SuperNova--Learning ANYTHING new is usually painful and expensive. But there's lots of help on this forum. You're also beginning at a time when the world's weather may be less predictable than in previous decades. This is the time to try some things on a small scale to minimize effort and expense. You might try some hardy crops like okra in a raised row--that is you hill up the soil in the row about 6 or more inches(flatten the top) so when you get excess rain, it has a place to go--the walkway becomes the drainage trench. If drought comes, a $5.00 bale of straw(not hay) will easily cover 20 feet of row to give the plants a moisture conserving mulch. I have found straw an easy mulch to pull back when needed and push back up around the plant when needed. Gardening is a gamble and Mother Nature is tricky. The plants you have now may surprise you and survive. Even if they don't make it, you will learn a lot really fast and be better prepared on the next try. Don't give up until you have had at least one success. Aside from the superior taste and quality, when I put food in my mouth that I have grown, it is a spiritual experience for me that is beyond words.

I lost my plants years ago when they were under water for a week. We had 15 inches of rain from Debbie. I am container growing this year. Some things died, but most survived. I wouldn't recommend container gardening to you. It's too hot here for it. My friend has tried something called a hugel. It's a mound of soil, manure, compost dried grass and branches. She has never gardened before. Her plants look fantastic. Her plants survived the rain. She dug a small trench all the way around it. It's weird looking but it works great! We are slowing starting on them in our yard and plan on having at least a dozen of them.

Send N.Y. some rain! We need it bad right now. Hot and real dry here at the moment. Seriously.

I second tommyr's request. We're desperately dry here in central Illinois. If I were not watering regularly, my garden would have dried up long ago. But, can sympathize with excess rain..not good either.

We had too much rain last year and everything either drowned or rotted. So I feel your pain (last year was my first year in the farm "business" wouldn't you know). This year is dry and hot - Mother Nature fooled us in June with near-normal precip and some temps that weren't too bad but July looks to be the driest month yet in a dry year. I planted 75 tomato plants in trenches and nursed them thru a dry July to see them drown in Irene. This year I planted in deep raised beds (including potatoes) and have hauled water in 50-gal barrels and watered app. 200 plants a gal at a time by hand 4 times (thank goodness not a gal per plant, so only about 250 gal so far). My dad is using dishwater, cooking water, and hauling water uphill in 5-gal buckets in his lawn tractor/trailer to his small garden b/c he doesn't have a deep well and it is just recovering from 2 weeks of houseguests. And he needs knee replacement surgery next month.

As far as your plants, I would definitely start more okra as I hear that likes to be dry (this year is my first growing it). Might as well start more corn too. You might have a long enough growing season there to get something out of it if things dry out soon, if not, well, seed is cheap.

Well we got hit by another really bad storm today. It leveled all my corn, I used bamboo skewers to lean the corn on to keep it upright, hopefully it'll somehow still pull through. The small green bean plant is still standing on it's own and I used skewers to prop up the bottom most branches/leaves of the larger green bean plant to keep it outta standing water and off the wet ground. 2 of the okra plants I'm pretty sure are gone, they're laying flat and not much I can do about them. They spent nearly all day submerged underwater. 2 of them were still standing as of an hour or two ago.

I've already got more okra seed going and going to watch the corn closely for next couple of days to see if it's going to make it.

When I transplant this new okra I'll be sure to do the mound method. I'm not really holding out hope that the okra out there already that's still standing is going to make it, but when it comes time to transplant the seeds I started today, if those two are still alive I'll re-transplant them in mounds.

As for raised beds, I've been considering going with those when I expand. I hadn't even heard of it when I started up my practice garden though, or I might've just went with that to begin with. My yard, and actually this entire town, is extremely prone to flooding during moderate-heavy rain. It's not very often we get that much rain though, so it's not really a problem you can count on having. Might actually be cheaper to go with raised over in ground method since I wouldn't need to purchase a tiller. I favorited your soil guide and when it comes time to expand, whether in ground or raised I'll be using it.

Thanks for all the advice. As for sending the rain away to other parts of the country, believe me if I could, I would have already. But be careful what you wish for, look what happened to me. Lol.

Generally speaking, it is better and easier to seed summer crops directly into the garden. However, in your unfortunate situation, it is good that you had or have some starter plants to transplant when the rain subsides and save some time since it late.

Regarding ecconomy in gardening: I suggest you go to a few garage sales to pick up gardening equipment like the rakes, shovels, trowels, clippers and loppers etc.

My garden was a raised bed, and all surrounding it was a lake from a tropical storm, and in side the bed in any depressions there was standing water. My tomatoes looked dead, and I pulled some up, thinking there was no way they were going to come back to life after being obviously dead, but I left one anyway, and low and behold after a couple sunny days to dry out the soil it came back to life. It was stunted because it had been making flowers, and it took several weeks before it was recovered enough to start blooming again. It also had some dead leaves on the bottom. So you never know, plants are amazing at self-preservation. My other plants also did fine-brocolli, onion, herbs, eggplant, and peppers.

Let's commiserate.

When the rain subsides (which will apparently be a couple months from now), strongly consider investing in some serious drainage. It's surprisingly inexpensive to put in a french drain with drainage tile (those black plastic corrugated pipes with holes in them), and they are very effective.

Raised beds are so incredibly helpful. Often if the top couple inches of soil can dry out, it's okay if the subsoil is saturated for some time. In most vegetable plants, the top portion of roots are adapted to absorb air while roots that go deep into the subsoil are "water" roots, with aerenchyma that transmit air from above.

If your garden is small, you can try this emergency option that I believe has saved my garden so far. Buy a small hand powered bilge pump from a hardware store (25 dollars at my local Ace Hardware). Dig a drainage "dry well" next to your plot, in the lowest area (probably the area with the deepest puddled surface water). You can make it as deep as you can manage - mine is just 2 feet deep or so. It will fill with water very quickly. Pump out the water into a bucket and dump it where ever it's safe and responsible to do so. The well will fill up again and again, even when the surface water in the area is mostly drained. Water will move laterally from the subsoil into the empty space. The rate at which the well refills depends on how fast the water moves in your soil. Empty it as often as you can. This is surprisingly effective in removing water from the subsoil, giving surface ponded water somewhere to go. Continue doing it when the surface water is all gone, and you can begin to dry out the subsoil.

Thought I'd give an update just in case anyone was curious..

First, the rain didn't break until just a few days ago, although it lessened, we were still getting far more than average.

However, everything seems to of pulled through. Green beans (the one that was the least damaged by the wind and what not) are actually doing the worse. Between caterpillars (I found one that made a cocoon like thing out of a curled leaf) leaf miners and everything else, it doesn't look too good. The majority of the leaves are all damaged or eaten at, and new leaf production has pretty much slowed to a stand still.

The corn took off, despite being flattened. It is at least a foot tall and some of the leaves are an inch and a half wide. It's visibly growing in size day to day, I can actually tell the difference without having to measure anything.

The Okra has recovered and all of them are standing up, including the 2 I thought for sure were dead. They've already put out an additional 1-2 sets of leaves (depending on which one you're looking at) and grown 4-6 inches taller.

During my lurking of these forums I saw someone say the best advice they could give a new gardener is never give up on a plant, and it would seem that was sound advice. I expected the corn and okra to be a lost cause, and they're the ones thriving.