drought Archives

Climate Change, Warming Temperatures and Your Garden

In the last “Just Veggies” I discussed one way in which climate change is impacting your garden—and that is by extending the growing season with earlier spring emergence and later dieback in fall. In this edition, I want to talk about how warmer temperatures throughout the growing season can impact your vegetable gardens. What Warming ...

How to Properly Water Fruit Trees During Hot, Dry Weather

Extreme heat is the prominent headline for the summer, and it can take its toll on even established fruit trees. It’s important to know how to properly water fruit trees when summer heat and little rain are the norm. Bare Root Trees: An Economical Way to Enhance a Lot Should Have Watered Earlier We were ...

Addressing Problems and Making Plans for the New Year

Winter finally arrived this week. Today we woke up to a brisk five degrees, a stark difference to last Monday’s record high of 67 degrees with high winds. Grassland fires burned structures and acreage throughout Northcentral Montana, which is unheard of in December. I’m so over it. After a year of drought and fire, this ...

Drip Tape for Vegetable Garden Watering

It was a dry summer of drought conditions, and drip tape saved my eggplant, tomato and pepper crop. Let me rephrase that. It saved my colleague’s crops, which he planted in 30-yd. long rows. And while COVID made working together a bit tough, the tape made watering the crop easy and accessible to anyone. As ...

Which Ornamentals will Survive Severe Drought?

Which ornamentals will survive severe drought? It’s something I’ve asked myself often recently, because my yard has not received measurable rain in a month. With the heat and drought, most of my plants are under extreme stress. I strive for relatively xeric gardens, but I’ve had to start watering because most of my plants have ...

The mystery of the curling pear leaves

I’ve been chasing pears since we moved to Central Montana over a decade ago, and it’s been a pear rollercoaster. After planting a bare root tree, along with another potted variety, it looked like there was hope for a harvest... that is until the potted tree succumbed to fire blight at the end of last ...