I got my bi-monthly water bill last week. After a bit of mild cardiac arrest, I decided that it was quite the effective underscore on my water use in July and August. Now, there was another rate increase this summer, but that was small compared to the use increase. With both increases combined, I am going to be paying about one third more for water than in May and June of this year and about half again as much as I paid this time last year. I have hauled a lot of buckets of water across the street, trying to make up for the less than 1.5″ of rain in my rain gauge for all of August. For comparison, my town’s August average is 3.5″, and in the last two years my gauge has seen over 9″ — both prior Augusts following on July floods, whereas this year July barely hit average precipitation.

Yes, there was rain in July, but we did not have many long-lasting gentle showers, the kind of rain that soaks into the soil. The rain that has fallen this summer has come in brief downpours that run straight down the hillsides without so much as dampening the soil a half inch or so below the surface. At the beginning of August, the soil was getting a little dry. By the middle of August, we’d hit “abnormally dry” on the drought maps. By the end of August, we were under “moderate drought”. Now, eastern and central Vermont are classified as “severe drought”, and no part of the state is drought-free. By now, soil moisture levels are so low that leaves are scorching or just dropping off, on deciduous and evergreen trees alike. It will likely be a brown autumn. If it’s not actually on fire.

Fire danger levels are very high throughout the state right now, and most communities have “no burn” notices. My town’s permitting office has a sign out front flatly stating that burn permits will not be issued until further notice. Fire danger is exacerbated by high fuel loads after a wet spring prompted thick growth of annual weeds and grasses, all of which are now tinder dry and rattling in the wind. All it would take is one carelessly tossed cigarette or a spark from an autumn barbecue, and central Vermont could go up in flames. And the state’s many rivers are not going to be much of a fire-break.

Flow rates and water levels have been dropping steadily since mid-August. You could walk across the Winooski right now. At the Montpelier monitoring station, the gauge depth is under three feet, with much of the river bed exposed. Quite a change from the last two years when the river stayed at 15-20 feet throughout July and August. The Connecticut River, which forms the border between Vermont and New Hampshire, is never very deep, but it is wide. Normally. This year, in many places, there is a wide expanse of silt and stone with only a thin ribbon of water meandering through the riverbed. Similarly, Lake Champlain, which borders the northwest of Vermont is flirting with record lows. Low water levels coupled with the heat (and farm run-off) have created blue-green algae blooms that have kept beaches closed since the middle of July and transformed fishing and boating into life-threatening hobbies.

Many public water systems in Vermont draw from surface water, so low flow rates in the rivers translate into low water pressure out of the tap. Low water levels also translate into increased contamination, as contaminant sources do not vary much and output is constant year to year. When there is less water, the percentage of contaminant rises. My town has increased its annual flushing of the water system (by opening up fire hydrants) after a slight, but disconcerting “rise” in carcinogenic trihalomethanes, which form when chlorine disinfectants react with organic compounds. This rise is not due to an increase in chlorine, but to a decrease in water combined with a constant level of dissolved organics. Even if the town lowers the chlorine inputs with the reduced water flow — and I hope they are — there is still a relative increase in organic concentrations, making it more likely that the chlorine will run into organics and react to form the trihalomethanes.

However, nearly half of Vermont — including many municipal water systems — gets its water from wells. And wells are hurting perhaps more than surface water. Rivers can be filled with a few good showers. This is not true of groundwater. Low river levels are an indication of a dropping water table, and, indeed, there are reports of dry wells up and down the state to confirm that the table has dropped below drill depth — or just stopped flowing. I’ve been through that horror. First the water starts to taste funny, even with charcoal filtering. Then the water pressure falls off, sometimes quite drastically. Until suddenly, one day there is nothing. After that, you may coax a few blurps out now and again, but you won’t be flushing your toilet or showering. And you’re probably going to be hand-washing your clothes in bottled water. A dry well can theoretically be recharged by rainfall, but it takes many weeks of deep soakings for surface water to flow into groundwater. This is unlikely to happen in the autumn, when Vermont typically sees dry weather; and it’s impossible in the winter, when the ground is frozen solid. A dry well in early September, may remain dry until the spring thaw. That’s a lot of bottled water…

