Gardening without Rain

This summer has seen record-breaking temperatures in North Carolina.  So far, we've surpassed the number of days with 90 degrees or better by three days and are well on our way of crushing the old record, whatever it was.  The coming week is forecast to have another series of days in the mid to upper 90's despite the fact that the first day of Fall is Thursday.  On top of the extremely constantly high temperatures, we've suffered from a severe lack of rainfall, currently running about 8 inches behind for the year, and most of that shortfall occurring during the last four months, which has resulted in crispy grass and dying shrubs.  Going without rain for weeks at a time has caused every living plant, tree, and shrub to suffer, and leaves are now turning yellow and brown and dropping to the ground as a result.

Last winter, I grew and then sold during the spring 757 heirloom tomato plants, 19 varieties in all, and planted 15 of those in my own garden, expecting a bumper tomato crop.  There's nothing better, to my tastebuds, than sinking one's teeth into a warm tomato picked right off the vine, ripe and juicy, but the weather conditions have not been condusive to vegetable gardening.  I'm still waiting for those tomatoes!  With temperatures exceeding 100 degrees several times and no cloud cover, the few tomatoes that did set and turn red literally cooked on the vine, the strength of the sun's rays breaking down their tissue during the day.  I learned to pick the few tomatoes I got before they ripened and in the morning if the day was predicted to be extremely hot again, which was about every single day.  Tomatoes and other vegetables don't set fruit when they have to fight to stay alive during extreme conditions; they flower but drop the buds to conserve energy.  It has been a battle to get anything from the earth this summer in the Triangle region of North Carolina, and all the thoughts I had of gorging on tomatoes, canning and freezing them, selling some and giving some away, vanished weeks and weeks ago.

I told my husband the other day that I realized why I didn't feel like there was a summer and that I didn't enjoy it -- I literally spent my life watering the gardens, both vegetable and flower, and all the pots on the deck for at least 1-2 hours every single day.  My time was spent keeping things going.  Our water bill reflected that effort.  And yet we got very little from the garden.  The only thing that did well were the cucumber vines; I'm going to purchase the same variety next year because I've never harvested so many long, perfect cucumbers in my 40+ years of gardening.  Oddly, now that the season is winding down, we're getting some tomatoes on vines that we didn't even plant, volunteer ones that showed up down the slope by the compost bin, and even though I haven't watered them, they are thriving and setting fruit now that the nights are cooler.  When temps were 100 in the day and 80 at night, that was impossible to do.  Hopefully, those tomatoes will have time to mature and ripen before frost sets in.  The other tomato plants are spent and almost completely brown.  No amount of water and cooler temperatures will revive them. 

Gardening without rain is like trying to do good without God.  It just isn't the same.  Yes, you will produce some fruit, but it won't be what it could be if God were the reason for your good deeds.  Just as my gardens need rain from the sky to survive, we need God to give us the strength we need to produce fruit that will bring glory to His name.  We must plant seeds and allow Him to do the watering.