DON'T LAUGH!!

:hug: When watching the news , you were the FIRST person I thought of! I'm so sorry for your flooding but so cool about the butterfly's.

Nancy, how are you and your family doing?

Wet. Actually the kid and I are fine. I bet there is a bit of water in the basement, but nothing we haven't seen before.

The garden, however; is just as flooded as it ever was. I went down last night & took my daily picture (I can't post it from work - sorry) and the black lab was having her swim. This time her owner brought a chair & was relaxing while she swimmed. It was great fun to watch. I really doubt the whole spring garden thing though. It will be time to put in the tomatoes once this all dries out. Ah well.

Thank you so much for asking! I really appreciate it! I have faith that once this front moves out, we will be sunny & dry for a few days.

Yes, Nancy we are supposed to have a couple of actual sunny days on Friday and Saturday!
It'll give you and I, the rest of the folks in this area a chance to figure out "Plan B" for the SFG's this year. While not completely flooded out, all of this rain has pin-pointed low lying areas in the area where I was planning to put my SFG that I didn't know existed, and which is partly underwater now. I have to decide whether or not to try to regrade that area some time this weekend when we get a break from the rain, or move the boxes just enough to get them above water.

Oh MG - I'm so sorry to hear it! The first time we flooded (back in early March) it was really cool and the only thing I had planted was peas so it didn't feel like too big of a loss. The second time it just made me sick. I was devastated! This time, I'm just resigned. It isn't the end of the world, and it isn't permanent. I WILL have tomatoes, watermelon, and pumpkins this year!

I hope it all works out for you, whatever you decide. Best wishes to you and everyone else, too! Have you heard from any of our other Cincinnatians recently? I saw that our forum leader had posted earlier, so I hope that means the levee situation isn't affecting him too much. Dry thoughts to all except those in Texas who would love this water.

Yes, Glendale-Gardner and Madnicmom touched base with me following the thinkGREEN event this past weekend. We didn't get to connect there, but connected via PM afterwards. But I'm with you, I'll have tomatoes, watermelons, peppers and strawberries for sure!

Sorry I missed the event. I really wanted to go, but with the garden under water, there was no point buying more compost yet. Plus the weather, plus family coming to town, plus the price of gas, etc. We just decided to stay close to home. I do want to go back up there though when I have time to walk around.

Is anyone planning on going to the Civic Center Garden Sale? I'm going on the 8th. And if anyone hears of a native Ohio plant sale, please let me know. Glenwood Gardens isn't doing theirs this year.

I am so sorry, Nancy. It's just been awful to read what has happened to your gardens and all the work you put in. When I came into this thread and realized y'all were talking about it having flooded a second time, it just broke my heart. Now I see it's happened a third time, and I just don't know what to say.

I'm glad you've got baby monarchs to help you through.

MasonGarden wrote:Yes, Nancy we are supposed to have a couple of actual sunny days on Friday and Saturday!
It'll give you and I, the rest of the folks in this area a chance to figure out "Plan B" for the SFG's this year. While not completely flooded out, all of this rain has pin-pointed low lying areas in the area where I was planning to put my SFG that I didn't know existed, and which is partly underwater now. I have to decide whether or not to try to regrade that area some time this weekend when we get a break from the rain, or move the boxes just enough to get them above water.

If this is the sunny area of your garden then I vote for tabletops. Or at least knee highs. That's the neat thing about MM, you can really raise your beds and get a good harvest.


Kay

Thanks, Kay. Yes, this is the sunniest part of the yard - of course! I haven't come up with a tabletop option that would pass muster with the HOA (primarily because of the large wooden legs), but I hadn't seen any examples of knee high gardens. Hmmmm . . . Does anyone have pictures of knee high gardens? Also, how do you deal with the bottoms of tabletop/knee high gardens so that they don't rot out?

check out my thread where I shameless stole ideas from Boffer and
Chexmix. https://squarefoot.forumotion.com/t5250-i-m-making-progress-and-gardens

1 block high surrounded by flower containers might satisfy your HOA. Or short, stubby legs with vinyl trelles attached to hide them. Hardware cloth on bottom if you are worried about plywood bottoms rotting. I used it because of weight. Check out the vinyl trellis Acara uses. It is so decorative and he has a HOA to contend with.

Kay

Or you could just build it a bit higher, and fill the bottom with sand. Our garden spends a good amount of time in standing water, and this is what we did. It's working great! We have 6-9 inches of sand in the bottom, with variation due to the lay of the land.

Ah! That's a lower cost option. The boxes that I am using are 18" high, so I can afford to give up a few inches on the bottom to sand!


So I just need to get bags of sand at the big box stores? Not any kind of sand in particular?

If this flooding becomes a regular thing, I might consider raised boxes, too. I could swim to them! :drunken:

It's hard to believe as I sit here looking out the window that we have more severe storms coming. I hope everyone stays safe this afternoon!

You, too!!

MasonGarden wrote:Ah! That's a lower cost option. The boxes that I am using are 18" high, so I can afford to give up a few inches on the bottom to sand!


So I just need to get bags of sand at the big box stores? Not any kind of sand in particular?

You've got a couple of options. You don't want play sand (usually what the box stores have) or mason's sand, because they are too fine to give you the drainage you need. The "sand" they have to go under pavers is crushed cement. We got 3 cubic yards of "fill sand" (I'm pretty sure that's what it was called) delivered to our house. This was for 100 sq. ft. of garden, for a 6-9" depth of sand (closer to 9", for most of it). I got it from a landscape supply company. It's coarse sand and tiny rocks. Plus a few larger rocks, but that doesn't matter. I spent around $120 for that much sand.

