My parsley has curled up it's toes and become a victim of this heatwave. :( When it cools down I will plant some more.
We've been able to keep the soil wet for most of the garden but the ongoing heat seems to have just sucked the life out of most of the garden.
The pumpkins that held such promise just weeks ago are just slowly dying. I'm not sure if they'll bounce back again. I guess we'll have to wait and see.
We've had something like 10 days straight of over 40C temperatures and it looks like we'll have at least another week of it.
Fortunately the corn was finished and the tomatoes nearing their end anyway. The damage could have been a lot worse had this heatwave hit us a month earlier.
We're going to look at erected some kind of structure to enable us to shade the plants on hot days. It's all a bit "one step at a time" for us right now though.
Anyone else suffering losses from the heatwave or have any pearls of wisdom to share on beating the heat when it comes to plants?
Thursday, March 13, 2008
R.I.P
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6 comments:
Easy and frugal way is to hammer in 4 stakes, in a square, around the plants and an op shop bedsheet draped over, held in place with clothesline pegs will do the trick for extra shade.
Water spikes (the ones you put drink bottles in) work just as well for any plant - a few in a vegie plot will get the water down to the roots more efficiently that conventional watering ;)
I was going to say the same thing as Jayne but she's beaten me to it ;-) If you use light-coloured sheets you can pretty much leave them on all day in this weather. Mulching heavily will also help to keep the water around the roots, especially if you are using the water spikes, so that the water is getting into the ground without evaporating. Good luck!
Shadecloth,shadecloth,shadecloth. Have hubby hammer together a pergola type frame cover it with shadecloth and set it over your plants. Another alternative is next time you're in one of those cheap-as-chips type shops buy a bunch of the $2 men's umbrellas and on unexpected hot days open them and poke the handles into the pots or into the ground. Next to your plants of course..........
Der!! Re-read your post and realised I missed paragraph six entirely..........
Definately something portable sounds to be the way to go for you Lightening.
I agree with Jayne & the stakes. If you use them around the border of your garden you will always have several uses for them.
You can use shadecloth for sheltering AND as a bird net if needed.
The drip spikes are great if you can keep them from clogging. We have strated saving our greywater into buckets then use it over the garden each day. Perhaps you can stretch a sprinkler hose around the border on those before mentioned stakes as an irigation system?? It's all new to us too & practice makes perfect.
Can you bring your parsley or herbs inside? Or at least take cuttings until the heat passes?
Good Luck to you guys in the heat xxxx
I like the water spikes idea - we are lucky here in Paradise that the rain has come and saved my butt (and my self-seeded lovelies) this last year.
And I love the umbrella idea given by someone else - as they tend to lose their handles early anyway, it is just common sense! Of course, here they would blow away but not everyone has gale force winds as standard fare.
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