A concerning text I received from my gardener friend.

[mopinko]

3. i believe we are already tipping hard, and i had shocking evidence on my farm this year

of something that came out of left field for me.
i live about 6 blocks from lake michigan. i am in the historical bowl of the lake, about 20k years ago, iirc.
my biggest challenge has always been keeping things watered w this kind of drainage. always.
when things get deep roots, they are fine, because the ground water is not that deep.

this year we had such a cold, rainy spring, and wet summer, i basically had a slow motion flood on my hands.
i have never, ever had standing water in my yard, but i had a standing puddle all summer this year.
i lost a 30 yo grapevine, and my 25 yo magnolia tree is hanging on, but took so much damage it will take a couple of years to restore it's shape.
i had several other grapevines and fruit trees that were outright chlorotic, tho they perked up once it got warm.
this soggy soil clearly had it's biome disrupted. the mud stunk. badly.
lake michigan is at a historic high level. our beaches are being beaten to death here.
so, the water table is right there.

i do not recall anything like this being talked about, but then the soil biome is not a big topic of discussion in most places.
another week of cold and rain this spring would have been catastrophic.
and this has been the pattern over the 7 years i have been doing this- colder, wetter, longer spring weather. it has hurt me badly right there, but souring my soil? jebus i'm in trouble.