I am on a water system that draws on both the river and groundwater. I suspect we’re relying more on groundwater right now, as the river is more of an arroyo right now. Still, my town has not run dry, nor have we had boil notices. (Yet?…) But water is certainly short. There is no lawn that does not have a large brown area. Ornamental shrubs and flower beds are decidedly wilted. Many native plants are cutting their losses and going dormant or dying well before the first frost. (In fact, it’s still topping 80°F fairly regularly…) And veg gardens… well, let’s say that you can tell who is using the hosepipe with abandon right now.

I am unable to do that. I can’t stand over the veg beds, letting the water flow out of the tap. I have to carry every pint. And I have obviously not been carrying enough, for all that my water bill suggests that I have carried a lot.

My veg garden is planted in raised beds. This is because I don’t trust the soil around my house to be contaminant-free. To the contrary, I know of at least one long-term contaminant on this property. — my neighbor’s VW which leaks enough oil to soak a sheet of cardboard every few months. It lives in my garage, which is adjacent to my veg garden. So, I needed to bring in clean soil. But raising the bed above the ground’s surface leads to increased evaporation, even with soils rich in compost. Right now, these raised beds are desiccated! I could probably haul twice the water and it still wouldn’t be enough — because as soon as I dump it, the water is being wicked up into the hot, dry air. It is not unusual to pour water on a bed in the evening and find it dust dry by the next morning.

This all means that I have spent much time and water, and will soon spend quite a lot of money, essentially for nothing. The garden isn’t benefitting, so of course I get no benefit either. Maybe I can count the trips across the street as exercise… but I can think of many less resource-intensive and more enjoyable ways to work my body than carrying water. Point is that there isn’t much of a harvest in this harvest season, but I have a really high water bill regardless… with all the waste that implies…

So… I have declared the gardening season over. I will keep pulling weeds and picking what does manage to mature, but I’m done carrying water and I don’t think there will be an autumn planting. Except maybe in the cold frame near the house. This bed is close to the hose and is therefore easier to water, of course, but it’s also a small bed that is not raised much above the soil level and has a cover to keep in moisture — when it’s cool enough to leave it closed… So water actually makes it to the plant roots. I use this bed mostly for greens. It is harvested and reseeded several times a growing season, and then I usually plant a round of the hardiest greens to overwinter. I don’t get to eat out of it after the snows fall because opening it would ventilate the warmth and kill the plants. But it is the first harvest come spring, a much anticipated salad bowl before I’ve even planted anything else — and usually before the co-op has much from local growers.

But that’s it for watering… It’s on nature to supply the water now. And I’m not going to plant anything that requires very moist soil, which is most everything. Nearly all seeds need wet conditions for germination. I’m not sure I can simulate wet conditions even in my three square foot cold frame. Not as long as the heat holds and the wind blows.

However, it did rain a bit over the weekend. Just to test my resolve, you see… Maddeningly, the heavy and most persistent rains stayed west of my town, some showers actually just outside of town in the western hills. (Stupid weather gods…) But the river received that water, and my gauge did get an inch or so — or, to put things in perspective, two thirds of the rain that fell in all of August… Still, there is no more rain in the forecast for the next ten days, not even the hopeful “this is what normally happens” forecasting that never materializes. There aren’t even many clouds in the prognostications; it’s all sun and wind. So, I think I’m forgiven for not believing that nature is going to miraculously pull through and keep the garden happily hydrated.

