Drought Lessons

What a summer this has been!  Here in the Indianapolis area, it was VERY hot and VERY dry.  Record-breaking, actually.  I have a few perennial plants that come up every year that I try to maintain, and this year, for the first time in several, I actually dared to plant annuals in the pots on my patio.  What have I learned?

1.  I have planted the same types of flowers in the patio pots for years.  As long as I was home to keep them watered, all was well.  They were very pretty.  This year, I planted the same flowers...but they didn't do well, although I watered them daily.  I (apparently falsely) believed that as long as they had water, they would be fine.  What I didn't figure was that many days of over 100-degree temps would stunt them.  Watering kept them alive but didn't keep them pretty.  Now that the temps have gone down to "reasonable", the flowers are beginnng to look as nice as they should have looked much earlier in the season.  Just in time for fall and frost!!!!

2.  Grass gives up before weeds do.  After many weeks without rainfall, the grass turned brown and crispy, but the mulberry "volunteers" and other wicked plants were as green as ever.  I know it has to do with tap-roots, etc., but somehow it doesn't seem fair. 

3.  Now that the drought has so-called broken, the grass has greened, but the other stuff in the yard hasn't.  There are brown patches everywhere, and when I came home after two weeks away at my daughter's, there was a big streak of large mushrooms in my front yard. 

4.  With the storm that provided rain for the plants came hail.  Big hail.  Hail big enough that many houses in Plainfield will be getting new roofs.  Hail big enough that my perennial hostas out front were shredded, and the leaves that came down with the hail formed a drift on my sidewalk--all dead, just as if it were fall.  The jury is still out if I will be able to get a new roof.  I never had my roof checked after the last really big hailstorm in the mid-90s.  I'm ready now.

5.  My daughter and I decided to "put up" veggies and fruits this summer.  Unfortunately, the drought and heat made that stuff hard to come by...and it won't get any easier.  Here in Indiana, for example, green beans are hard to come by.  (My sister's garden is just now beginning to produce.)  I miss my garden!!!!! 

6.  It is yet to be determined how badly this year's harvest will affect market food prices.  Meat is already out of sight.  Produce and fruit will follow.  I don't ever remember eggs being as expensive as they are now...and it isn't over yet.

I think it's time for Home Owner's Associations to give up and allow folks to plant what used to be called Victory Gardens in war time.  Thankfully, I don't have an HOA to deal with here...just lots of tree roots.  Unfortunately, many young folks don't know how to preserve foods.  Time to learn!