We’ve already received one inch and three-quarters of rain this month in Lubbock. This is the highest rain amount during the month of August in the last four years. With the rain and cooler temperatures, it’s helping out some of our local farmers.
“This is a little unusual, but overall it’s a good thing. We never complain about rain” says Russ Wallace, with the Texas A&M Agrilife Extension.
In past years, conditions have been hot and dry during this time of the year, which is technically still the summer season.
“When we’re getting rain now when it’s still warm on some days and everything is still actively growing as opposed to mid to late September when things are kind of wrapping up, I think this gives us a good boost for a lot of our crops. They tend to do better with extra water. We can reduce the amount of irrigation we’re putting down and the quality of water you get with rainwater tends to be a lot better than any kind of irrigation we can put out,” says Vikram Baliga, who is also with Texas A&M Agrilife Extension.
With the cooler weather, it also makes it more bearable for farmers when working outside. Baliga and Wallace say rain overall is a good thing, but it does have some downfalls, like helping to produce more weed growth.
“If we get a heavy rain, for vegetables sometimes that can be damaging. It can cause the crop to start to rot and of course with vegetables, the quality and appearance is very important as well,” Wallace says. “This high humidity that we’re having can potentially cause an increase in diseases, so that is one thing that growers and gardeners need to be watching out for.”
Wallace says that depending on temperatures, crops like black eyed peas and tomatoes usually do well in the heat.
“You can then go back to cool season vegetables again in the fall. This is a good time, right now, to plant more cool season vegetables,” he says.
Cool season veggies are crops like like lettuce, spinach, cilantro, cabbage, and cauliflower. Wallace is also experimenting with more specialty crops like pomegranates and strawberries.
“We’re trying to grow more specialty crops, because a lot of our small acreage growers have small acres of land. They don’t have 1-thousand to 2-thousand acres like you may with cotton, so they’ve got to put high value crops on their,” Wallace says.
“The pomegranates are just a trial that I threw in to see if I could get them to grow. I planted seven varieties about three years ago and the last two winters they froze to the ground. I thought they weren’t going to make it again, but this year they’re up and growing. They made it through the winter and I’ve got some pomegranates that are about the size of a softball. They should be ready to harvest in a couple of weeks,” Wallace adds.
Baliga and Wallace say that if you’ve had crops that haven’t done well this summer, don’t give up on them.
“Even if they’ve looked rough through the summer, I think that with the cooler temperatures, they’ll start growing and producing again. It’s also not too late to plant a fall crop. If you can get some ‘started’ plants that are maybe four to six weeks old and put them in the ground, there’s no reason you couldn’t have tomatoes or peppers or anything else by the end of the growing season,” Baliga says.
