Don’t you love it when it rains?
… and hate it when it rains TOO MUCH!
All gardens need adequate moisture but periods of heavy rainfall, storms and runoff can bring you a truckload of challenges. These include:
- waterlogged plants;
- leaching of soil nutrients;
- erosion; and
- pest and disease problems.
11 Wet Weather Gardening Tips
Want to minimise these common issues? Dig into these wet weather gardening tips to learn how.
I’m into ‘designing out’ problems whenever I can – both in my own garden and for my clients.
Good observation, a bit of thought and planning can help reduce the impact of water-based problems. These are some of the strategies I use to help avoid these issues.
Garden Design and Water Management
1. Good Drainage
- Elevate your garden by planting in raised beds or mounds. This can help prevent waterlogged plant roots and anaerobic soil.
- Grow in containers and use vertical systems. Examples include: window boxes, wall mounted or railing planters, pots on ladders and plant stands which all drain well.
- Another alternative is to use pots on wheels or castors so you can move them around to a more sheltered position.

Hanging baskets also provide good drainage.
2. Dig a Trench or Swale
It’s unsustainable to waste valuable rainwater in heavy downpours and pay for water when it’s dry. Instead, passively harvest it by redirecting water to where you need it most. Swales are a useful Permaculture design feature and are especially useful if your garden is on a slope.
You build a swale (raised mound) on contour to passively soak up water as it flows down the slope. A swale slows rainwater down and allows it to sit in a shallow trench to soak into the soil.
Swales are also useful for harvesting water for thirsty food plants like bananas and fruit trees which can be planted on top of the mounds.
3. Add Organic Matter to your Soil
Adequate soil humus holds moisture like a sponge, where your plants need it most. Humus is the completely decomposed rich black soil and provides a buffer to plants under stress.
A good soil structure helps the excess moisture drain away. If you have a sandy soil, it will drain well but not hold moisture or nutrients. Whereas a clay soil holds moisture but has poor drainage so roots can rot if it becomes waterlogged. In dry weather, it can crack!
If you have soil with poor structure, it’s even more important to add organic matter. For example, manures, leaf mould, grass clippings, compost, lucerne and other mulches.

4. All Tied Up
To reduce the risk of common diseases during wet weather, support plants with stakes and ties or other vertical structures so the foliage is not lying on wet soil. Growing vertically increases airflow around the plant and avoids overcrowding.
5. Give Pests a Hard Time
- Slugs and snails thrive in wet weather and I’m not going to make it easy for them to feast on my plants! So using tepees and growing vertically makes it an uphill climb deterrent!
- If slugs and snails have to climb a high rise stake or ladder for breakfast, they’re exposed. So it’s much easier for birds to see their next meal!
- I also sprinkle crushed eggshells around the base of delicate seedlings. Why? The sharp edges are like a ‘bed of nails’ for their soft slimy tummies and extremely effective at keeping them away until young plants are established. Baked on a tray in a slow oven for 10 minutes, the eggshells become very hard and crunch perfectly into large shards in your hand. I keep a container of these handy for all new seedlings – wet weather or not! I know there are beer traps you can make but heck – why waste a good ale when you can use eggshells instead?!

6. The Magic of Mulch
A layer of mulch helps you take advantage of free rainwater as it helps retain vital moisture in the soil. Other benefits are that it also reduces splashing which encourages plant diseases and prevents soil erosion by providing a buffer.

7. Slow Release Fertiliser
Feeding your soil with trace rock minerals and slow-release granules, pellets or powdered organic fertilisers can help retain nutrients in your soil. Remember to replenish nutrients lost to leaching during heavy rain.
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The more humus you have in your soil, the less leaching will occur as it helps bind minerals.

8. Apply a foliar spray
A quick spray of liquid kelp/seaweed or fish emulsion to plant leaves is a good standby tonic to help plants bounce back fast.

9. Harvest Your Food Crops Regularly
Pick edible plants promptly in humid wet weather. Why? Because the longer produce stays on the vine or stalk, the higher the likelihood of spoilage, pest attack or disease.
10. Water Management Practices
As a general rule particularly in humid weather, avoid watering plant leaves. Splashing creates a breeding ground for fungal spores (which cause mildews and mould diseases) and can transfer them from one plant to another.
11. Design IN a water feature
If you have a natural low-lying area in your garden, collect the run-off and harvest water rather than letting it escape! Add a simple pond and plant or move water-loving plants into that zone so their roots soak up the moisture and leave plants that like dry feet alone!

