Stuck in the garden

The rainy garden.

We've been waiting since Saturday for really big storms, and yesterday they hit. We woke up in a tornado watch, and wave after wave of storms blew over us. We were in town having dinner for a friend's birthday when the air raid sirens went off. Outside, the sky was green and extremely ominous. Inside, most of the patrons at the restaurant were concerned, but the staff didn't seem bothered at all. They urged us all to stay put, saying the building had weathered over a 100 years of storms so far. That didn't really calm my nerves. The sirens went off twice, and we learned that the worst of the weather was just north of town. Roads were flooded in town, because a lot of rain was falling. And the lightning! It was frequent and bright! As it turns out, there were no touchdowns in our county, though there were funnel clouds overhead. We had no damage at home, which was a relief. The garden, though, is basically under water. In my rain gauge, I measured just over 2.5" of rain over the past few days. And as I uncovered the tomatoes and peppers this afternoon, I got stuck in the mud. I had to pull my feet out of the my shoes and then dig the shoes out of the mud. That's when I decided I could do no more out there for the plants. (I had been trying to divert water out of the furrows the plants are in.) So I'm hoping the water doesn't hurt the plants too much. While we were needing some rain, I don't think we needed quite this much. And this week, I had a friend visiting. He'd hoped to spend two days working in the garden. Unfortunately, we only got a few hours' work in: we planted one 28-foot bed of rattlesnake beans. It was a good visit, even if we couldn't get more work done. 

The lemon balm is doing great!