How wonderful for you!! I literally just came inside to take a break from watering. My garden is dying a slow, torturous, dry death. It's bone dry out there, but I don't want to water a lot because I'm on a well and worry how the lack of rain is affecting it.

There were severe thunderstorms forecast last evening. It got somewhat dark (felt like we were the Munsters, lol, as the sky above us was dark but to every direction of us you could see blue sky!), and we ran inside. We had some slow, sparse, giant raindrops for about five minutes, and that was it. My hopes were dashed, so hence the watering this morning. At least today it's much cooler - quite glorious outside actually, at the moment.

The thing is, it seems no matter how much you water it's just not the same as a rainfall. I hope your rain lasts all day for you and refreshes your garden!

:)
Dee

it all went north of me..straight to you ... and wjr says its still coming your way today ...

id be jealous.. but my lawn is droughted out ... and if i got good rain... id have to start mowing again ... lol

ken

WE got over an inch maybe a week ago? Can't remember. But, everybody I met talked about how joyous the rain was. It was the talk of the town! We are supposed to get over an inch Saturday. SO HAPPY! We are very hot and dry, but I think our garden may not be suffering as much as some areas because it has been uncharacteristically humid, dare I say muggy (yes, it has been muggy). I believe plants may not be drying out from the heat as much due to the humidity. Also, "hot' for us means the upper 80s with a few days in the low 90s. Not quite as hot as many other places. This is the most humid summer I've had since moving to New England twelve years ago. But, boy, did that rain help. Can't wait for more! Dee, I've already run our well dry once, so I'm letting the annuals die now. Fortunately due to COVID I have only about four pots of annuals grown from seed. I'd be crying if I'd purchase the standard potting annuals and had to let them die. They are too expensive to abandon!

Every day they predict afternoon thunderstorms/showers. Every afternoon it gets dark, we hear rumbles of thunder and maybe some wind comes up, we get a splat or two or a tiny sprinkle and off it goes. Finally yesterday it coughed up maybe a 15 minute shower. I'm due to start watering again today for four days. I wonder if we really will get that 1.5 to 2.5 inches they are predicting tomorrow and Saturday from hurricane Laura? Everything so desperately needs it!

We are hoping for hurricane Laura to come our way too. It has been an unusual hot and dry summer.

Has been raining again today -- started about 4:00 am with storms then has been vacillating between t-storms and downpours since then. To give you an idea how much it rained, I have a ceramic dog dish next to the garage that I emptied yesterday, it is now filled to the brim -- at least 3". Yay!! and more Yay!! Don't know if it's due to Laura pushing northward, but I do feel a tinge of guilt feeling happy about rain in light of the devastation...

Finally we are getting rain also. It started last evening and it is to stop late tomorrow. It is so nice to get a normal rain. I looked at the radar and it isn't from Laura. It looks like Laura is going to pass south of PA. The nights are getting cooler. You can feel the beginning of the change of seasons.

We got a bit of rain yesterday too. Kind of a nice gentle rain, even though apparently areas near me got hit hard with winds and power outages (thank goodness I didn't lose power again!) I'd say we got about an inch or so, judging by my dehumidifier-emptying bucket which I inadvertently left outside yesterday. Not enough but certainly better than nothing and it has helped things refresh a bit. More rain forecast tomorrow but I don't trust it till it happens lol!

:)
Dee

Well over an inch last evening! My fountains and bird baths are overflowing! No dragging hoses all over this week for sure!

Today's rain has begun--rouge's favorite of a long all day steady rain, most likely. We could get an inch, but an inch of steady gentle rains will always beat an inch from a fast downpour. Moved some plants around yesterday knowing they'd get nicely watered in today. Tomorrow will be beautiful and I will pot up some things that need moved out of old bad soil. I decided I'd let those wait until today's rain had given them some healthy water to get them ready.

@Digger: While not a "cure all," if you have some plastic buckets/containers you could try "harvesting" some of the rain next time as it runs off your roof -- particularly if you have gutters with downspouts. I live in an apt so don't have that as an option. I do put containers across my balcony and catch what I can though.

If you have a few plants you are particularly fond of and concerned about, you might want to save a few old gallon or half gallon jugs from milk or water. Put a small hole right near the base of the jug. Cover the hole with a small piece of duct tape. Fill the jug and tightly cap it. Put the jug so the hole will be near the base of the plant. Remove the tape and loosen the cap just enough for water to drip out. This will allow the water to sink into the soil and water more deeply that area around the plant. Hardly something that will win you an award for best lawn decorations, but it can help save a plant that is a favorite or difficult/expensive to obtain.

Paul, I actually have a few rain barrels that I used more often in the past, but my husband refuses to cut into the downspouts, so they just collect rainwater out in the open. (II'm actually considering putting a gutter and downspout on the side of the garage that does not currently have one, in the back, just to collect water. Of course that's the farthest point from my garden. Sigh.) More often than not it's not usually worth the effort (the barrels just out in the garden, I mean) although I will say that this spring when we had endless rain I told him I should have put them out. I even had one by my back door that I would throw cooking water, dishwashing water, etc. into, and I'd use that to water my patio plants. That may be a good one to bring back, although no one else in the household is committed enough (either to flowers or to conservation lol) to do the legwork of that.

I've often seen that tip you mentioned about the milk jugs, and I always think of doing it but never seem to get my act together enough to actually do it BEFORE it's needed. There's always next season, I guess! Thanks for the suggestions!

:)
Dee

We had thunderstorms last evening and lost power for about an hour. Today, it has started raining again-steady, heavy, but not like yesterday. Hoping most of this soaks into the ground. We need it desperately. I do need to get our backyard slope terraced or something because the soil is completely eroding no that we are getting more storms which are creating a river from one part of the backyard, down the hill into the lowest part of the yard (there are actually three distinct levels in the back).I am not sure we can do that ourselves at this point in our lives. Sigh. Still, so happy for this rain!