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flooded

Hi All-

I went away this weekend to work in my garden in western Mass, but the
rains were so heavy I couldn't do any gardening at all.  Enjoyed a Tyrone
Power movie though.

When I returned to my Medford (MA) garden last evening, I was greeted with
my garden hose spewing out water from our basement.  We were flooded and
the fire dept. didn't get there until 10pm to give us a good hose, so my
downstairs neighbors borrowed my hose to get the process started.  This
morning the basement had only an inch left, but it is covered with a slick
of oil and smells quite foul.  We only had 3 ft., so the electric still works.

Now for the IMPORTANT part- (who cares about basements? gardening is ALL!)
my neighbors told me that my garden was under a foot of water at the worst
part of the flooding.  I found that full buckets of my soil mix had been
swept from one side of my garden to the other, trays and trash barrels were
also scattered many feet away from where they were originally.  Buckets
were entirely full of water and sitting upright- looks like we got a foot
of rain.  

thank you Dad for teaching me the only way to garden I know- with raised
beds. There were no puddles left- and the plants were ecstatically happy.
In all that, I lost only 4 (out of about a hundred) lettuce transplants
where the buckets of soil had dropped on them.  It seemed like the barrels
and trays somehow knew to settle exactly where nothing was planted yet, or
in the trenches rather than on top of the plants.  I was fortunate, and the
plants (including the weeds) seemed to grow about 3-4 inches in 2 days. 

I am amazed that my buckets of soil mix stayed upright- that there was
almost no damage, that the bag of peat moss didn't have any holes so it was
carried harmlessly around for a tour of the garden- that the garden only
benefited from being flooded.  I am also very grateful I was out of town,
since I would have been in a complete panic had I been home to watch this
awful event.

Not looking forward to going home to cleaning the basement- but at least
I'll have a good salad when I'm done tonight.  The garden goddess was
smiling on me yesterday.

Sarah
Medford and Colrain, MA

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