So much water…am I right? Oklahoma is full of so many contradictions, not the least of which is our weather. Sometimes it can almost seem like we are not wanted here. The winters aren’t too bad, but every once in a while, it tries to freeze us out. Then we have a couple of beautiful days before monsoon and tornado season, which is quickly followed by what we call summer…the months we could not likely survive without air conditioning. This is followed by football season which begins in the sweltering heat and continues into the frozen days. The bottom line – Oklahoma living is not for the faint at heart…especially gardeners.

For our purposes, we’re going to talk about water. Right now we are getting hammered with rainstorm after rainstorm, but in a few weeks, we all know we are going to be out there watering, trying to help our plants survive.

Just so we have a little perspective, in the last 120 days we received somewhere between 20 and 22 inches of rain (at the time of this writing). In an average year, we receive about 44 inches. So, in the last 120 days we’ve received about half of our yearly precipitation. That’s a lot for us and our plants to deal with…especially at a time when we are trying to get our gardens established and ready for growing season.

One of the challenges with this much water is that all this water can make it difficult for plant roots to breathe. We want our garden soil to be about 50% solids, 25% water, and 25% air. All this rain pushes the air out of the soil. Without some air in the soil, nutrient uptake is inhibited, and your plants will begin to look droopy and soft. If this condition persists for a period of time, we run the risk of your plants getting what we call root rot. More often than not, plants don’t recover from root rot…especially plants in the ground.

At our Seed to Supper Farm where we grow and harvest vegetables for area food pantries, we’ve had issues with too much rain in the spring. OSU Research Station manager Ted Newell worked with us over the winter to help change the slope of the soil at our farm to encourage water to drain rather than sit in place. In reality, Ted did most of the work, but the results have been awesome.

Last year at this time, we had a variety of crops sitting under water. They sat that way long enough that we lost a lot of plants. We were able to replant, but this delayed our production by about 60 days or so.

This year (see photo) we still have some water standing, but nothing near what it used to be. Our crops will survive, and we have Ted to thank for that. Thank you, Ted!

This is one of the challenges with in-ground gardens. So, if you have issues with standing water in your garden, you are going to need to do some work to increase drainage. This is one of the reasons raised bed gardens are good for home gardeners because they tend not to hold water like in-ground gardens.

Another challenge for home gardeners in managing this quantity of rain is our potted plants. Good containers for plants have drainage holes in the bottom. If you are using buckets or plastic storage containers, be sure you have drilled some drainage holes in the bottom. Also, when you purchase a container for a plant, more often than not, they come with a drainage hole. But some of them have that hole plugged in case you are planning to use that container indoors. Be sure that plug is removed for outside containers.

Even if there is a drainage hole, sometimes these drainage holes get clogged, causing your plants to get waterlogged. You can usually tell this by trying to lift the container. If it feels a lot heavier than it should, it’s likely full of water.

To remedy this, you are going to need to get that drainage hole open. You can usually do this without disturbing the plant by clearing it out from the bottom, but you may need to remove the plant and soil to get at the clog. It’s also not a bad idea to let that soil and plant sit outside the container for a bit to dry out. Just be careful not to let it get too dry.

Keeping your plants properly hydrated outside of monsoon season is always a bit of a challenge. To check the moisture levels in the soil surrounding your plants, you can use the old finger method by sticking your finger down into the soil. Or if you would like to be more scientific, you can purchase water moisture meters for $10 or so. Not a big investment since you likely have a lot more than that invested in your plants.

Bottom line, water management is an important part of being a successful gardener and it seems more and more like Mother Nature enjoys testing us to make sure we are worthy… See you in the garden!

You can get answers to all your gardening questions by calling the Tulsa Master Gardeners Help Line at 918-746-3701, dropping by our Diagnostic Center at 4116 E. 15th Street, or by emailing us at mg@tulsamastergardeners.org. Photo: Tom Ingram