Hi Dorothy,

I think we have to blame it all on the returning El Nino pattern, which means more rain for all of us for the next six months or longer. You folks in eastern OK are probably going to suffer from way too much rain, as if you haven't had too much already. I did notice the PNW gardeners who post on the tomato forum had their best year in ages and were just the happiest campers in the world!

Dorothy, your August-September rainfall totals are like ours from May-June 2004, and it was too much rain. At least yours is falling in autumn, so maybe it is too cool for all the fungal and bacteria diseases to pop up. Speaking of the garden plants in the rain, how are your young cool-season crops? I hope they aren't drowning.

After 48 hours of non-stop misty, foggy, cloudy skies with an occasional bout of heavier rain, we have 2" and more light rain continues to fall. I'm a sunshine loving woman, so I want for the clouds to go away, but I won't 'wish away' our rain because we did so desperately need it.

The fall armyworms did arrive the night before the rain and now they are stripping plants right and left. We have only had them this bad in our yard once before. I hope I have plants left by the time the rain finally stops in 3 or 4 or 5 days. I'd spray with Bt but it is misty literally 24/7 so the Bt would wash right off. I'm not happy about the armyworms, but am seriously in love with the cooler weather. High temps in the 70s are so much nicer than the 90s or 100s and I've had enough of those temps for this year.

The great news is that some of the drought-plagued parts of Texas have had a little rain too, although they need your kind of rainfall totals to make a real difference and haven't had those yet.

Most of us aren't in Kansas any more....LOL Jay is, though, and he's been rain-challenged all year. I hope he gets some rain out of this system that's dumping the rain on your place and ours.

Dawn

Most of us aren't in Kansas any more....LOL Jay is, though, and he's been rain-challenged all year. I hope he gets some rain out of this system that's dumping the rain on your place and ours.
We got the 3 tenths and that is all. Had a heavy dew, real foggy and light mist till around 11. They are saying it is over. And no rain in the forecast for at least 7 days. I was at my BIL's last night and asked him where he was going to drill wheat. He said as soon as it rains. He said they didn't even get a tenth. Barely sprinkled. So SW KS got more than the OK Panhandle. Jay

Jay,

We 'had' rain in the forecast every day for the next week which sounded too good to be true and I guess it was because they took it out of the forecast for several of those days and dropped the percentage for the other days.

Some folks have had their fields plowed for 2 or 3 weeks now just waiting for moisture to fall, so I guess they can plant as soon as they can get into the fields if they didn't get their seed into the ground before the rain started.

Dawn

Never Fear - the State Fair is Here! Have you ever known it to stay dry during the Fair? I'm sure it must have sometime, but not in my years of recollection! It's due to open Thursday....so I'd imagine the weathermen will get shot down again!

We came back to Oklahoma after 3 years in Hilo, Hawaii...this feels very familiar....

We probably should enjoy it while it lasts because around here, just when you get used to the weather you're having....it changes.

My cool season crops need a cultivating and some sun. It's too wet to hoe and too cloudy for sun. But they have grown a little and I only lost a very few to getting mudded over. So if the sun comes out and the killing freeze is late, I should have broc, cabbage, chinese cabbage, brussels sprouts and some mixed chinese greens. Already have plenty of turnip and mustard greens, green beans. My tomatoes peppers and okra look sick though. Next year I'm going to follow your example and plant fresh plants for the fall.

Jay, Our part of the panhandle didn't even get a tenth of an inch. We planted some wheat on the 1.3 inches two weeks ago and are waiting for more rain to finish.

Dawn, glad you are getting rain. My daughter went to Grapevine over the weekend and said they were rained on all weekend so figured you had rain.

Those of you with too much rain send it west.:)

Hope more rain comes at the end of week.

Jan

Dorothy,

I still had a couple of spring-planted tomatoes in the ground and this rain has finished them off...instant death. I'll pull them tomorrow if the misty junk finally stops. The fall tomatoes look fine, but army worms are here so I don't know if that will last.