What sort of water issues do you have in your garden? How have you resolved your problems?
Related Articles:
- Learn how to restore a waterlogged garden
- Helpful garden maintenance tips
- Check out some clever design ideas
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[…] Prevent waterlogging with these wet weather gardening tips. […]
Who wrote this?
Hi Brandon
I’m the author of this blog and wrote this post.
Cheers Anne, The Micro Gardener
Talk about wet weather gardening, up here 220 South of Darwin we are in THE WET, all my plants are in containers, and have to be fed regularly, because the nutrients leach out at a great rate, I am trialling 40 different plants/herbs etc, there isnt much info on tropical gardening, but I have a Thai Pink tomato that seems to give results all year, its great to have fresh tomatoes, the nearest supermarket is Katherine, 90 ks down the track, their “fresh food” is a bit sad.
I am concentrating on salad vegies, but at the moment the grasshoppers are getting far more than I am.
Ken
Living in the sub-tropics, I’m used to dealing with a lot of wet weather also, so I’ve had to learn how to counter this in my soil and especially in pots and containers to avoid wasting money with all the minerals leaching out. Here are a few strategies I use that may help:
1. Build humus in your soil (if you don’t have a worm farm already, this is essential as the castings are pure humus and you can add to your potting mix). The higher the humus content of your soil, the greater its capacity to hold nutrients and supply them to your plants. It actually PREVENTS leaching during heavy rainfall.
2. Add rock minerals – these are a slow release fertiliser that don’t leach as quickly.
3. Add zeolite – also a mineral but lasts forever in your soil and also helps prevent leaching.
4. Effective design – stack pots one on top of the other if you can so nutrients flow from one pot down to the next or position hanging baskets over the top of other plants on your deck or patio so nutrients dripping out are not wasted but taken up by the plants below. Read more about vertical gardening which provides lots of ideas on how to use your space wisely.
As for the grasshoppers … exclusion netting is the only effective organic way I’ve found to keep these little party crashers out of your edible garden!
Don’t give up! You’ll find foods that love your climate … just go with the flow and experiment.
Cheers for now, Anne
Hi Anne,
I just subscribed to your amazing blog. I love hunting out new blogs to check out and yours is now a firm favourite. Its cram packed full of useful and interesting information for we newcomers to the world of small holding and organic gardening. Steve and I are both studying horticulture at our local Polytechnic and intend on heading off to University in a few years to become landscape designers. We went from being urbanites with 900 potted plants to owning 4 acres of land out in the country in Tasmania. Suddenly our lives turned upside down! We need all the good advice that we can get to fast track us from our previously cossetted lives to where we are now…thrown head first into poultry breeding, food forest gardening, permaculture novices and all things sustainable and organic. We are not into pretend gardening, we want real, dirty, hard facts and as such your site is amazing for us. Thankyou so very much for allowing me to share your fantastic site with my small but most loyal group of family and friend readers. I am sure that my mum and my horticultural friends will subscribe to your blog and will get as much joy, fun and invaluable information out of reading it and implementing what they read as we do :o)
Thanks so much for your generous feedback! A lot of what I share here on my blog has been the result of learning that working against nature is an uphill battle but the failures and mistakes have been opportunities in disguise so hopefully I can save you some heartache and money!! I’ve also learned much from an amazingly knowledgeable circle of friends and organic gardening/horticulture teachers plus my study into biological farming methods. I am a veritable sponge for information and love researching and trying things out before I recommend stuff to others. I don’t know it all … I am always learning but that is the amazing thing about gardening – I love being a student in Nature’s Classroom!
I am lucky enough to live in a community of like-minded people who are also interested in living more self-sufficiently and sustainably and not relying on the supermarkets, the powers that be and governments for all our daily needs. If you can locate your local permaculture, seed saving or transition town group in Tassie I’m sure you’d find some wonderful people to connect with in your community – but feel free to hang around here for the ride. Whilst our climates may differ, our journeys and goals are very similar. I just wish I had more time to dedicate to writing about what I love and live. I’m up early every morning walking about in my garden observing, nurturing, watching the overnight changes and new life that emerged, digging in my living soil, harvesting nutrient dense produce that’s been grown with love, being thankful for the dew and earthworms and tiny critters that save me time, smiling in my little patch of creation that I can share with my family and friends.
Your friends and family are welcome to stop by and share their journeys here too.
May you have many hours of dirty fingernails and baskets filled with homegrown goodness!!
Happy gardening, Anne