Jay,

It's what I've been expecting too, but that doesn't mean I'm happy about it.

When I saw this a couple of weeks ago and looked at how dry we are here, I started revising my plans for the 2011 garden.

I decided to plant less in containers because it will be so hard to water them all in a drought. I'm also adding extra compost and water-absorbing crystals to all my containers so they'll hold moisture better. I'm also going to try to get all my warm-season crops in the ground as early as possible once the last potentially frosty or freezing night passes (tonight should be it for me) And, I'm going to mulch even more heavily than usual. I have 193 square bales of last year's hay that was raised in a pasture just W/SW of our property so I'll be able to mulch as much as I want (within reason). The hay wasn't sprayed with anything according to the property owner, but I'll test it before I use it. It would be devastating to use it without testing and then discover that "oops--they sprayed with a herbicide and forget they'd done so".

As soon as all my plantings are in, I'm going to start putting up the frames for shade cloths, so that when June's heat arrives (or even in May if it gets too hot too early), I can put up shade cloth over the rows of tomatoes and peppers.

And, I'm adding more rain barrels so I can catch more rainfall to use for watering, if rain ever falls here again.

For our county, March is going to be one of the driest on record...probably in the Top Ten since they started keeping records, and I think it will end up being the driest March since our family moved here. Last week, with highs around 90, we had grasshoppers around 3/4-1" long. Usually they are just now starting to hatch out in significant numbers.

You know what drought and grasshoppers do to a garden, and so do I, so I just bought a roll of lightweight floating row cover so I can cover up my plants and protect them from the pests that usually accompany drought (grasshoppers, leafhoppers, blister beetles, stink bugs, etc.).

I am trying to do all I can to prepare for drought, but there's only so much a person can do.

If the drought plays out as expected, my garden likely will be "done" by July, which isn't as bad as it sounds because we'll likely be having so many pasture fires, baler fires, tractor fires and welding fires that I won't have time to garden anyway....and you know it just kills me to even think of the veggie garden burning up in the heat.

I don't know what y'all are going to do up there. This will be your fourth year of drought. At least for my county, we had 6 months of good to great rainfall in 2010 so our deep soil moisture is good and will be for a while yet.

Is it too early to start looking ahead to 2012? (Just kidding, I think.)

Dawn

I'm revising my plans a bit as well. This was going to be the year I give our lawn a makeover (i.e., kill the sand burs and start fertilizing and doing soil amending in the back where even the weeds won't grow let alone grass). It got too warm too fast for me to get the pre-emergent down, and I cannot possibly water the fertilizer in over an acre on my own with no rain and no sprinkler system.

I guess I'll focus on the young shrubs I just planted and maybe start a few containers of veggies that'll need a lot less water than our entire yard. The lawn will have to look awful for one more year.

I know my plans have been revised a little. I am certainly going to be done by July with the garden and may not have a fall garden like I had planned in less something changes dramatically. The list of things I am growing has shortened. I need to get a set up for shade cloth, that is for sure.

I hate to rub salt into a wound, but I am sitting at my computer because it is raining outside. We haven't gotten heavy rains, but we have sure had a lot of small ones. Enough to keep the ground to wet to plant.

Carol, don't feel bad because we'll probably head NE for food around July......heehee!

Dawn, a couple of questions. How do you test for herbicides in your hay bales?

Also, you didn't mention the cucumber beetles, and I just wondered if they are more numerous in drought or not? Seemed like I had tons of them later last year when we began to sink into a drought then.

I planted a few seeds of each variety of tomato I had. I guess I'll just let them die a painful (for me) death. I kept hoping for a break, good news on the horizon, despite being convinced earlier in the year we were going to have to cope with the drier conditions. But, no.

I went to Walmart this morning and noticed they have had their pepper plants out - can you imagine what those poor things are going to do - absolutely nothing probably. They were definitely showing signs of stress, poor babies.

I then swung by Horn's to pick up some chicken manure, and noticed they are carrying the Espoma potting mixes now. Not the big bags, though. They may just be trying it out on the shelf to see how it does. They are also carrying the Ladybug John's potting mix and seedling mix, too. I was happy to see that, altho I've already bought my mixes for this year, except for a trip I need to make for American Plant Products.

I set my little tomatos outside today. Thought about getting some plants at Walmart, but decided to rely on my own starts this year.

Did pick up some deep orange Gerbera daisies, annual red Salvias, maroon colored Dianthus, a Coreopsis hybrid, and a Lavender x intermedia 'Provence'.

Hopefully, I can keep a few tomatos and my butterfly/hummer plants going this summer.

Susan

Susan,

Basically, you plant some beans or peas in the material you're wanting to test, wait for them to sprout and observe their growth for several weeks. I've linked a blog below where the writer was testing their own horse's manure and either straw or hay and in the blog post they referenced/linked some Bioassay directions from the Univ. of Washington, which is where the earliest known herbicide comtamination of this type occurred in the early 2000s. I'll just cut up some hay from random bales, mix the hay with potting soil and plant the beans or peas.

I didn't mention cucumber beetles because I just don't worry excessively about them. They are as common as flies here (and with this being horse and cow ranch country, flies are thick!) and I'd have to nuke all our acres and all the acres around us nonstop to make a dent in them. Most pests are more numerous in drought because there's a lower food supply and they're roaming around looking for it. I think that's why Busy1 and I are seeing outrageous numbers of grasshoppers already. Usually the hoppers are annoying but aren't a real problem until July or August, so having them this heavy this early is alarming. I've been seeing cucumber beetles for a couple of weeks now.

All the stores have had peppers here since late February. I think they've lost their minds. I feel sorry for people who buy pepper plants that have been exposed repeatedly to very cold nights because they're likely to be slow to flower and to produce.

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: Herbicide Testing