When it rains, it pours!

1550 gallons + 2 35-gallon barrels of rainwater; more falling in the yard

So, suddenly the thing we need the most, rain, has now become the problem. Flooding monsoon thunderstorms swept into Gallup this week. Torrents of rain and scary lightning left substantial amounts of soil and rock in Gallup's streets, the Puerco River flowing, waterlogged gardens, and at least 8" of mud in my peach tree filled gabion dam in my hillside arroyo.

Popcorn flattened by the storm

The downpours also turned my canyon's paved road on the city's north side virtually into a floatable southwest waterway as cascading water lapped over the tops of the curbs and high against the sides of houses in the turn at the canyon's mouth. The soaking rains and strong winds also knocked down most of my popcorn crop as the ponding water turned my clay filled soil, which lacks the structure of adequate organic content, to mud soup.

My hand-dug flood control canal, sweet corn, and 3 rows of potatoes

I'll turn off the automated drip-irrigation off for the next week or more, and wait for the saturated soil to dry enough before tilling the seed bed for fall crops of broccoli, radishes, lettuce, carrots, and spinach. I'll also keep the potato drip lines turned off even longer, as they're prone to developing potato blight when too wet (eg. cause of Irish potato famine).

Gallup's Rio Puerco flowing

However frustrating, the damage to the garden and around Gallup was minimal and definitely insignificant when compared to the devastating effect of storms spawned by the same tropical moisture system that brought deadly raging ash filled floods to Flagstaff's communities below the burned slopes of the recent Schultz forest fire. God bless that burned mountain.

Hurricane Jimena brings the 'Monsoon'

After the storm

Just as the Albuquerque media began to run stories on the rainfall deficits across the state (-3.66" YTD in Gallup), the remnants of Hurricane Jimena drifted across the western mountains of NM, and a steady rain fell on Saturday afternoon, September 5th.  My rain gauge of sorts is the tank that collects water from the front-half of my roof.  Using the following formula from Brad Lancaster's Rainwater Harvesting, 0.7" fell in Black Diamond Canyon: 300 gal. / (708 sq.ft roof X 7.48 cu.ft/gal) = 0.7 14"  --i've converted the final # into inches from feet, and added 5% lost to collection inefficiencies.