Enough Rain Already and Online Gardening Fun

Rain pouring off our roof -past time to get the rain barrel up!

Is it possible that only 2 weeks ago I wrote that it was dry here in Central Maine!? It feels like it has been raining for weeks! My garden is having a hard time. Cucumbers and peppers will probably need to be replanted. The slugs are just decimating them as well as my broccoli plants. A friend of mine has ducks and she said to get ducks because ducks love slugs. Now there's an idea! I finally tried the coffee spray and surrounded the broccoli plants with the coffee grounds but then it rained, again. Squashes, carrots, beans, beets, basil, and chard are taking forever to grow. But they are beginning to look like what they are! Well all but the green beans. My shell beans look fine but the green beans just look awful. Darn slugs! The shell beans are in the new upper garden and I don't see any slugs there. Green beans are all in the older lower garden; where slugfest '09 is occuring. Even the spinach just doesn't look so good which is really odd. The tomatoes, potatoes, onions, coriander, lettuce look fantastic. The first planting of corn is about 2" high. Definitely won't be "knee high by the 4th of July!". Second planting isn't even up yet. Now I'm not one to complain about rain. I know how much our gardens need and depend on water but this is a bit much. Here's a picture of my pool. The cover is still on and it's June 19th! We usually take the cover off and open the pool on Memorial Day weekend. That was a month ago. It's just been so cold and rainy that we haven't had a chance to open the pool up! Is it possible that we'll go the whole summer without opening up the pool!?


This weekend we are going to get a spigot to put on a large barrel I have so we can turn it into a rain barrel. It's hard to imagine that lack of water could turn into an issue this summer but you always need to be ready. Just wish I had the barrel up and collecting water now. Goal is to have it collecting roof rain water by the end of the weekend.

So stay tuned to the hows and whys of rain barrels or as they call them in England, Rain Butts!

But for now, it's pouring. And if it's pouring where you are you may enjoy two of my favorite online gardening sites, complete with lively video clips and podcasts. They are:

The Alternative Kitchen Garden by Emma from England (how I learned about the term rain butt). This is also available through i-tunes and is a great podcast - http://coopette.com

And The Urban Garden Girl TV with Patti Moreno from Roxbury. This is an amazing site! - http://www.gardengirltv.com/

So grab a cup of tea, turn your computer speakers up, and enjoy learning some new gardening tricks from these talented and entertaining women.