If you aren't building something that big, you may be able to get a similar coarse sand in bags somewhere. Just make sure it is coarse.

I put down about 15-20 layers of newspaper (which we had anyway, since my uncle gets the paper), then chicken wire, then landscape cloth. We brought the landscape cloth most of the way up the sides to keep the sand and MM from escaping through the cracks between the timbers. MM on top of the sand, grid, and ready to go! My husband made sure to build it nice looking enough that the HOA couldn't complain about it, and even put seating/workspace around the whole thing.



Here it is with the sand. You can see the tiny stones and the texture of the coarse sand:



You can even see that it was standing in water at the time we were filling it, off to the right side. There's standing water on the left, too; you just can't see it as well because it isn't quite as deep.

All the vertical framing is optional, of coarse. We are using that for bird netting, and will use it for plastic come winter. We put chicken wire on top to help support the plastic and keep it from puddling up there.

Wow!! That's definitely a HOA-friendly box!

Thank you! I love it, and the plants in it are poised to take over the world!

There is a fourth course of wood at the bottom that is more difficult to see. It is recessed, like a kitchen base cabinet toe kick. My husband just took those 2x6s (and 2x4s, in places where the three top courses were close to the ground) and lay them on edge along the ground inside the garden, so they would follow the slope of the ground. Then, he just nailed them in place. It was much easier than his initial plan, which was to dig trenches in the ground for the bottom course to fit into, so it would be flush and straight. It would have been long, hard work. This got the problem solved in a fraction of the time, and you can't really see from the outside that the wood is not straight:







The top three courses are level. The bottom course marries them to the uneven ground.

I went into much greater detail in a two-parter on my blog, in case you want to see more. It would be way too much typing to redo here. Well, maybe not, but I just don't have the time to.

Here it is now, though I guess I need to post a new thread with this, since I'm kinda hijacking this one (sorry, OP!!). But I wanted to show how it is working, with the fact that it spends a lot of time in water:









The day I took these, the ground had mostly dried out. The boards are our walkways, which we need now, since it is in standing water again.

Rofl...this year I am getting a garden shed...but next year lol

showed Hubby these...he said ok....the area I am turning into a garden is a swampy area.

Those are sooo awesome!

Miss M - what gorgeous pics! I'm extremely jealous!

I stopped by my garden again today on my way home. The water level has gone down, which really surprised me. I can't get to my garden yet, but it's not as deep.

This is yesterday:



And today



Here is a monarch update: of the 46 eggs, I have had to remove 4. They looked moldy and I didn't want them infecting any healthy babies. Today I moved 4 baby cats to the "nursery":



I should have more in the next day or 2. I'm not expecting a lot of them to survive, but I hope for at least half.

Yea for caterpillar babies!

Thank you, Nancy! I'm sorry for sidetracking your thread.

Your garden pics are just heartbreaking. You certainly have been taking it with grace.

That is so neat that you have the monarch caterpillars to cheer you up! They're so tiny!!! I know they don't stay that way, but it's just amazing.

That sucks you are still underwater Nancy!

How can you tell that the eggs are monarchs when they are so tiny?

btw- I'll be at the garden sale- not sure if I'll go the 7th or the 8th, the 8th is my anniversary and mothers day, so not sure yet...

Are you sick of flood pictures yet? I got down there tonite expecting to be able to walk to my beds. There was a couple parked (parking?) in the drive and their dog was swimming. He was hilarious! I think I caught the couple off-guard. Tee Hee.

But I put my boots on anyway and after seeing how high the water was compared to how tall the dog was, I decided to give it a try. I made it all the way to my allotment without getting wet. Hurray rain boots!

Facing north-ish



Facing south



The spring bed



and the strawberries



Every single bed but one has floated off. I've found 5. I'm really grateful for raised beds, though. I love how they are sticking up above the water. I'm missing one of my gorgeous orange Home Depot buckets. The water on the west side of the garden was still too high to walk around much. Amazingly, the colorful tomato cages are all still there. Hopefully this weekend it will be dry enough to do some actual work down there. And I need a lot more soil this time.

At home: I now have 20 monarch 1st instars. Woo Hoo! Almost half. Not bad for so early in the year. I realized today that I am going to need nectar plants, so a trip to AJ Rahn's is in my near future. And I transplanted the other 3 tomatoes. The one I did last week looks amazing!! I think once the bed is ready, they will be, too.

I was trying not to feel too sorry for myself while I was down there tonite. What we are experiencing with a bit of extra water can't begin to compare to what those in the storms' path are going through now. All my thoughts / karma are with those in Alabama (except those I'm sending to acara's wife & baby). Do we have any forum menbers down there? I hope all in our big family are warm & dry tonite. Peace to you all!

Well, miracles really do happen. The spring bed today:



The peas and spinach didn't make it, but everything else is coming back.

Here is the kid's spring bed. The tulips might not come back next year, but the daisy is holding on.



I bought new strawberries over the weekend because I was sure most of them wouldn't survive. Tonite I saw new growth on a few. Wow!



We still can't get to the last bed. The water is still too deep over there and the mud really sucks at your boots. There has been a mallard pair there the past few days, but we didn't see them today. We did see hundreds of tadpoles, though. I hope to get the summer bed ready this weekend so the tomatoes can go in. They are ready! The beds still need some work. Erosion has make is so that the boxes sit on top of the beds like top hats, so I need to clean up a bit. I need that soil IN the beds.

Here at home, all 18 caterpillars are doing well. I expect a few chrysalises in a day or 2. They are getting so big!



And in the front yard, all the trilliums have died before the contest, but the ladys slipper is blooming!!



It just takes my breath away!!