Container garden pummeled by heavy rain - help!

11 years ago

This is my first time doing a container garden in my backyard in NYC and so far, so good. However, yesterday we were hit with heavy rain all day and I didn't think to cover the plants. I had also recently planted 3 new pots. It's still raining today but I went to go check on them this morning and I am worried about the soil. Is it going to be too wet?

It also seems a lot of the finer soil has leaked out, leaving a lot of the larger chunks of other stuff in the pots. The soil level of each pot also seems much lower than it used to be. I've moved the more delicate/new plants under shelter, and dumped out all the sitting water in the bases. Anything else I should do? I just bought some Dr. Earth Tomato/Vegetable/Herb Fertilizer and was going to mix it with some new soil, and top dress all the pots. Is this a good idea?

And tips or advice would be greatly appreciated, thanks!

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Comments (2)

natureinspiredM_ 6B NJ
11 years ago
Hi Kristin...

I'm in the same boat as you (I am located in greater NY metropolitan area of New Jersey)...I have a south east facing 20 feet balcony where I started gardening 3 springs ago. I grow veggies and flowers in my small space. So here are some advice from a little-more-experienced-than-you container gardener.

On Sunday morning I transplanted the last batch of my plants and was happily thinking that major chunk of my hard work of preparing soil and transplanting all my Plants for this season was over. To my horror the rain struck so hard that most of my containers simply got inundated. I could see the plants sitting in deep pool of water and many tiny seedlings uprooted. Needless to say there were muddy splatters everywhere.

This kind of rain washes away vital nutrients (unfortunately I applied organic food on Sunday itself) and also compacts the potting soil. So my advice would be inspect all the containers and let excess water flow out, then fluff up the top few inches of soil using a small trowel or anything handy (take care to not to disturb the roots). Wash the dirt away from the leaves of small seedlings (in my case they were caked on with soil), stake plants which are bent, over any exposed root. Now wait for a day for the soil to get out of the soggy state and then go ahead with your plan to apply fertilizer as you mentioned.

Moving forward keep an eye on weather channel app for heavy rain in your area and bring young plants in shelter...this is what I had been doing for past seasons but kind of became relaxed as this season was very dry so far. The rain definitely has awakened me up :)

I hope this helps...
Kristin W thanked natureinspiredM_ 6B NJ
ashley05
11 years ago
last modified: 11 years ago
Another thing to do is to tip your pots at a 45 degree angle and let the extra water drain out. I do this every time I water anything (including my orchids potted in lava rock), and it really makes a difference. It would really help with all the extra water. I prop the pot up on something a let it sit there until the water stops running out of the bottom. Then I turn the pot around and let it sit with the other side down.
Kristin W thanked ashley05
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