It's raining, it's pouring

Finally! I'd given up and watered my plants today, then got dressed to go to the store, and it started coming down. Pretty hard, too. There are flash floods in the west part of town. From the weather map, it looks like New Mexico and then Kansas is getting the worst of it. The Front Range is just on the edge.

About time. Grass isn't supposed to crunch when you walk on it, is it?

We have had a bit of rain here at around the same time. Not pouring, just a nice soft, gentle rain, but lots of thunder and lightening to upset my dogs.

Just checked the weather report for tonight! We should be building an ark. But frankly, we haven't had more than a few tenths of an inch. But the night is not over! Glad you are having a nice rain.

This message was edited Aug 13, 2006 10:15 PM

I was out on the patio earlier, giving my potted plants the benefit of some free water, when suddenly everything went white, then there was this tremendous crash. It was that close! I thought lightning had hit one of my trees for a moment.

Yeah, my cats weren't too happy about all that thunder, either.

No rain here, and still very smokey from the fires. We did have some T&L a couple of days ago, didn't hear of any new fires started. Sure need rain, but August is typically a hot dry month. So just trying to keep the plants watered enough to stay alive..

I have a rain guage in my flower bed. We got a nice, gentle half an inch last night. Lots of T&L at first. Perfect rain for mountainous terrain. I will keep my fingers crossed for you, rutholive. A little rain perks up everything, even the people.

A lot of rain shuts down a fire. Rain Rain rain. Hey yyaaa yaa.

Now I know what my sad little lilacs like. RAIN! Lots of it! It deluged yesterday. More rain today. And my droopy lilacs have perked up and look very happy. They don't look healthy, but they do like this cool, wet weather a lot better than drought. All of my plants have perked up. Still can't get a squash to actually bloom while I'm on the property, though.

Huh, I logged in and was about to ask if any of this rain has helped those fires between Donna and Steve.

I didn't water my garden for a whole week after a bit of rain we had. A week! (in conjunction with several overcast days...)

I'm over 5 weeks watering my garden and no rain yet. I am anxious to see what is waiting for my return from AK. My DW says all is OK but she doesn't care about my prize plants like I do. So she is not telling me what is going on. O dear O me O my.

Wise of her! She doesn't want to taint your vacation.

I am working not vacationing. Today I worked from 8am till 7:30pm. Lots of sick children. All went well though.

Soferdig,
I wish you rain soon. We have been getting about 1/2 inch per day which is highly unusual. My garden is soooooo happy. Everything has taken off. Believe me, we need it after literally years of drought and losing about half of our pine trees -- ponderosa and pinon to bark beetles which are really the result of drought. My rainbarrel is full for the first time since I used up the water collected over the winter.

White_Hydrangea
This rain will help your lilacs settle into their new home. This should help them get through the winter. And if you have days off from work ( I assume you do) you will see a zucchini bloom soon and eventually even a zucchini.

and then 10,000,000 zucchini :-)

The younger squash seedlings that I transplanted last weekend were looking very sad, but I think the rain helped them, too, because now they're perking up. I think most or all of these are Black Eel zukes. I initially planted 8 Ball, but I think the varmints ate all of them, though it's possible one or two seeds survived the slaughter.

One thing I used to do when I had a bad earwig problem was what you may have done -- plant the seeds indoors in small pots or buy them already growing from the nursery. You can get almost every veggie from the nursery including things like carrots and beets around here. (carrots come out crooked so you are probably better to plant seed.) I sometimes buy veggie plants to this day. And the plants often look sad when they are first transplanted.
Believe me, in this part of the world water counts more than most other nice things you can do for your plants.

White hydrangea, we got rain here too when you did. Buckets!! It was great. We haven't had that kind of rain in weeks. Everything perked up. Hope your lilacs keep on growing. Denver's a great area for lilacs. If we have it cold enough in the winter (and some snow, rain in spring) they'll do just fine and put on a show like you wouldn't believe.

You might want to consider starting seeds indoors yourself. I've found the accelerated propagation system (APS) product to be a great way to do that. They come in different sizes, depending on the size of plant you want to start.

The advantage of starting your own, versus buying from the nursery, is that you have a larger selection of seeds to choose from, such as cultivars from other desert mountain areas. Parts of southern Italy, Greece, Turkey etc have some dry, hot summers and cold winters as well. You might have more success with their traditional summer squash, eggplants etc.

http://www.gardeners.com/APS-24/default/StandardCatalog.IndoorGardening_Seedstarting.32-574.cpd