Do you have access to water for a sprinkler?

Some years just suck in the garden. I decided to get back into quilting.

Also, I'm satisfied with spending one hour a day working (notice the word "working") in the garden, the rest of the time doing what I like doing in there. Thank you to whoever posted that advice in my post about senior gardening.

Camp you have my sympathies.

Just know you’re not alone. I’m right there with you...fed up!

I feel ya, even with daily watering my plants are still getting wilty and crispy, *sigh* there's still fall to look forward to!

My sympathies to you Camp.....! Too bad you live ‘over there’- I’d be happy to take those red currants off your hands...(it’s always hard to find them here and I don’t grow them because they can be a host for White Pine Blister Rust and I don’t want to risk endangering our pines.)

My sympathies too, Camp.

In such circumstances, I tend to think of the policeman's song in "the Pirates of Penzance" as "a gardener's lot is not a happy thing".

Then again, I don't have to say that gardening really does have it's highs as well as it's lows.

For now, down, but not out!

SWPA Yep seems like everyone is in the same boat. We haven't had a decent rain in weeks. Just teasers. I am tired of hooking up 4 garden hoses to water my garden and flowers. Thank goodness we still have the original well to water with or my water bill would be through the roof. I just washed the outside of my windows today and it looks like rain is heading our way. It always rains after I wash the windows. lol

Ah cheers all.

My 'green roof mix' sedum started to germinate today...along with teeny tiny wallflowers...so I shall be planning nursery beds - nice, clear, geometric, EMPTY beds. Order out of chaos. Plus massive rose hacking.

Oh, I also bought a spin dryer off ebay for 99p (less than a dollar)...so planning cider (using centrifugal extraction method) - there are apples at least.

I am just going to ignore the worst of it.

Cider sounds great. Sorry to hear about your plants, though.

I’m beyond tired of the sun, heat, and drought. 113 degrees here and rain is a distant memory. I agree with you that it’s depressing; I walk outside and even my eyes start instantly burning. I dread our utilities bill more than I can say.

Texas rain gauge:

There’s always someone....

here in NE Pa we had a hot dry spell at the start of July but now it seems the rain won’t stop coming. The ground is wet and there’s another two inches forecast between now and Thursday. I’m sure our time will come, drought is the most discouraging thing a gardener usually faces.

i usually retreat to containers and let the rest of the garden shrivel up. It’s surprising what manages to pull through.

Phooey! I'm so sorry to hear this. Rainy thoughts for you today.

Even down here in Texas , the gardens will pull through. I am with Ms G with temps hovering around 108 for the last several days and we are so far below in our annual rains. Dry winter , dry spring , dry summer= no ground moisture to keep us cool. I walked away from my vegetable garden this spring because I knew it would be a bad summer. The weatherman told me last fall that Texas would be bad all summer, so I did not plant anything. Now he also said it would break this autumn so I have planted tomatoes seedlings in pots. There goes that gardening hope. I am looking out at shriveled grass and even my desert plants are toast and here I am planting baby tomatoes for a fall crop.I don't even lille walking through it right now much less looking at it. I know the rains will come and the whole world will magically green up. It is my act of faith right now. The garden will rise out of the dust like a phoenix from the fire, blah blah blah. I have seen it before and it will happen again. It really is amazing how fast it does its morphing. It is really bad when you look at temps breaking ( later this week) and falling to 100 as cooling off. I do hear that for most of the center of the country , the worst of the summer is close to being over. There is hoping . What else can you do. Beat your head against the hard cracked earth. (I measured one crack at a foot deep.)

A coon got in last night , dragged the cat food container outside and emptied it. Wildlife get really brazen during droughts. The cats are wanting their morning meal.

Well, we finally had a good soaking yesterday, which I think shocked everyone. I was running around in the rain, and put two barrels on my driveway where my neighbor’s roof over hang is and always spills over tons of water (due to a very poor roofing job by the self professed handy person who “does all the work in the street” and who is now back in jail for going outside the ankle bracelet limits of his bail - but I digress). So I have some barrels full of rainwater. What are growing wildy for me right now are my aroids - elephant ears are sending out leaves and tentacles in huge spurts.

Yes, Camp, it is so demoralizing to see the fruits of your labor suffer. I worry about this changing earth of ours and how we will all cope.

I don't know if this link works for everybody (paywall?) but here's an interesting article about the UK drought. Yikes! Satellite images are showing Britain turning from green to brown...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2018/07/23/satellite-pictures-show-a-record-heat-wave-turning-britain-from-green-to-brown/?utm_term=.ca14b5f301f6

This week in NYC, we are reenacting Noah's flood. Pouring hard rain and lightning every day. Gardeners know, it's either feast or famine! For your prolonged dry spell, I can heartily recommend a soaker hose or drip irrigation system. You can make them of PVC tubing, regular garden hoses, buy commercially made drip or soaker hose, etc. I am in the process of installing a soaker hose I crafted myself from regular garden hose, using a drill, a miter box/saw to cut sections, and various plastic tee connectors, hose clamps, etc. The irony is, I can't complete my installation of my soaker hose because it's pouring every day!

Yes drink morning coffee, water potted plants....6:pm, drink happy hour watermelon smoothie, water plants again,...cook dinner.

So I have some barrels full of rainwater.

One of the best things we ever did was setup two permanent rain barrels.

I am always pleasantly surprised at how quickly they fill completely.

(We use them exclusively for watering annuals and new plantings and then finally struggling perennials).

My water butts emptied weeks ago though. D'y'see that really desert-y bit in the far east - that's where I am. We have seen NO rain since the beginning of May. There are no green spaces anywhere in the city - even our famous greens and commons are brown and sere. And trees are dying now - or at least losing numerous branches as whole limbs make abscission points and just drop without warning. My farmer neighbour in Norfolk is feeding cows from the winter silage because the summer grazing is not sufficient.

I my thoughts are with you too Camp. If I didn't live thousand's of miles away, I'd love helping you out. We'd have a blast! Count your blessings! I'm doing more now of what I like to call apocalyptic gardening. The plants that fizzle and fall by the waisteside get replaced with the ones that laugh at the sun.

"Water Butts" is another britt word for "cistern", Water Tank", Water buckets? We had 1/3 " about 2 weeks ago. That was the first since forever and this 110 (today) is baking the sh-t out of everything. My table saw is 114º. the wood sculpture I am working on is109º. work tables match the sculpture.

Reading this, I realize there are others worse off than we are here in southwest KS.

I am building a 8' Sipo wood garden sculpture of a flower . I don't have to water it. I do have to go out under the Death Star to set the cement base for it though. Not looking forward to that . I like being in the shade. I guess I could put it in the shade. We are having a cool off to 101º today. Phoenix can have that 112 and above.

A very pleasant 72F (expected high is 76) here today :-) (okay - don't shoot me!!). But also bone dry. And should remain so for the foreseeable future.

A wet Spring and Summer here, with high temps in between days of rain. Should be very grateful from what I read of what others are going through, but planted garden urns of annuals and some beds of annuals got too much of a good thing. Lots of yellow and brown foliage. I finally pulled the last of the struggling Bells of Ireland from a bed out front this morning. They were so unhappy. Never grew more than six or seven inches high with mildew.