No, in the Boston area, we have had a good supply of rain. My sympathy to you!

No dryness here! Rain seems to come every few days.

Well, be glad. Today Portland has an 80% chance of rain, but we're just north of them and only have a 50% chance. Rain is just passing us by.

Fire danger warnings here so we must be dry but two weeks ago an EF1 tornado went thru NH. We had 4 pine trees down at the edge of the field with more down further in the woods but nothing as bad as some properties with dozens of trees down. Farmer had a roof on an old barn dislodged and sides start to cave in on stored haying equipment. I thought my plastic covered high tunnel was a goner since it already had a large tear (plastic only good for 4-6 years) but nothing happened to it. So many trees down in town some people couldn't get home. A little bit of rain yesterday but not much.

Wow! I didn't hear anything about the tornado. Very glad you all are safe.

Tornados are so weird. They are known to rip a trailer off the foundation, but leave the petals on the flowers planted in that same yard. Hard to predict where the damage will be, but it is, thankfully, limited.

It is official. We saw only 1.05 inches of rain during the month of May up here. May of 2017, admittedly unusually wet, had 3.17 inches, May of 2016 1.98 inches, and May of 2015 1.61 inches. 2014 was a cold and wet summer here, so I know that May was very wet without looking at data. Not much rain in the forecast for us, either. At least it has been on the cool side. I’m sure the plants are glad to avoid high heat during the dry spell!

I don't think we are quite as dry. Probably most of our rain fell in a downpour last Saturday when the church was barbecuing chicken for a public supper. The grill master reckoned on rain at 5pm so aimed to have all the chicken off by then. It poured buckets for about 15 minutes.

Rainfall has been very localized even just within my state. We were very dry about a month ago, but now things have improved somewhat, although we're still below average rainfall I think. Fire hazard warnings have disappeared.

Some of my established plants like Alchemilla and Echinacea are drooping. :,-( Things are in a holding pattern waiting on rain. Seedlings are staying small, bloom delayed. It's interesting to see the effects that I *believe* are from the dryness. For example, we have huge 8-10' rhodies in the yard. One is in a wooded boundary area at the bottom of a dip. That area is both shaded, loaded with moisture-preserving leaf mould, and a depression that would collect water, but not enough water to ever be an issue. Some of its branches are blooming, and the other rhodies, identical variety (I'm assuming) still have very tightly closed buds.

We are supposed to get rain Monday. Yea!

I recently read an article on the internet about a rain garden. It's a permaculture concept to create some temporary small holding ponds for water that comes off a house roof. This was an ordinary suburban front yard that went from typical foundation shrubs/lawn to an amazing food garden. Our property happens to be wetter than average with a high water table so we don't need to do something like this but it was fascinating the read how much rain water comes off a roof and the way to "catch" it before it goes into storm sewers.

Defrost, I'm fascinated by rain gardens! I've experimented in a very limited way with trying to redirect the rainwater 'flows' around my property with PVC pipe lengths and a bit of digging. Rain runoff is not easy to work with, or predictable....

I recently inherited a large plastic barrel that I want to make into a rain barrel, but my husband insists he must do the conversion and it's low on his priority list. :-(

barrett001, the rain barrel didn't work for us. The intent was to put the water into a drip hose in my high tunnel. I don't think it had the weight/pressure to get very far along the hose. Here's the website that got me excited in case others are curious about what a rain garden is https://midwestpermaculture.com/2008/12/front-yard-rain-garden-and-berm/

I love the layout and the change from bland/boring to an exciting food garden. Please tell us more about what you are doing.

As of 5 pm my Johnny's rain gauge said almost 0.3 inches so far today. Yea!! Still overcast with some dribbling, and could continue some light rain tonight. I welcome it all! Can't wait to see the garden explosion afterwards.

Defrost, that permaculture webpage is very interesting! I LOVE the way they showed clearly how they made the changeover from their monoculture blah suburban lawn+bushes into that lushly beautiful, varied wonderland of a yard. (Amazing the way the "after" garden actually looks larger than the 'before' lawn! Such a strange optical illusion!)

My efforts in the direction of conserving rainwater are very small (tiny!) in comparison. I've deepened the lowest area of my already sloping back yard into a kind of pool to hold runoff, rake all autumn leaves in there, and am planting the edges with wet-loving species. And in the front yard where our driveway's low spot floods easily, I've experimented with some half-buried PVC piping to direct that pooled water towards a little 'dip' garden. (Not so successful in that the water doesn't seem to end up where I want it to, but it has puzzlingly solved a lot of the driveway flooding :--} ....)

