Crust on the garden can cause problems. With all the rain we have had, this is what is happening.

image from soilhealthnexus.org

        IT WAS HOT out…87 degrees yesterday June 12th.  Now today June 13 the temperature is 78 with a high today of 80 and low tonight of 56.   Wind has picked up out of the N with 16 MPH.  so that makes it feel cooler, I think.  But watering from sprinklers to wagons is interesting.  Maybe doing 2 or 3 at a time.     We work hard to keep the plants looking good.  So far, we have done that.  
I have been hearing that the ground is hard, and that makes the garden vegetable seeds not to come thru.  Have you had that problem?  I have had gardeners in that are replanting so that must be one of the reasons. 
A gardener came today bringing me some of her plants that had died.  She has several of these, and just a few and not all together have died.  They have underground watering, so they were wet enough.  But there was a crust on top of the soil, so made me wonder if that was the reason.  Here is what I found out.
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Written by Steven Edholm,
 One of the first subjects I would try to explain to any beginning gardener is the evils of soil crusting.  Ideal soil for growing most things has a structure or openness to it.  There is space incorporated into the soil which allows the infusion of air.  Since the pore spaces make the soil more friable, roots and organisms can make their way through it more easily.  The structure of soil is created over time as creatures move through it, roots penetrate it and then eventually die, and worms wend their way about leaving their neatly formed earth filled droppings behind.  When disturbed very much by digging and pulverizing (especially if too dry or too wet), and left exposed to the open environment without the covering of living or dead vegetation found in most natural environments, most soils form more or less of a crust.  The crust is made of tightly packed small mineral particles which are no longer formed into the structures that make up good aerated soil.  An extreme example would be to take some soil mix it in a blender with water, and then pour it out and form a sort of slurry that would dry to a packed smooth surface.  That may be extreme, but many of our garden practices, some avoidable and some less so, can do nearly the same thing.
But wait, there’s more bad stuff!  There is often more talk about getting air out of the soil when planting plants than getting air into the soil, but it should probably be the other way around.  Plants may not appreciate large air pockets that their roots encounter, but very few plants are well adapted to survive or thrive in completely air free soil.  In fact, ideal soil for most of the stuff we grow has a good bit of pore space and a ready exchange of air and gasses.  Ever stepped on a garden bed?  Your foot should sink a good divet into the bed as it crushes the soil structure and closes up the air spaces in the soil. Though I have never formally tested the proposition, it seems to me that plants grow much better if the soil surface is kept very open.  Soil “breathes”, or at least it should, in order to keep the gajillions of living things in healthy soil thriving.  Soil should be like a sponge containing a portion of air rather than like a uniform adobe brick.  In fact if we are making adobe bricks or pottery, it is essential to thoroughly destroy any structure forming a homogenous mix where the clay particles are smeared over every grain of sand locking them together like glue.  Digging and cultivation can ruin the structure of soil causing the air spaces to collapse.  Generally the worst times to dig soil are when it is very wet, or very dry and powdery.  One makes mud, the other makes powder that can turn into mud when the soil is eventually watered or rained on.  Either one can lead to soil crusting.  The spectrum in between when the soil is moist, but not too wet or dry is when you should do your digging and cultivating if possible.
Okay, so there it is.  Soil crusting makes it harder to get water into the soil but the water evaporates more readily.  Soil crusting also inhibits penetration of the air essential to keep the life of the soil buzzing along. 
Taken from https://skillcult.com/blog/2016/7/15/the-evils-of-soil-crusting-causes-prevention-and-rectification
Till next time this is Becky Litterer, Becky’s Greenhouse, Dougherty, Iowa [email protected]  641-794-3337  cell 641-903-9365