Summer heat, and hopefully some harvests
Good morning! I hope you enjoyed the good weather this week. It was so hot! I have managed to leave my laptop at home while we go away (I had to go and see Everclear for the second time this week, it was urgent!). I’m trying to tap this out on mobile. As a result, this week will be a single post which is a combination of “what to do this week” and a deeper dive, as it is taking me three times as long to do. Apologies for the difference! It also turns out that I can’t schedule this using the app, only on laptop, so here is your Friday Night Gardening Blog.
Wilt and watering
I would have expected to see some more wilt this week from my plants- a few just went crispy and died, because I left out my smaller pots in direct sun- but everything else seems to be coping well enough. The pumpkin leaves started a little bit of wilt so I put the hose on drip beside them for about an hour- slowly getting all of the soil wet is much better than blasting it with the hose.
This is what a wilting pumpkin plant looks like. The leaves look a bit like soft fabric- race to save it.
Soil can become hydrophobic (repels water) when it gets too dry. You might have noticed if you watered a dry plant pot from above and then tipped the whole thing out- often the water has bypassed most of the soil and come out the bottom. Slow drips will help, or in the case of pots, putting the pot in a big tub of water for about 20minutes. (Watering pots from the bottom is affectionately called Butt Chugging, by houseplant guru Jane Perrone. Vivid!) This gives the water longer to disperse in the soil around the roots where it’s needed.
When I water a garden bed I do two things- I hold a hose on each plant around the roots for 30 seconds. Every time water starts to pool at the top of the soil, or is just running off, I move the hose to water another part of the soil around the plant. It slowly seeps in. The second thing I do, if I have time, is put the hose on shower and hit the rest of the top of the soil- unless it is deeply mulched with bark- in which case that water will probably evaporate off before it reaches the ground.
When to water
In my head this is hotly debated. Firstly, watering in full sun on a hot day can shock the plant, and secondly, many plants won’t recover from wilting- their immune systems and general health are never quite the same.
Then there are issues with water on leaves- water droplets on a leaf will magnify the sun and burn the leaves- this should always be avoided by making sure that, however you water your plants (irrigation or hand watering), you aren’t getting the leaves wet when the sun is belting down! Watering first thing in the morning (pre 7am) is by far best as the water gets the chance to get deeper into the soil before the heat arrives, and any water on the leaves will gently evaporate before damaging the leaves. What’s more, watering in the morning generally leads to a lot of evaporation instead of water seeping deeper into (rendering your watering session completely ineffective)
Wet leaves at night encourages fungal issues- as a rule I don’t get any curcubits or tomatoes leaves wet, ever- so while watering at night is a good idea, be careful and keep the water off the leaves!
Paralysis
You can argue that there is a best way to water your plants. You will be unsurprised to hear that in my view, watering is the best thing to do, however imperfectly. You can get pretty paralysed by indecision and not wanting to do the wrong thing. Doing nothing is the wrong thing.
To my mind, if you see a plant wilting in the heat of day it should be watered. I personally don’t get the choice when I water plants- if I turn up at someone’s house at 10am, I am probably leaving by 1pm, so my choices are limited! I move pots into the shade and wait 10 minutes before watering them, and instead of watering beside plants in the ground I water a big circle around them and leave the hose on drip for half an hour or so. A dripping hose is often the best option as it reduces shock.
My hose on drip in my garden, which I mulched with dried out lawn clippings (from your lawn? Maybe!)
How I do it
I looove just leaving a hose on drip. It works best with clay or healthy, loamy soil- a vege garden loves it- and you don’t spend literally 30 minutes watering the garden- I fuss around for 30 minutes while it waters itself.
This year has been rough for that! As I keep saying- I moved in October, and the soil at my new place is literally old potting mix- metres deep! So when I try to water, the water just goes straight down, missing my plants completely (and I imagine pooling under my neighbours house or somewhere else horrific).
When your soil is awful (sandy)
Sand based gardens, and my weird old-potting-mix garden, have the same issue- water is not held well between the particles, and it just flows downwards instead of sitting by the roots and getting absorbed.
The best solution, short term, is to use a sprinkler, because it’s really all you can do! Small tiny bursts that don’t weigh down in the soil.
Long term, the soil desperately needs amending with compost. My soil is bursting over the edges of the beds, so I have had to rake and scoop huge amounts out while adding very nutrient dense amendments (chicken poo, coffee grind and worm castings, because they are free for me!). Now the water somewhat sits in around these amendments and I am waiting until the worms move all of the stuff around. The other thing which helps greatly is dense planting, as roots will hold water as well as helping to improve the diversity and soil health (just not the nutrient quality).
Say what you will about coffee grinds but two bucketfuls from the local cafe got me beautiful sunflowers this year.
When the soil is awful (clay)
Because clay is a big thick hard thing, it doesn’t have a lot of air pockets. Some plants really love this- their roots are hard up against this dense surface. Some hate it!
When you water clay soil, you fill all of the air pockets with water very quickly. Then the roots have no access to air. This puts plants in a stress state and is the primary cause of Phytophthora (root rot).
Short term- water your plants a little bit, when you water. The above instructions are still fine but don’t stand on the soil when you water (you’ll squeeze out all of the air/water pockets).
Long term- choose plants which thrive in clay. There are a lot of them! Basically, you want something with a massive taproot or very shallow surface roots. Shallow roots have more air access, taproots are used to a lack of air and the long root helps to drain the water.
How often do I water?
Now you’ve thought a bit about your soil, take that into consideration when reading this part.
Potted plants need watering when they are too dry. This depends entirely on the weather, the plant, the pot type, where the pot is, &c &c. I can’t give you a rule here. Observation is your friend.
Your planted plants need long, deep watering less often, because you need to encourage the roots to really deepen and broaden in the soil. If you water frequently, the roots don’t have any real reason to develop, and the plants will become far more dependent on you.
As an example
Property A is to be kept immaculate at all times. It was on a nightly watering system- 3-6 minutes on sprinklers every night. The plants all had aphids and were stressed. We dragged out the system to 3-6 minutes twice a week in winter, then in Spring only when it was obviously dry, then in Summer when the rain stopped we had them on every 3 days, for 6-9 minutes.
The next Winter we turned off the systems entirely and only put them on when it was obviously getting dry. In Summer when the Spring rains stopped, we changed the system to 7-9 minutes once a week.
And the plants have never been healthier. They just needed a bit of encouragement to develop stronger roots. We have the odd aphid on aphid prone plants. Weirdly, our thrip issues reduced substantially as well (although thrips famously attack too-dry plants in too-dry soil).
What I suggest for your garden is that you take mental notes about what is wilting, what is thriving, what is struggling- and you check out if it is a soil issue, a plant issue- or a watering issue. If your plant needs way more water than it gets naturally (a water loving plant in dry soil?) then you need to consider how vital it is that that particular plant lives in that particular spot!
Let me know how you get on everyone! You’ll be pleased to know that I can hear Everclears soundcheck from my motel room as I finish this up- so I get to hear them three times in a week!