New Garden Week 4

A Week Before The Flood and Green

A Couple Days After The Flood and Yellow

Oh no!  The Tuesday before last we had a frog-choking heavy rain where rain water flooded up onto the porch.  The pool was flooded, which usually happens during the heavy spring rains here.  This time though, the water was higher than it has ever been in the past.  The single exception was when the tropical storms a few years ago heavily flooded the state and pushed rain water up over the porch.  I did not have a garden back then.
This new high water mark on the planters is an inch or so higher than the base of my garden, so the garden was flooded with pool water.   Think chlorine, diluted but still active pool water getting into my organic garden and staying there a few hours.

Chlorine + Kale 

In the next day or two, the leaves on the lettuce, Swiss chard and kale turned yellow, then they died and fell off.  Three weeks of new seed plantings were missing.  They either didn't start growing or were washed away by the heavy rain.  After a week, every plant in my garden was mostly yellow.

Remains of Swiss Chard

Two and a half weeks later, I can say the lettuce, at least, is coming back.  I cut the outside yellow leaves off the living plants today and the remaining inside leaves are a healthy green.  I can't say the same for the kale.  It appears to be as dead as it can be.  The Swiss chard, which survives just about anything, looks yellow and is shriveled and very weak, so I'm giving it more time to recover before I plant any more.   The single spinach plant that has come up looks much better now with the yellow leaves trimmed off.
The good news is the pool chlorine contamination should wash away from the organic soil with the daily watering of the plants.  I make sure the whole garden is getting fresh water daily.

So perhaps the organic garden may recover after all.  In a week or so, I'll experiment with planting more seeds and will try to get back to the weekly regimen of planting four romaine seeds.
Happy gardening!