I have fall broccoli and cabbage and this is the perfect weather for them. The okra seems to be stalling, but since the temps have stayedin the 70s for several days with no sunlight, that's not unusual. The green beans are very happy.

Whenever I decide in July to carry over spring tomato plants to fall, I always regret it by late August because they look awful. This year is no exception, so I've been yanking them one by one. The fall tomato plants have blossoms and green fruit, and I'm already harvesting from the cherry types so I am a pretty happy camper.

I think for all of us with tomatoes, the cool weather does adversely affect hornworms, so hooray for that.

Jan,

I hope y'all get some rain soon, especially for the winter wheat.

Most of the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex just got pounded with rain all weekend long. In some areas they were out doing high water rescues this morning.

My husband works at D-FW Airport and he kept sending me text messages for a couple of days that said stuff like "Getting pounded by rain". "Still getting pounded. Any rain there?" etc. It drove me crazy because at that time the rain wasn't here yet. I wish we'd had as much here as they've had down there.

When I was a kid, my uncle and aunt lived in Grapevine which was a one-horse town. That was in the early 1970s. Eventually they sold their land to D-FW Airport. Even though Grapevine is so much bigger now, it is still one of my favorite places. I love their old downtown area AND all the new shopping venues....I can kill a whole day at Grapevine Mills Mall, and I'm really not even a mall type person.

I know Dorothy would send both you and Jay rain if she could because she's getting too much right now. I'd send ya'all half of my measley 2.5" if I could figure out how to pack it and ship it.

This week's rainfall puts our total at about the same amount as our average annual rainfall, so I guess this is going to be a good year, statistically speaking.

It is still raining here and has been for most of the day, but it is a very light mist, so maybe we've picked up another quarter inch. Every bit helps though!

Dawn

Doesn't look like any rain this week. See some mentioned for the middle of next week. My BIL was hoping for wheat pasture. Will be getting late if moisture doesn't come soon. The most important thing is it comes in time the wheat covers the ground and keeps it from blowing. Looks like upper 70's and lower 80's with nights in the 50's. Great tomato weather. They are sure ripening now. The shelves are almost full and it hasn't hit full peak yet. Been taste testing and saving seeds from those that have any. A few haven't had any mature seeds. Normal for early ones. Been eating a lot of BPT's. Hope everyone gets wet soon. Jay

Jay and Jan,

I wish we could send you this morning's rain. It is lovely.

Since Thursday, we have received about 3.5" at our house, almost all of it in a very slow, steady mist that very occasionally turns to drizzle for a few minutes. We have mud, we have puddles, everything is wet, and the dogs and cats are growing webbed feet. (I made up that last part.)

Last night they posted "rainfall totals since Thursday" on our local CBS affiliate's website and pronounced Marietta the winner with 5.19" of rain. I assume that measurement is from our Burneyville mesonet station, which was up to 5.93" this morning. We're south of Marietta by a few miles and southeast of the Burneyville station, so we've had less than them...but it is enough to make me happy.

The cracks in the clay ground are closing up and this includes the dry pond bottoms. No water has accumulated in the ponds since it is raining too lightly for there to be any runoff, but the pond bottoms had to moisten up so the cracks could heal before the ponds would hold water again. Since the pond bottom cracks are healing and closing, I am hoping that further autumn rains will refill the ponds.

Sadly, the rain is to continue on for another couple of days. I say sadly because my tomato foliage has been wet 24/7 since Thursday evening or Friday morning. I'd spray with Daconil or Kocide but the rain never stops, not for 5 minutes. I feel like I may lose all my tomatoes. I also am not sure how much wet foliage the other plants can take, and my concern mainly is for the warm-season crops. The cool-season crops love this weather.

