Our clay soil bakes up hard as concrete when a heavy rain is followed by lots of sunshine and wind.  That’s what is happening in the first direct-seeded beds of beets, carrots, chard, and spinach.  The carrot beds are the most worrisome, because the weak little carrot seedlings can’t punch through the crust.

We’ll attempt to minimize their struggles by laying drip tape directly over the rows and letting the water soften things up a bit.  It seems counter-intuitive to be irrigating after 2″ inches of rain, but this was the only solution we could think of.  Good luck little carrots!