DON'T LAUGH!!

Oh, you are all so awesome! Family & friends have expressed sympathy, but only my sfg family truly understands the magnitude of my potential loss. Thank you all so much!

We did not go down there yesterday, but I will swing by on my way home tonite. The Ohio River crested overnight, but will still be above flood-stage until Friday. Hopefully we dry out mid-week. Although they are predicting rain for much of the week. Oy! So now I need to find myself some good boots.

As for the offer of seeds - thank you so much! I think I'm okay. The only thing I've planted so far is the peas. And there are still more in the package. If the beds are washed away, the butterfly bed is easily replanted. It just won't be as lush as I was hoping this year would be. All of the perenials were 1st year plants last year.

I'll keep you posted. Thanks again for your well-wished. It gives me a warm-fuzzy and I'm truly grateful!

I grew up in Illinois, and usually not too far from the Mississippi river, all along that river is some of the absolute best farmland, but when it floods it's so devastating. Down river where the Mississippi and Ohio meet it gets even worse and all of that water heads on down to New Orleans. I come from a long line of farmers, seeing anyone loose their crop, no matter how big or small, just tears me up inside Keep us updated and let us know how we can help.

nancy wrote: The only thing I've planted so far is the peas. And there are still more in the package. If the beds are washed away, the butterfly bed is easily replanted. It just won't be as lush as I was hoping this year would be. All of the perenials were 1st year plants last year.

Uh, that has got to be frustrating. I bet your butterfly beds will still be gorgeous in spite of the flood. I'm so SO sorry. I'd be totally gutted...

((HUGS)) I saw pics of Kellogg Ave. I'm guessing you in that area. Prayers being said for you and the garden.

So I stopped by the community garden on my way home. I've been feeling blue all day thinking about it and I wanted to see the latest. The first thing I see is 2 wild turkeys!! As soon as they saw me, they began trotting up the railroad tracks. What a hoot! I was so surprised, I didn't even think to get out my camera (phone). When I got a little closer to the garden, I noticed about half a dozen Canada geese floating around. They took off as soon as they saw me, too. Jeesh, I'm not that scary! But after seeing the blue heron on Saturday, I'm rather excited about the wildlife this flood has brought. Here is how it looks today:



It is getting a bit lower, I can see the tops of a lot more things! And that might be one of my boxes in the background. (Hopefully!!) It is supposed to rain later tonite, but hopefully we don't get much. Thanks again for everything! You all are awesome!

Nancy,

First - I just want to let you know how much I've enjoyed reading your wonderful posts and seeing the pictures.

I wish I had come to love gardening sooner so that I could have shared it with my daughter the way you are with yours. She is 34 and has given me 3 wonderful grandsons. The middle one is 7 and loves to help his Nanny garden. We started our first butterfly garden last year and only raised one Monarch from a cat I found on my milkweed. There were more cats, but I only had a very small butterfly net house that I had found at a local bookstore and I didn't have much milkweed and was afraid I would run out, so I left the rest of the cats outside.

Can you share more about how you raised the frogs? You bought an aquarium to keep them in, right? This would be a fun project for us this spring. We heard the frogs when we passed the river on our way to church last night!!

I will continue to pray for you and your garden. You will surely have rich soil deposits left when the water recedes. I hope 'old man river' dumped it right in your SFGs!

Please keep us posted. (((HUGS)))

Betty

Happy gardening in that front yard!!! I hope you win!!

You are so amazingly positive in spite of this flooding. That's great.

True, the only thing positive about a flood is the replenishment of nutrients. But, that doesn't usually appease anyone today.

Glad to see how you observe wildlife around you, too. I hope you win your contest. You would certainly be an early favorite for a Before And After Contest. I would love to see pictures of the sunset if you have them.

Keep Chuggin'!

nancy wrote:A couple of years ago a friend gave me some rescued paperwhites from a house that was about to be demolished. I put them in the front garden and they have grown, but never bloomed. Can I relocate them now or would that be too much stress on them? I need their space and I want better for them. A win-win!

Well, if they've never bloomed.... why not try? Surely if they've been growing in place for a couple of years, there's no harm in moving them again.

Wow Nancy! I only recently joined this forum and I just read this whole thread from the beginning. I really enjoyed your posts and my heart just sank when I saw the pic of your lake! What part of town is your garden? East side, right? I hope it starts to recede soon, todays weather had to help a little!

Hi GG! Welcome to the forums! I'm so excited to have another local here! I'm in Mariemont and we have a community garden that is very near the Little Miami. I'm so glad you enjoyed the story so far - I love telling it.

Here is last night's pic. It is from the same spot, only I'm looking a bit more east:



We went down again tonite and were suprpised at how much lower it was! We can actually see a few of our boxes - and it looks as if one of them has definately moved. Ah well. It's better than it could have been. I'm still holding out for being able to walk to my allotment by Saturday.

I WALKED TO MY GARDEN TONITE!!! I had to ford a small stream to get to it, but that's why I bought those rain boots! Part of the road along the border is still under water, but mostly it's clear.



Here is what I found: I am missing the boxes for a 3x3, 2 4x4s, and my strawberry box. The soil is still there without boxes. What a hoot! I have found 3 of the boxes - in 3 different areas! The garlic is happy and green, acting as if nothing happened. The strawberries look like they lived through a volcano and are now covered in ash. They are perky, though. I didn't see any peas. The fennel is fine as is the daisy.







