Drought: So what if?

Anyone read The Grasshopper Trap by Pat MacManus?

When I lived where the summers were triple digit temperatures for weeks at a time, I gave the garden a good soaking every night around midnight when it cooled off into the 90s. Things grew like crazy.

By time it got that hot in the summer, all the cool weather crops were finished anyway.

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Please wait until you see a man at his worst before you give him your heart, because once you do it will affect your judgment.

large electric fence encloser to start with...and plenty of snare wire..i think coons are worse than coyotes.

definayly have to do something...maybe let them out for the last part of day then lock up at night and just watch over them while loose.

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i went to the woods because i wished to live deliberately to front only the essential facts of life,.......,and not,when i came to die,discover that i had not lived...Henry David Thoreau

If the drought raises the cost of chicken feed or destroys your chicken feed crops it makes sense to look into recycling those pests to the poultry/pigs.
Just googled a bunch of different traps for curiosity and they do exist. I have a grasshopper eating cat BTW

You know, it's all very well and fine to talk about how good your gardens do or did if you have plenty of water but what are you not understanding about what happens to plants when they don't have enough water?

Even if there is an availability of plenty of water if the temperatures are high enough the heat ruptures the cells of certain types of plants and intense ultra violet radiation burns ALL plants, even plants that are shaded. Heat and UV radiation kills them.

.

This is the last year of this drought.

Soon folks will be complaining about too much rain

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ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ

I was in no way trying to be rude, we have had higher then normal temps the relitive humidity is way lower, we have lived in the high desert and until they say we can't water we will. When the temps are really high and the plants are looking stressed we will top water just to cool them down. But for the most part they get watered every other day by the irrigation system hubby set up and all plants are thriving. I can understand farmers or people with more then an for use only garden may be stuggling, but those who have just a basic garden for personal use, watching it just die I don't understand. I am no way trying to start another "oison " thread just trying to learn more as we go longer with out rain.

How do you know this is the last year of the drought?

Well, I wasn't trying to imply that you (or Laura) were being rude, just asking why you couldn't understand how it is that other people have plants that are dying when they don't have enough water in their locations.

See, you and Laura both mentioned having had no problems with watering your plants (because you HAVE the water) and your plants thriving while living in high desert climate. Your plants were started in high desert climate and have adapted from the get go to those climate conditions and the soil you have, they have adapted to getting the water they need on a regular schedule. Your plants are not suffering from climate shock.

Most of the other folks posting here who are having troubles, not enough water, it's become too hot, the soil has changed and their plants are dying - they don't all live in a high desert climate. Their plants weren't started in high desert conditions, they were started in different climate and soil conditions in different locations on the continent that the plants adapted to as seedlings but then ALL conditions changed, got hotter and drier than normal, the soil changed and there's not enough water and that makes their plants go into shock and die.

All living organisms can and will go into shock and may die when the environment they're living in and adapted to changes to extreme conditions that they don't have time to re-adapt to and don't have enough water. Plants, animals, birds, insects, humans, even soil and the micro-organisms and beneficial bacteria living in the soil, etc. will all go into shock and trauma.

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The temperature patterns are starting to change in the Pacific.
This drought is largely due to two El Nino's in a row

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ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ

NatureLover, please read my first post in this thread.

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Please wait until you see a man at his worst before you give him your heart, because once you do it will affect your judgment.

I did see that, but you live on the Olympic Peninsula now according to your location. I know what the Olympic Peninsula is like, remember I'm only a short hop skip and a jump away from you and share similar Pacific climate. You now have easy peasy growing conditions where you are now and water isn't an issue compared to when you were living where the summers were triple digit temperatures for weeks at a time (wherever that was) and you gave your garden a good soaking every night. If you could give your garden a good soaking every night at that time in whatever location that was then it might have been hot but you weren't in real drought conditions then either.

Nobody in real drought conditions can soak their garden every night because they don't have the water to spare for that. That is the point I've been trying to make.

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Can you show evidence that the temperature patterns are starting to change in the Pacific now? Because all the evidence I've been reading lately from oceanographers is that the Pacific is continuing in it's warming trend.

And it's been 3 years now of El Nino conditions, not 2. The end of the last La Nina was in the winter of 2008/2009. Then El Ninos after that. Last summer oceanographers were predicting that the 2011/2012 winter would be a La Nina winter and it wasn't, it was a 3rd El Nino winter. Three El Nino years in a row is already an anomaly that has never been known to happen before in all the nearly 200 years since the beginning of official records when mariners first started recording El Nino and La Nina cycles in the early 1800's.

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NATURELOVER
"Nobody in real drought conditions can soak their garden every night because they don't have the water to spare for that. That is the point I've been trying to make."

??? Many here absolutely have the water to soak a garden overnight. I can't speak for everyone and that sometimes becomes a communication problem on this board that people forget, not everyplace is like where they live. A drought does not necessarily dry up ones well. I have heard no one complaining about there well going dry. So they have the ability of watering a garden. If one is useing rain catchment or dissapearing surface water it could be a problem. People who garden in dry climates know before they plant that they will have to irrigate. People who live where generally there is adequate rainfall and usually don't have to water may not be as well prepared. Again people and regions where we live are not all the same.

Wilting, rolling leaves is a natural defense against transpiration water loss. I have seen corn leaves rolled up with water running down the row. Low humidity, wind and high temps made it impossible for the plant to absorb and transport the amount of water being lost, so the corn leaf rolls to decrease exposed surface area and reduce water loss.

I might mention that I also have drought conditions. No measurable rain since May 26, many days 90s-100s and low humidity. Meteorgical definition of a drought is a percentage of normal rainfall. Normal precip of Rawlins WY would be considered a drought in Atlanta Ga.

Bruce, 'here' is Nebraska for you, right? And is your well's source the Ogallala aquifer?

Oh man, now you may have just opened up this topic to a major lecture from NL about responsible water conservation .

Trust me on this, you do not want to get her started on a nightmare of ranting on what's happening with the human-caused rapid depletion of the Ogallala. LOL.

The misuse and abuse of the Ogallala is a real sore point with her.

I said " 2 EL Nino's", not "2 years"



"Drought" just means below normal rainfall

It doesn't mean WELLS are all dried up

"Officially" we have been in a "drought" here for several years, but very little has died completely.

It's a matter of degrees, and the media is playing this one up for all it's worth.

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I also learned to farm in the San Juaquin Valley, farmed in the Sierra foothills, the Siskyous and Montana. I know all about water restrictions and conservation. One reason I moved here because of agriculture's losing battles in the ongoing Western Water Wars. All plants die without water, even in cool weather.

Adapt, adapt, adapt. Some varieties thrive and prosper at 112 degrees. Plug into NOAA, plan and plant accordingly.

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Please wait until you see a man at his worst before you give him your heart, because once you do it will affect your judgment.

While we have access to water from the garden hose (not much in the way of rain), the varieties of plants that normally do well around here are dying from the high temperatures. We tend to plant crops that are a bit frost hardy since that is our usually plant killer. This year, we'd have done well to plant varieties that do well in the southern states.

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Bystander: A Tale of the End of the World as SHE Knew It!

Christmas in Bystander & Other Village Tales

Coming Soon: A Slice of Heaven

We're in a severe drought area and the temps are high. We have been watering our garden every night, but the heat is taking it's toll.

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