pole beans, because Mother Nature helped the process along

Chrissy
murphyjp
12 years ago
with 5 days of rain, rain gauge says 9 1/2 inchs. looked at the garden and need to replant just about everything.
banana trees down, moringa yellow should come back even the grass is yellow. now cool weather time for the fungus to take everything else.

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