Mid-South: November 2016

Good morning, everyone! Hope you & your garden spots are doing well!!

Here north of Atlanta, the leaves are turning beautiful colors and falling like snowflakes. Unfortunately also in my area we're at over a 17 inch drought. Parts of Atlanta/North GA aren't quite as bad, but many places are also now in double-digits. Needless to say, we're also in a high fire risk situation...

But the mornings are cool and we're still getting a lot of produce from the gardens since we're still hitting the upper 70's and mid-80's during the day.

All of the information I glean from various websites are based on temps being about 20 degrees lower than they currently are... If your garden is still going strong, good for you! Just keep at it! For those in our large Mid-South region, you may be getting seasonable temps. If so, this post is for you, lol!

Gardenate doesn't have much for us this month:

Planting now in November for the USA - Zone 7b zone
Asparagus Plant in garden. Harvest from 24 months.
Onion Plant in garden. Harvest from June.


Southern States includes rutabaga in their list.

So... I'd take advantage & either keep harvesting or get your fall clean-up done & plant cover crops. If you haven't gotten your garlic planted, I'd suggest getting that done as well...

Have fun in your section of heaven on earth!

I still have a fair amount growing in my garden.  It sure has been warm this fall.  Rain in October is always lower than normal but this year it is abismal.  In Oct we had .17 inches of rain.  

See my update here:
https://squarefoot.forumotion.com/t20392p225-2016-sfg-in-brooks-ga#255149

Just a little note to any visitors or newbies, winter cover crops are optional, not mandatory, for SFG.

Drought map of Georgia.  I am located in that real dark red finger that is sticking out about 1/3 the way down from the top of the map.  The area looks like a finger pointing to the right.

Thanks, Sanderson. You are correct. Was in a hurry...

Yolos, you're in Exceptional? Yowch! How many inches are YOU down?

AtlantaMarie wrote:Thanks, Sanderson.  You are correct.  Was in a hurry...

Yolos, you're in Exceptional?  Yowch!  How many inches are YOU down?

The only stats I see say 17 inches below average.  But that is the station north of me.

Somehow, I didn't think of drought along the east coast. Are the wells still producing or are they being deepened?

You know, I haven't heard anything about wells... Nothing is being said on the news about them.

Can anyone with a well fill us in?

I haven't heard anything on the news either but I pretty much gave up watching local news.  I did look at the fayette county website and this is what I found about watering restrictions.

Q: Is any watering allowed at this time?
A: Yes, outdoor watering for purposes of planting, growing, managing, or maintaining ground cover, trees, shrubs, or other plants is allowed between the hours of 4 p.m. and 10 a.m. daily.


I would imagine that after the terrible drought we had back in 2007 that anyone with a well who had water problems probably dug deeper wells at that time.  I am no longer on city water so don't have to worry about wells drying out.  But back when I did have a well, it was a drilled well and never ran out of water.  Our neighbor had a bored well and periodically had to hook a hose up to our well to get water during drought times.  But like AM, I have had no news about people with wells having any problems this year.

California's version of drought.  Farm land abandoned for miles in all directions.  

Oh, my....

Sooooo.... We've got major (for us) brush fires in the mountains north of Atlanta, ranging into TN & NC. The wind direction is down this way. As a result the entire NGA area down into middle GA is covered with smoke.

Rain would be good about now.

It's on the news. Arson suspected? Miserable air quality, not to mention possible destruction of property and wildlife areas.

I think it was a lightening strike. At least in one area. But we've got several going, so who knows....

Well, the winds finally shifted. Now TN is getting all the smoke. I haven't heard from any friends in NC, but I'm sure they're getting it too.

One nice thing I found about our current drought.... As some of you know, I've kind of (well, MORE than kind of) neglected my beautiful garden plot DH put together for me. I am reclaiming it now. And everything is coming out quite easily due to the dry MM. (Except for a couple of small trees from the neighbor's yard that set up shop in a couple of boxes...)

So it's finally cool enough, it's nice & dry, the smoke has cleared, and I have the energy & desire to get into the garden & reclaim it as in my other post this morning. So what happens?

It's RAINING!

sigh.......... LOL!

And just that fast, the smoke is back... I think I'll keep my bi-polar avatar, lol!

Well... I think that after the last couple of days of howling winds and waking up this morning to 34 degrees, it's safe to say that winter is finally hitting the SE. They were actually talking about snow flurries in TN, NC, etc. last night. I wish we'd just get some rain to help the wildfires!

Yep, rain has been nonexistent this fall.  .17 inches in Oct and 0 rain in Nov.  It is forecast for .02 inches this Wed.  Big deal and it usually misses us.  

Low Temps have been hovering just above freezing down here.  Forecast for 32* F tonight.  And then warm back up above 40*F the rest of the week.  The only thing I am growing this fall that are affected with those temps are some late planted tomatoes which I have been covering for the last two nights.

Got to take a drive through the N GA mountains to & from mom's house yesterday. They had received a little rain overnight. But nothing that will help the wildfires... The lakes are down again, some of them about 9 feet.

But the leaves are beautiful!

Marie, did you take any fall photos you can share with us? Our leaves are completely gone now.
CC

No.... Sorry!! Didn't even think about it.....

Here in Brooks, we had .17 inches of rain in October.  No rain so far in Nov.  The last time it rained was Oct 16.  It is forecast to rain (with 95% probability) on Tues and Wed.  Total is projected to be 1 inch.  

I took the cover off the hoop house in hopes that it does rain.  There is nothing better for plants than an inch of rain.

The wind has been building steadily over the last couple of hours. There's a wind advisory in the N GA mountains (close to some of the wildfires). They're saying sustained winds of up to 40 mph with gusts up to 55. But rain's coming too, thank goodness!

Actually heard some thunder at some point last night. And it's raining!

Unfortunately, Gatlinburg & Pigeon Forge, TN have now been evacuated due to fires. Parts of Gatlinburg have already burned. Let's hope the rains are helping up there....