I keep thinking of all the long, hot dry days of summer when our temperatures were over 100 and our heat index was in the 105-110 range and I would have given anything for one misty, cool day like this. After 4 of them in a row, though, I am "so over it" and longing for a couple of hours of sunlight. Apparently, no matter what weather we have, I am going to perversely sit here and wish for it to change. LOL

On the bright side, the liatris (aka gayfeather or prairie blazing star) in the pasture didn't bloom in August as it should have because it was too dry and some of them turned black and died. The surviving ones are beginning to bloom now alongside the goldenrod, so the back pasture is looking pretty.

Dawn

Well, I'm in NE Arkansas, right on the Missouri border... and it's noon and the temp is 71?? And honestly, we had TWO WEEKS of ninety degree temps and that was IT. VERY STRANGE WEATHER YEAR. I feel like I'm in Illinios or something... LOL! Of course the weather starts going all zonkers on me when I start gardening... :(.
We haven't gotten much rain in this last bit of storms, just cloudy skies and lots of mist. I figure it'll pour again before the weeks over, they're calling for rain for the next three days. It's still better than last year, getting the remains of Gustav and Ike up here! :)

Beth

An inch and a third here, but it won't have time to dry out before the next one hits. I always worry about the trees. So many are huge, but have shallow root systems and they just fall over when the ground gets too wet too deep. I saw two last year, but both were planted too close to something for their roots to spread out good. One was near a house and the other had a septic tank near it, so it couldn't spread it's roots evenly.

Beth,

So, you're telling us that y'all didn't have much of a summer? I knew you had a lot of cloudy, cool, rainy weather but didn't realize it was that bad! It is a wonder you were able to grow anything at all.

It is 1:45 p.m. here, and 69 degrees and misty, foggy, cool, and cloudy. It's been this way since Thursday or Friday, but seems like it has been weeks. I need sunshine!!

Carol, That thing with trees crashing to the ground happened a few times in Fort Worth during very, very wet years. It happened at least twice in the late 1980s or early 1990s in the Trinity Park area and Fort Worth Botanical Garden just across the road. HUGE trees, up to 100' tall or taller crashed to the ground because the wet clay turned mushy and couldn't hold their weight. It was awful to see grand old trees coming down because of the rain, but it did open up a new sunny area at the Botanical Gardens and they planted that area with a Conferederate Rose Garden full of antique varieties of rose.

Dawn

The one that fell in my neighborhood was on a rental property but it fell onto a home owners shop and did some damage there. The other one was in a beautiful yard near my church. The home always has a gorgeous flower border along the back wooden 8 ft fence, and then the front has a lot of hostas and a few blooming things. Across the street someone has a large lot without a house on it and it looks like a park. It is privately owned but the owners want people to enjoy it so a lot of wedding pictures get taken there. I think the owner lives in one of the house on the waterfront, and there is a road between the house and this lot so I don't know which house the owner lives in. It is maintained better than most parks and always has something blooming. The back border of the house that lost the tree looks like something out of "House Beautiful", so I hated to see them lose a tree, but they have other trees at the other end of the house.

Dawn,
Not much of a summer at all, really! Hubby loved it, meant he didn't have to mow as much... LOL! Between rains and cloudy-ness, it is a wonder I got anything at all out of the garden. The last of July and thru August was mainly 80's with the two weeks of 90's, that's when my okra went nuts! Still hoping that next year will be better!

I haven't emptied the rain gauge since it started raining drizzly/misty last Fri and looked today and another .4 in has fallen in that time. ANd no sun. I need sunlight. But on the other side of it, my electric and water bill are going to be great this month.

I was gone over the weekend. Left Saturday at noon, and got back today about 5. I found 2 /12 inches of rain in my gauge. WOW, the rain barrels were full, and all has been pumped in to storage, in case it will rain more. :)

This is a weird summer. I need to mow tomorrow. Normally, I have quit mowing sometime in August, cause the grass goes dormant from not enough moisture.

Oh, well, at least I remembered to turn off the water to the soaker hoses before I left. :)

Moni