This has been the driest summer since I started gardening 8 years ago - really disheartening. I'm both physically and mentally tired of having to come home every day and spend my entire evening watering. We've had only TWO inches of rain in almost three months! And I'm still looking for that killing frost....(is it any wonder?)

Only slight frost in Hueytown. The tops of the banana trees 15 feet in the air have been bitten. I don't see any other sighns of frost. Monday morning I had a liggt frost on the windshield of the truck. It has been a wonderfully long autumn. All the plants are in the greenhouse and I can walk all the way through from front to back. I dread winter, though.

Don't understand all the complaining about the dry summer.
This was the wetest spring and summer through the end of July that I've ever seen. I had a good stand of okra drown out and had to replant. Still had couple nice rains in Aug. but Sept and Oct. have been very dry. They almost always are, fortunately, so the farmers can harvest what they grew in the summer.

I also had plenty of rain through the end of July. However, the rain was
real spotty, hit and miss. While I got a rain shower practically every afternoon
for about two weeks in July here in Hoover, friends of mine less than ten miles
away on the "other side of the mountain" got NONE. I agree with Nelson that on the whole, its been really dry.

My garden had a good year. I used a lot of home made compost and watered deeply once or twice a week. Cannas, salvias, chrysanthemums, butterfly bushes, brugmansias and confederate roses are still blooming for me, here in Shelby County. The tops of the other perennials are beginning to die back. I am collecting seeds, bringing in tender perennials and looking forward to winter sowing.
Susan.