Purdue Extension Service
Purdue Extension Service
Vanderburgh County, Indiana
Subject: HORT ALERT: Recovery from flood, water if dry
6/12/2008
Dear Gardening friends,
While the Evansville area has been spared the recent weather-related disasters (including tornado damage and flooding), many of our neighbors around us have not been so lucky.
In the spirit of preparing ourselves for emergencies, as well as sharing this information with friends and family in the affected areas, Purdue University has asked me to share some sources for information to help people recover from the floods and related weather problems, and to prevent future problems.
The Extension Disaster Education Network (EDEN) website for dealing with floods and storms has some timely links for preparing, surviving, and recovering from floods: http://extension.purdue.edu/eden/disasters/floods/index.html . Some of the information includes cleanup of homes, sanitation, dealing with contaminated wells, as well as flood affects on landscapes, gardens, and farms.
Farmers have asked about state and federal financial help. Assessments by FEMA and FSA (Farm Service Agency) are still being conducted. Right now, if farmers have damages, they should be referred to local Farm Service Agency offices. They said, “don’t assume we know. Let us know if you’ve been affected.” I will keep in touch with aid information, but for now, here is the URL from the Indiana Department of Agriculture: http://www.in.gov/isda/2783.htm
Besides all the rain, we are now dealing with summer heat. In some of our communities, power is out due to flooding or storm damage to power lines. The US Department of Health and Human Services has a very good collection of articles on dealing with heat stress: http://www.hhs.gov/disasters/emergency/naturaldisasters/heat/index.html . This would be a good site for all gardeners to read, to prevent health problems while working outdoors.
Please share these articles with any family or friends who have been affected by the recent weather extremes.
Speaking of which: some of our gardens are beginning to become stressed due to a lack of water. All the rain we had earlier this spring has either dried up or infiltrated down to the water table by now...in other words, it’s not available to our yard and garden plants, and they are getting thirsty. If we go more than 10 to 14 days without significant rain, then you will need to supply supplemental irrigation.
All of our garden plants, including vegetables, flowers, trees, shrubs, and lawns, need the equivalent of 1 inch of rain per week. You can supply this using any type of sprinkler system – just place a cheap rain gauge, or even a coffee can, in the path of the sprinkler’s distribution. Time how long it takes to fill this gauge to the 1 inch mark. Then, in the future, all you have to do is run your sprinkler for that amount of time.
It is much better for the plants to apply all of this water all at once, instead of a little bit every day. Heavy watering forces the water to move down deeply into the soil profile, and the roots will follow this moisture downwards. On the other hand, shallow, frequent watering basically just wets the dust, encouraging a shallow root system and poor heat and drought resistance.
You should avoid watering by hand. You never really put on the total amount of water you need this way. To get that magical 1 inch of water, you need to apply slightly over one-half gallon per square foot of garden. Few of us have the patience to stand there long enough to do this right.
For example: let’s say you have a small flower bed, 10 feet long and 4 feet wide. That comes up to 40 square feet of surface area. To irrigate this sufficiently, you need to apply between 20 and 25 gallons of water to the entire bed.
Now...take your hose and start filling a 5 gallon bucket. Time it to see how long it takes to fill it. (With my low water pressure and cheap hose, it takes a good 2 minutes to fill the bucket). Now, do that 4 more times to reach the 25 gallon mark. I guarantee that I don’t have the patience to devote 10 full minutes to this one flower bed...especially with all the other beds and gardens I have to water. A better solution is to put out a sprinkler and ignore it for however long it takes to apply 1 inch of water.
To prevent disease problems, water early in the morning.
For more information on irrigation or emergency preparedness/recovery, please drop me a line.
Also: as a reminder, my weekly article with the Evansville Courier and Press can be found waaaaaaaay in the back of the Friday morning paper. I’m in the Tri State Home section, which is buried behind all the news sections and the classifieds. If you are having problems finding my column, or have an opinion (one way or the other) on the day of the week it is printed, please contact:
Mizell Stewart III Editor 812-461-0799 stewartm@courierpress.com