I feel like every time I'm coming outside now it's raining.
It's been raining for maybe a week straight here,
which is pretty crazy actually in San Diego. I'm not complaining,
but there's such a thing as too much rain.
So in this video we're going to talk about five different things that you should
think about when managing your garden. If you get a crazy amount of rain.
Kevin Espiritu here from Epic Gardening where it's my goal to help you grow
greener thumb. And honestly,
I never thought that I would complain about too much rain growing in San Diego,
Zone 10b. There's been many years where we've barely gotten a drop,
but the last couple of years I feel like it's changed.
And this is our second week of just insane, insane rains. And so I figured,
why not film this video for you guys?
Those of you probably deal with more rain than I do.
So five different tips for managing a garden that's just getting dumped on by
rain. And at the end of the video,
we're also going to talk about some plants that just love the rain that you may
want to try out. So before we get into the video,
cultivate that like button and I will personally call up the rain gods to either
bless or curse you with rain or no rain, depending on what you want.
And let's get into the video. Tip number one,
not all plants will respond the same way to a lot of rain. So for example,
take a look at this lettuce right here and really take a look at it because it's
attractive and I'm okay admitting that to you guys on YouTube that I may
actually be attracted to my own lettuce. That's just how I live. Okay?
But lettuce is a shallow rooted plant that loves cold, cold weather.
And so if that's the case, what happens in the rain? Weather's cold.
It's perking up, it's looking nice and crispy,
but the water's just not going to drown it out because it's a shallow root.
And so all that water,
if it is waterlogged is sitting just kind of below the root zone of lettuce.
So lettuce really doesn't suffer a whole lot from too much rain.
But let's take a look at a plant that might.
So here is my dearly beloved improved Meyer lemon tree from a different video
that we did. And as you can see, I have sheltered it from this storm.
Citrus does not want to be overwatered. It's in a container,
so it's more likely to suffer from over-watering.
Even though I did drill some drainage holes into this. So what did I do?
I moved it back underneath this awning,
kind of sheltered it because I don't want it to get over water. It's really,
really gonna suffer from that.
So if you are growing in containers or you have the ability to move plants
around that, that may really suffer from too much rain,
then I definitely recommend doing so.
Tip number two is to watch out for nutrients washing out of your soil or your
container. So this is probably more prevalent if you're a container gardener,
which I know many of you are and I am myself,
but even if you're growing in raised beds,
you can get water just kind of pouring through that soil system and then it's
taking along all of the soluble nutrients with it. If there's too much,
you know,
if if you water appropriately and you get an appropriate amount of rain,
then it doesn't actually leave that soil. But if it's washing, washing, washing,
washing, washing, the nitrogen can just wash straight out.
So the way to remedy that perhaps would be to add a top dress of some organic
granular fertilizer or add some back after you have too much rain.
Tip number three is to consider raised beds or containers.
If your soil has naturally poor drainage, if you're very heavy clay,
you're growing in ground and a torrential downpour just doesn't even,
it doesn't even move the water just kind of sits there.
Your soil and your roots are not going to like that.
And so switching over to some containers or some raised beds,
which really are containers.
We just think of them as a separate design because they're so large.
That can be a really good idea. Let's take this one for example.
This is 30 inches tall, so there's a large bulk of soil in here,
but it's also very wide.
So there's just so much soil I would say about this much of it is filled with
sticks, brush, logs, right around here or so I don't want to waste the soil,
but that's also going to help the drainage. Right.
And then up here it's really high quality soil, the top 50% or so.
So I don't have a problem with this getting waterlogged at all.
I mean this bed is the most recent bed I've built and it just looks absolutely
amazing. This is the bed that we have,
some green onions and some radish interplanted in.
So if you are struggling with really poor drainage in your natural soil,
I do recommend you're either gonna have to improve that somehow by adding a lot
of compost, maybe adding perlite, things like this,
or you may want to switch over to raised beds.
Tip number four is the use of mulch in the garden.
So I don't have any mulch in this bed because a skunk keeps coming through and
throwing it all over the place,
which is a really fun experience for me to have in the garden. I love it.
But mulch, it keeps our soil moist, right?
It's protecting the surface of the soil.
So in the rain you might say a thick layer of mulch may not be such a good thing
and you would actually be correct. It will hold perhaps too much water. It,
it makes it too hard for the soil to dry out when it's already suffering from
too much water.
So you may want to consider mulching a little bit less using a lighter mulch.
And at the same time mulch can be a nice bed and a nice home for the two common
pests that come out when it rains. And that would be snails and slugs.
And so if you kind of dial back your mulch a little bit,
that can actually help quite a bit. Now I will say in general,
mulch is a fantastic thing to use in the garden and even in the rain,
sometimes it can help, right?
A light layer of mulch can help prevent soil splashing up,
particularly onto things like your tomatoes, your peppers,
your summer crops that will get a lot of those soil born blights.
And so you want, you do want to use mulch at some point,
but just don't go crazy with the mulch when it's raining.
Tip number five is to inspect your crops in the rain and look for signs of
pests, nutrient deficiencies and disease, specifically disease.
Cause like I said, the rain, those moist conditions,
those humid conditions can bring out a decent amount of disease.
It's a breeding ground for all sorts of different things and so as I look
through the garden, I can come in and inspect my peas.
Do I see any disease I don't. On my beans, some of these lower leaves,
surprise, surprise,
the lower leaves are getting hit with what looks like some kind of bacterial
disease of some sort, perhaps fungal.
I'm not quite sure off the top of my head but all I know is I saw it and I can
now mitigate it. Those are our five rainy garden tips,
but we have three bonus plants for you for sticking around to the end of the
video. We have Joe Pye weed, very weirdly named plant,
but it's a fantastic tall growing plant that your pollinators are going to love.
Cardinal flower is another fantastic one. It's nice and red, beautiful,
beautiful pollinator lover and also you can grow New England asters.
These are also a fantastic rain loving plant.
Now these are plants that I'm experimenting more with my garden as I switch from
being 100% edibles focused "If you can't eat it,
don't grow it" type of person to someone who clearly has a lot more ornamental
slash pollinator focused plants. This African Blue Basil here,
this is a bee lover. Bees just go crazy for it. The lavender bees go crazy for,
and so you better believe when I'm growing my tomatoes,
all the things that need pollination in my summer garden,
it's going to be a really good idea to have those bees around rain or shine.
So with that said, good luck in the garden.
Thank you so much for watching and keep on growing.