Rain totals here overnight was 3", this afternoon we got another 1.25". Probably not too much rain tomorrow, but more due on friday before letting up a bit. We went to town today, and had to stop and wait about a mile down the road due to a road crew cleaning up a bad slide. There were a couple more areas that had mud and debris on the road.
The two plots that I tilled yesterday before the deluge have some standing water and a little bit of washout. The tater a patch is a mess, with some significant erosion. My wife planted the seed potatoes and onions there Monday while I was laying down lime and fertilizer. There are several taters washed up, and the onion row took a beating, with many of the onion bulbs washed out of the plot. It’s going to be several days waiting for it to dry out some before we can even try to remedy the situation.
Us trying to grow potatoes for now the third year in a row has been a disaster. Last year we also got hit with heavy rains which rotted them before they sprouted, and after we replanted, those either didn’t come up, or deer got the rest. Two years ago, we had our crop hit with a hard freeze in mid May, while the plants were about 1-2ft tall. They got bit hard, and never really recovered.
The strawberry patch has a bit of standing water in it, but being on a slope, it drains well. The plants are bigger now than last year, and keep the plot from eroding more. I’m going to have to really lay down the mulch as there’s a lot of fruit laying on bare ground.
Our lower yard plot, which was plowed and disked a couple weeks ago, had two channels of water running through it, I’m still puzzled why it’s happening. There’s a drainage ditch above it that might be overflowing into it, so we’ll have to fix that somehow.
There’s maybe 3 or 4 of our two year old apple trees that are experiencing the same symptoms as our Moonglow pear- the vertical going branches are laying over. Is it because they’re too long and the branch can’t support its weight in addition to all the leaves on it while wet? None of these trees were doing this before the big rains hit.
As mentioned earlier, it’s very frustrating trying to grow anything in this environment. It’s like living in a rain forest.
Every variety still has at least one good one, so I’m keeping my fingers crossed there. And I’m going to graft more in the rain while we’re cool because I still have wood – why not 
?
