Hope for the best and plan for the worst.  Have heard this all my life and try to live by it.   Yesterday was no different.  Bad weather is coming Sunday but preparing our garden for the excessive rain would come later in the day.

  Saturday was a warm, sunny day but Sunday was a coming.  Based on the almanac Saturday was a good day to plant the rest of the vegetable garden.   

Dewey and I prepared the land and planted more squash and cucumbers.  As you see in the images we grow a lot of squash and cucumbers.   During the harvest we eat squash and cucumbers most every day.   Wanted a small watermelon patch this year and we selected mainly heirloom varieties.   My favorite seed to plant new this year is the Georgia Stone Mountain Wateremelon.  This watermelon orginated from the Hastings Seed Company, Atlanta Ga. in 1932.  My husband remembers his family growing this watermelon when he was young.

We have had a lot of uncertainty in our weather recently.  The Weather Channel predicted a lot of rain coming our way today and possibly large hail.  We didn't need any more rain or so we thought.   Been coping with the more than an inch of rain we've gotten over several days.  We hoped the weather prediction was wrong but we wanted to prepare for the worst. 

To prepare the garden Dewey hooked up the Reddick Trencher to trench around the outside perimeter of the garden.  Hopefully with trenching we will keep the excess water from harming the young garden.  This is a process used in growing tobacco to keep the excess water drained from the plants. Dewey having grown up on a farm knows a lot of the tricks of the trade, so to speak.   We prepared as best we could. 

We rose early this morning before daylight, soon the rains came.  The rain started around six this morning and was torrential rain at times.  We didn't get any large hail that had been mentioned by the weatherman, that was a blessing.  The rain stopped about four hours later leaving behind two inches of water to cope with.    The young small tomatoes were standing in water as you see in the image.  Mud was washing in the trench and we had to remove the mud to keep the water flowing in the trench off the garden. 

All our hard work and efforts paid off.  It's now late afternoon and most allof the water is off the garden.  The water flowed just like we had planned and hoped for.  A great success story for us, the  Reddick Trencher and the garden.    Our hard work probably kept the garden from drowning.

Dale/Photo Manager & Good Will Ambassador