Despite a local gardener's effort to conserve water and keep
her garden healthy, the crops were unable to thrive in the 2012 drought.
“My crops are not as plentiful as they’ve been in the
past. My peppers aren’t growing very
tall at all, and those that have been producing peppers are small and wrinkled,”
Susan Davis, a local gardener from Chelsea, MI, said.
“Now that we’re getting some rain, I’ll probably remove the
dead plants to see if I can get a second crop to come up,” Davis said.
To lessen the impact of the drought on her wallet and on her
backyard garden, Davis implemented a few conservation techniques, including the use of a makeshift rain barrel.
“In the beginning, I did some watering with the rainwater I
collected in buckets earlier this year when we actually got a little bit of
rain,” Davis said.
“I also put some mulch around the plants to prevent some
water from evaporating throughout the high temperatures and drought we saw
throughout the summer,” Davis said.
“This has been the worst drought in the
Midwest since 1988,” Jeffrey Andresen, associate professor of geology and
expert on weather and its impact on agriculture production said.
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