Not enough water (mystery solved)

Although I may have waxed philosophic about the failure of my seeds to germinate on my Monday-June 4th-post, a wiser neighboring gardener told me that I just didn't water my garden enough in May. He encouraged me to water last night even though DC was soaked on Sunday because the ground was still so dry. He dug into my garden, and sure enough, the ground, and thus roots systems, were dry after about 4 inches. In addition to the derth of rain in May, the topography of my garden leaves me particularly vulnerable to dry soil. My garden gently slopes downward, and thus the rain waters drain into other gardens down the hill. My garden is near the crest of the hill.

My neighbor offered some parsley cuttings along with his evalution of my garden's health, and I think he is going to add a sunflower to my plot as well. That is how we offer up bad news in our community garden association.

NOAA provides some very useful climate reports on the obeserved temperature, wind, and precipitation for different time periods. I checked the monthly climate report at the National Weather Service, and DC only received 1.76 inches last month. The average is 3.81 in for May in our region. While I did water my garden on the weekends, it is hard to germinate plants when little moisture and high temperatures dry out the soil.

More stats from NOAA to come.