To be fair, this is what normally happens in autumn. July and August are hot and wet. September and October are cool and relatively dry. There are many foggy mornings, but the fogs lift into clear blue skies for most of the autumn. Wind is also common around the autumn equinox, not as violent as spring, but certainly more persistent. I found this rather reassuring the first few years of living in New England, coming from New Mexico where wind is the ground state all year long. A lack of air flow makes me skittish. But I am getting older and am tired of cleaning up after the unruly wind. There is just so much more stuff to blow around here in Vermont. I haven’t had a thirty-foot garland of evergreens yanked off my house and taken off to places unknown like happened in New Mexico one year (maybe because I don’t do garland much anymore), but I regularly pick up blown trash, downed tree limbs, and random stuff from neighboring yards… I have pulled gloves and face-masks out of the veg beds, beach balls, floating toys and once a pair of bright pink swim goggles out of my very land-locked jungle. (I don’t even know where the nearest backyard swimming pool is…) I think I’d rather have a string of still days than even one more day trying to wrest one more garish piece of plastic out of the Virginia creeper. (Of course, it might not all be the wind… humans do throw quite a lot of bizarre things out their car windows…)

Still… I am more or less done with the garden a bit early this year. So what am I doing with all this expansive time? Well, it’s apple season. Zestars are ripe now; Macs will be by the end of the week. There are still plums here and there. And pears are just coming into maturity. Also, I do have roots to pull in the veg garden. The potatoes are only now starting to yellow. (No, I STILL have not had a potato harvest!!!) I have onions everywhere and the garlic is curing on the front porch. There are also beets and carrots, though these tend to be rather skinny and woody, good for the stew pot and not much of anything else. Miraculously, I also have tomatoes (ok, maybe not that miraculous… tomatoes with their shallow roots are probably the only garden veg that prefers infrequent and not terribly deep watering). And there were some peppers from the plants interbedded with the strawberries — since the strawberries, and their straw mulch, did the best job of conserving what water the bed received. (Next year, I’ll probably put straw everywhere again… didn’t do that this year because Agway inexplicably decided to do a major construction project to expand their greenhouse in late June and didn’t have any bales when my seedlings were big enough for mulching.)

Not hauling water to try and get a bean and squash harvest that doesn’t seem to be forthcoming means I have time to deal with the actual harvest, which is not as bad as it could be, I suppose. I can also ignore the veg garden and head off to the orchard to fill up the bins in my basement and make all manner of fruit butters and preserves. This past weekend, I made a nearly a gallon of plum-apple chutney that is now stored in pint tubs at the bottom of the chest freezer — with one left in the fridge for eating right now. This used up some garlic and onions, a fistful of small red hot peppers of various kinds, the apples that I’ve picked off my trees so far, and two pints of plums from the co-op. I also made hummus and a loaf of sourdough. So I have processed this week’s harvest and have dinner for the rest of the week.

Also, I made the house smell like fall! Chutney is cooked slowly for hours, permeating the house with the scent of onions and garlic, clove and allspice and cinnamon. And fruity sugar. I’ve been making this stuff for so long that the scent of chutney has become synonymous with the autumn equinox. (Like roasting chile is the scent of Lughnasadh…) When there is chutney, it is fall, no matter what the weather might be doing.

Though, in fact, it is cooling off, coming down from highs in the 90s to highs in the lower 80s. We’ve passed the last day with more than 13 hours of sunlight, heading fast toward the twelve-hour day of the true equinox (which falls on the 25th at my latitude). And the leaves are turning. I went down to Brooklyn over Labor Day weekend to join my son in the J’Ouvert celebrations. On the drive down there was brown on the trees from scorching, but not much autumn color. On the drive back north — only three days later — most of the sumacs were red, many of the maples were orange, and the few birches that still had living leaves turned gold. So, it is fall outside my house also.

Yes, it is fall! And I think I can rightfully declare my garden striving to be finished for this year. It was not a good one… but it wasn’t a complete loss either… which is probably as much as can be expected in these times.

Teaser image credit: An old-fashioned water well in the countryside of Utajärvi, Finland. By SeppVei – Own work, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3788881