Sounds successful to me, barrett001. Our old house was built on fill. The driveway was also built up to cross a wet area which must have been a lot of work back in those days. We have one odd depression that can get so much water in the spring that we've occasionally had ducks over night on the big puddle. Rainwater just goes downhill from the house. The water table is so high in the spring that we can hit water if we dig a hole in some places. There is a seasonal stream behind us that is a torrent during spring rains.

Deanna, hope you and everyone got much needed rain earlier this week. There's an article in the Concord Monitor about how parched the plantings are in downtown Penacook. A retired doctor began beautifying things when a small roundabout was put in. The city let him use city water until he started using too much by installing a sprinkler system. Now he's shut off and has to rely on what he can hand carry from the outside faucet of a building he owns. I wonder how the story will turn out and whether he gets any volunteer helpers to haul water. I used to help maintain a small triangle of flowers at an intersection in our small town. Thanks to my husband's ingenuity we used to fill some garbage cans with water, put them in the back of the pickup and use a length of garden hose and gravity to water the annuals.

I am happy to report that just today we received 50% more rain than we did the whole month of May. Yea! My Johnny’s rain gauge has a definitely 1.5 inches in it, and May’s total was 1.05 inches. Yea! The rain is welcome. I am also thankful for the cool temps. I imagine it is the main reason my plants don’t look parched and droopy despite the lack of rainfall.

How are you all in the rest of New England? Any update on the Penacook story, defrost?

Most of my annuals are a bust this year if grown from seed. I am not willing to take the time to water them this year. If they’re not near one of the azaleas or Rhodes I put in earlier, they’re not getting any help. My poppies look pitiful. There’s always next year!

Sometimes I think we gardeners have to console ourselves with "always next year". No update on the Penacook story, sorry, I should look for myself. I started watering the vegetable garden but, hurrah, yesterday's lengthy rain gave it a good soaking. I finally planted potatoes last week and the soil is terribly dry. Perfect timing and, hopefully, the potato beetles have flown elsewhere. A neighbor said he never gets Colorado potato beetles if he waits to plant after June 1. Surprisingly, I have discovered beetles on June 1 on a few plants growing from potatoes I missed digging last fall.

I don't know why it takes me so long to learn things. Just the dark brown color of the composted horse manure is an obvious contrast to the vegetable beds as well as my flower beds. I added some to a starving walkway border when I planted this spring. We get it free from a Craigslist ad. The horse owner even loads the pu truck with his tractor.

I am currently battling striped cucumber beetles which last year ate my winter squash seedlings while we were on vacation so I didn't get any winter squash last year despite previous years worth bragging about. I read that they are attracted to yellow and the scent of cloves so I fashioned traps similar to some I read about in a blog. Yellow Solo cups wired to plastic forks to anchor them to the ground. Spread Tanglefoot on yellow cardstock pieces with an expired plastic card. put cotton balls in the bottom with drops of clove oil. Seems to be working but not 100% effective. After this rain I will replace the cardstock and cotton balls. Squash bugs are just starting to appear.

Hopefully NH has been saved from falling into the drought category and the predicted heat wave should invigorate a lot of plants. Our town library has started a seed library. It was kind of late in the year but at least it has been started. I can donate some annual poppy seeds. Mine are a dark cranberry red. Originally an annual I bought at the local greenhouse. Planters are doing ok because I've been more careful about watering them but the circle bed mostly filled with tall phlox seems to be shorter than usual. Day lilies have started blooming all around us. They seem to signal mid summer to me. First meal of sugarsnaps will be soon.

Deanna, my Johnny’s rain gauge said we got 1.1”. Much needed since I had to drag out the hose for the veggie garden last week.

defrost, I will check out the circle in Penacook next week when I am passing through. It has looked OK when I have gone by, but I haven’t looked at it carefully in three weeks. (I imagine that the retired doctor in the article used to be my doctor, though I didn’t see the article - Bob Gabrielli?)

I harvested my first sugar snaps yesterday. Picking will be difficult because I was a bit distracted by life events when planting and the rows are too close, so there is a giant mass of 3’x4’ of pea plants.

About 1.8 inches of rain here in Plymouth, according to a nearby personal weather station - much needed and much appreciated. I'd been doing occasional hand watering when I saw wilting leaves (phlox, asters, viburnums, Kousas....).

Everything looks happy today, and clean too with the pollen washed off.

Claire

Yes, NHBabs, it's your doctor. I thought downtown Penacook looked lovely last year. But the roundabout on rt 4/3 near Hannah Duston that nobody takes care of is a horrible mess. I see several multiflora roses have started. The new roundabout at exit 16 is beautiful. I don't now why Penacook/Boscawen got such a poor design of day lilies that is now a bunch of weeds.

And...another 0.15 inches last night. I'm giddy. I feel like breaking out the Mimosas!