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Santa Cruz, CA

In the last 30 days we've had 20 days of rain here in Santa Cruz, California. Today and yesterday, we had a few days of dry sunny weather, so today I tried to work the soil but found it still too wet. I only have the next five days to work on the patch and then won't be able to work on it again until April 18th. Should I put up the "in the patch" green houses in the next few days and warm the soil and wait to work the soil in late April? or just wait? I have weed wacked our fava's down to six inches. Again it is too wet to till. I'm shooting for a pick date of Sept. 9th for our local County Fair.
Thanks for the help!!

P.S. How wet is too wet to work?

4/1/2006 9:07:56 PM

Puyallup, WA

If you can grab a handfull of soil and squeeze water out of it, then it is too wet.

4/1/2006 10:13:35 PM

Midwest

You could wait and see for 3 days? If you have no rain and some decent temps it may be dry in 3 days. Otherwise, there's some disadvantages waiting till April but there's also problems with working wet soil that may last through the season. It's your call. Hope you get some dry weather!

4/1/2006 11:15:17 PM

Sloughhouse, CA

You are not the only one tired of the wet and rainy weather in CA. I'm going to start my seeds next week and then hope for the best. Maybe I can get into the patch the week of April 9th. Sun.'s storms sounds like it is going to be big. Be sure to come to Elk Grove for the weigh off in Oct. Good luck.
Suzy in Sloughhouse, Sacramenfto County.

4/2/2006 1:54:25 AM

[email protected]

Like Stan I agree you need to squeeze a handful. It may form a ball. Touch it gently with a finger. If it crumbles you should be OK to till.

4/2/2006 8:53:24 AM

Norton, MA

Last year, just a corner of my patch was muddy when I tilled it, all season it had chunks like cement. If you have to, do a circle with like a 5-6' radius by hand, and plant in the middle when you have to. Then when it gets dried out, till the rest. AleX Noel.

4/2/2006 10:38:55 AM

Joliet, IL

I found it also depends on the makeup and consistency of your soil. If it is more clayey, too wet will give you the clumps...not good. But if it has a high organic matter content with a "fluff to it", it will still be able to be worked with a little bit higher moisture content then clayey soil. I brought out the tiller yesterday and tried a small area to see if I could work it with out getting the clumps. To my surprise, it was workable and I got the whole patch done before todays rains came. If you can test a small spot, try it and see. If its not dry enough a week before plantng time, I would turn over the soil by hand and loosen it up and rake in admendments if needed in a 6' radius at the planting site like Alex suggested.

4/2/2006 2:19:47 PM

Santa Cruz, CA

Thanks everyone for the advise. We had another day of sun today so I tried tilling @3pm. All went pretty well until the tiller died. It's a Small Craftsman and I think the favas were a bit much for it. They kept getting stuck in the blades. Next year we'll weed wack them down to 3" instead of six. We didn't see too much clumping and got about half of the plot tilled. We don't have real heavy clay until 2 1/2 feet down so I hope I did the right thing by tilling. Rain is forecasted for the next five days so it will have to do. Boy, is it hard to be patient. There is so much timing involved. I guess that's where the "luck part" comes in.

4/2/2006 7:33:07 PM

Pocatello ([email protected])

Yes, it depends on the soil type. If I tried to use the tractor on my clay soil right now, I'd have made bricks. After years of drought here in Idaho.... well, the drought is over!

4/3/2006 12:58:14 PM

Eugene,OR

Creekside: As a fellow Northern California grower who is seeing the same day-after-day rain that you are I feel I can answer you question. Yes, it is too wet. But we'd better be able to do something soon (especially those of us with cover crops) or we are going to be behind the eight ball!

4/3/2006 1:55:10 PM

San Luis Obispo, Ca.

SLO County has had 31/2" of rain since yesterday at 6:00pm. Weather officials claim another 4-6" tonight through Wed am. Oh will it ever stop!?

4/3/2006 3:49:32 PM

Sloughhouse, CA

Had another 7 tenths overnight. The pond just keeps growing. 1:20 and raining hard again. Flood warning issued on the Sac. River at the Tehema Bridge noth of Chico. Land slides all over. You can't get to Lake Tahoe on 50. Lots of rain on the snow in the mountains. What a mess.

4/3/2006 4:20:08 PM

No Place Special

Roll out a tarp when its raining and pull it back when its not. You could just tarp your planting area and worry about the rest later.

4/3/2006 4:29:21 PM

Ca

I thought I would have a chance to till a little Thrs. But It is looking just like a one day window on thrs. It will be just to wet. It has been a total downpour today. I think Frantz is right on with tarping growing areas at this point. Only problem is I'm using a lot of my tarps to keep fire wood etc dry. I might have get out my Pumpkin shade tarps out a little early. As far as the rain goes it's almost starting to put 1983, 1986 or 1998 to shame. These were all record rain/flood years. But they were all El Nino years. This La nina is just to much to handle. To top if off I threw my rubber boots away a couple of weeks ago thinking the rain was over for the year. Doh!

4/4/2006 4:04:42 PM

Sloughhouse, CA

It rained another 1-2 ins. today more just up the raod in the foothills. The Consumnes River (wild) no dams on it hit flood stage at 12ft. this afternoon up the road about 10 miles from us. The levee broke just west of Highway 99 not far from the Elk Gove Regional Park.(weigh off site) Good thing it was a flood plain and ag.land. If you want to follow what's happening go to www. sacflood.org

4/5/2006 1:33:05 AM