Drought or No Drought?

Being sluggish this morning I'm disinclined to look up the definition of 'drought'. My garden says we are having one. The statistics in the newspaper say that we are far from a drought, having had VERY much rain in May and June.

"VERY much rain in May and June" means we had gullywashers - short, hard, intense rains that mostly ran off in to gutters and streams and into the Chesapeake bay. Not long, slow, soaking summer rain that brought moisture 10 or more inches into the earth. Did my rain barrels get filled? Yes.

But the effects of that rain on my veggies was short-lived. And, of course, I've planted more veggies since then, and they are not yet deeply rooted. So I've used up all my rain barrel water already. This coming week I'll need to use city water at least on the beans and turnips, maybe on the tomatoes as well. I'll use grey water from doing dishes for part of it, but I know that I'll have to use 'virgin treated tap water' for some of it.

Dramatic sigh. Officially a drought or not, my garden needs added water or it will die. In MY life, that qualifies as a drought.

Frondly, Fern