SW Wisconsin is STILL in drought conditions and we had great production this season, too...with NO irrigation.
I asked Beau about it and he said that so many corn and soybean varieties now have great drought tolerance, so that’s why yields are still up even in very dry years.
My own garden benefited from us having a drought season. I will ALWAYS take a dry season over a wet season. :)
Yes, it is the new hybrids. I hesitated to say that here because of many’s affection for heirlooms.
It was all I could do to keep the flowers and trees and new seeding in the lawn alive. I was dumb enough to spray the vigorous oxalis patches in the stressed lawn and now I’ll have new seeding again next year. Lord, I hate maneuvering hoses.
Today, as per TRADITION, I am making two hanging baskets for my kitchen porch filled with various evergreens, red twig dogwood, Viburnum berries, and whatever else I find around The Manse. ;)
Should be easy pickings this season as we’ve had no snow yet. Yay!
I will re-used the decorative metal lined baskets I used for Summer flowers - which have now gone to the compost pile.
Re: Christmas Tree Farming. In 2012 we planted 400 Black Hills Spruce in an area set aside for wildlife on our farm. It was a drought year, but we managed to water and keep 200 of them alive. In another 10 years, we’ll be ready to open, LOL!
(Nah - we’ll leave it for wildlife. Hunting land around here rents for more than we could ever get selling the trees.)