David

A real problem, isn't it?

Here's what I'd be tempted to do. First, keep in mind that clay soil is almost always rich nutritiously for your plants. I'd see if I could find 50 1-gallon containers (or larger/deeper) and remove the bottoms. Or make that many "growing cylinders" out of something else, nice and deep. Set them on top of the soil where you want to put each plant and fill them with a good growing mix, like ProMix BX. Set the plants out inside the containers, and support them as you would if they were planted directly into your garden soil. As it continues to rain, the water will run through the growing mix and not suffocate your plants.

I'd be a little concerned about setting the plants out into water-logged clay, though not other more porous soils that would allow for more aeration to the plant roots.

Now, if that's too much expense and fuss, you can wait until the weather is cleared up and when you plant them, place them horizontally in the planting hole with the leaves removed. That's usually what people do with plants that are just too large to plant vertically.

I have a bed that is still very heavy on the clay side just like yours. And we have had a rainy spring here as well. I would not recommend doing anything special other than trying to stay off the soil as much as you can and try not to compact it too much when planting. Other than that I would just plant away, give them time to adjust and the soil to dry out a bit and they will do fine. Just dont expect them to be perky until the soil has had a chance to dry out a bit.

Damon

Is there any way you can get in to at least make your raised mounds or some raised hills? They will then dry out a lot faster than the rest of the bed and you can plant in them with less stress to the plants. They will be rough I know but still better than nothing at all.

Dave

Oh when it rains it pours! After having a good hot day and only a 30% chance of rain forecasted, I though we would get a dry day under our belt. No such luck. This evening we got another storm, putting down another 8/10 tenths of rain.

Dave, your advice is spot on, but when it rains this much and just about every single day, I canÂt even do what you suggest.

I can do what Anney suggested. I have lots of 5 quart ice cream pails that I can cut the bottom out of and fill with planting mix. At this time it seems that may be my only viable option.

Do you guys think I should forego putting my black plastic down? The positive thing about not putting the plastic down is; less walking around in the garden, therefore less compaction. The negatives are; soil not as warm, having to deal with weeds and isnÂt this next one ironic. Having the plastic down would keep the soil moist should the summer turn to be very dry. I guess after typing this out it seems that it would be best to put the black plastic down.

I am including a picture of one of the ice cream buckets with the bottom cut out, to get some thoughts as to whether or not if they would do the job.

Thanks for the input guys, I really appreciate it.

David

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I like Anney's idea. I potted my 26 eggplants and 6 squash into 1-gal pots and I'm holding them in my sunroom. It's very easy to slice the bottoms off of those cheap plastic pots (70 cents each).I'm still waiting to put them outside because cold, soaking rains have not only saturated the ground, they've also brought soil temps back down into the mid-40s! What a nasty climate I live in.

Well, the soil moisture still remains too wet, however a little drier than it was when I first posted.

I was not able to make my beds, but was able to plant my tomatoes today anyway. This is how I solved the problem.

As I previously noted, I used the boards to distribute mine and the DW's weight. Laid down the black plastic as I normally would and used the following two ways to plant them.

First, my Roma's were extremely tall, about 18 inches or more. I made a trench in what you might as well call mud. Then covered the root ball and stem with potting mix.

The rest of my tomatoes were not as tall as the Roma's so I used a different method. I used a bulb digger to pull out as big of a plug of soil as I could. Put just a little potting mix in the bottom, put in the plant and filled the hole with potting mix.

Now all I have to do is keep them sprayed for blight. My area was one of the places that got hit with Late Blight last year.