So there is still much work to do, but I don't have to start over. What a blessing. Thank you all for the prayers, thoughts, and good wishes. I will sleep tonite knowing that it is still there.

Wood floats and my guess is your boxes just floated away. Some new wood to keep the soil in place and you should be good to go and looking green soon.


Kay

WOO-HOO!!!!

I guess we can add "Flood-Resistant" to the many excellent attributes of Mel's Mix! ;-)

That is amazing. Really.

Nancy, what a wonderful note to see first thing this afternoon...you have a garden again! thank you for the pictures. I'm so happy for you. Nonna in St. Helens, OR

Certainly much better than you had expected. So Happy for you. As you said "lot's of work" but manageable.

Here's to more and less rain.

Just read this entire thread this evening. What an inspiration! I love the story of all your plants and crittiers.

Nancy, I am so sorry you had all that flooding. The little bit of wetness I had in my basement is NOTHING compared to what you and others have gone through. It looks like at least some of your garden is going to be okay though. And how exciting it must have been for you to finally got to walk to it. It is getting better!! I am hoping to be able to actually see mine in a couple of weeks. There is still so much snow.

You mentioned mowing to keep the weeds down. I am assuming that is between your actually squares. Is that correct? I am a very lazy gardener. By the time I get home from work in the afternoon or evening, I don't feel like weeding etc. I just want to putter in my garden,...watering, pruning, smelling, tasting, etc. So I put down heavy cardboard in between my boxes and then put down wood shavings that I get from a local woodwork shop. It keeps the weeds down so I don't have to worry about anything except what is growing in the boxes. It is a huge timesaver and looks very nice too. Someday I may be able to put down nice gravel or brick but this works and it is free. Just thought I would make that suggestion. If you don't have to spend time weeding and trimming, you will have more time for growing.

Thanks for sharing and best of luck with the garden this year.

Gwynn

Looks like your strawberries have a nice layer of river silt all over them, you should have strawberries coming out your ears this year. Just give them a good rinse and let them go. Let's hope this dousing of your garden is a blessing and you have a bumper crop this year, after all floodland is the most fertile soil on the earth.

Saturday morning the kid and I went down to the garden for some post-flood clean up. I carried the 3 beds back to their places - crap were they heavy!! I discovered that I was actually missing 5 beds - 2 4x4s are still "missing". I now have a million little green leaflets growing in every bed! So we stirred up the spring bed really well. Then we added the 2 paper towel carrot sets and the 2 broccolis. I love just burying paper towels! We'll see how well it works. We dunked them in water first. We also replanted 2 squares of peas. The flood was too much for them after all.

We stirred up Kid Bed #1. This bed has settled a bunch - or some of the soil did float away. We need to add more, but in the meantime she decided she also wants peas in her bed, so we added a square for her. The daisy may go either way. I'm not sure how happy it is right now.

It was a great day - sunny and mild. We got a lot of work done. And we walked around looking for the last 2 boxes and checking out everyone else's allotments. Many are still under water! We are very lucky to have the location we do.

I went back down again last night and added 2 squares of spinach. I put the yarn grid on the spring bed - I went with red this year. =) I pulled a bunch more weeds from near the beds - they come up so nicely with the ground so soft & wet. I also believe the oregano is going to make another attempt. And the butterfly bush has some new growth, too. Not too sure about the fennel in the butterfly box. But the purple coneflower might be coming up. I just love this time of year!

I took a couple pictures Saturday but will have to wait to add them until I get home. Happy Tuesday!

Completely forgot to tell you about the front yard! I moved all of the paperwhites to the backyard on Sunday. They will get sun there and maybe someday they will bloom. They are intermixed with the daffodils, which look gorgeous!! So now I have extra space in the front. I may try foxglove - I heard it grows well in shade. And some hellebores there, too. On the other side of the walk I pulled as much ivy as I could. I'm sure there are some roots underground that have ideas of coming up, but I think I can control it now. (The power of positive thinking!) The soil under the yew is so lovely! I cannot wait to plant in it! I also realized that if I chop down the yew, I will lose most of the shade and now that I've planned a shade garden, I don't want to lose it. I may just trim it to an acceptable size - it's easily over 10 feet tall now. So the fronts are coming along. I'm going to go to the nursery next week. Yea!

And I was talking to a friend's mother-in-law Saturday night and asked if I could take some of her chicken & goat poo if I brought my own buckets. It took her a moment to realize I was serious, but she is more than willing to part with it. They have a party on Opening Day every year - which is next Thursday!!! - so I will have more compostables soon. Woo Hoo!!

Yay for compostables

Nancy wrote:And I was talking to a friend's mother-in-law Saturday night and asked if I could take some of her chicken & goat poo if I brought my own buckets. It took her a moment to realize I was serious, but she is more than willing to part with it.

Congratulations on your great source for 'compostables." We used to have a neighbor with horses and a couple of llamas. I'm here to tell you, llama poo is the best! Tidy little beasts, they always deposit in the same place, so poo harvest is so very simple. It doesn't appear to be a "hot" manure either, and a shovel-full dug into holes between each tomato plant sure makes them 'maters eager to produce!

Nonna.PapaVino wrote:I'm here to tell you, llama poo is the best!

Hmmmm, Llama Poo. There are a few sheep ranches around here that have llamas in with their flocks - llamas bond with the animals they 'shepherd' and become great protectors. I think you may have just given me idea for the sources of my last 2 needed composts!

Lamby Poo and Llama Poo, to the Rescuoo!

TC