Gardening in a Heatwave – Too much Watering!

Gardening in a heatwave means gardening early and lots of watering.

Watering is not my favourite job in the garden at the best of time, but especially not the amount I had to do at the beginning of last week! 

As we saw temperatures reach over 40C, the highest this country has ever experienced, it was a particularly big job.

At it’s peak I was watering twice a day, and despite this some of the plants were still wilting in the mid-day heat.

The beetroot leaves were looking like we were all feeling, wilted!

I really thought the poor old Ligularia ‘Desdemona’ was done for, but amazingly she perked up again with a good soaking.

Plug It! – Don’t waste water

I’m sure the main reason for my dislike of watering goes back to my primary school. They made a really big thing about not wasting water, every basin had a notice above it saying ‘Plug it’!

As a result I always feel guilty as I stand there with the hosepipe, thinking this is perfectly good drinking water.

We do have two large water butts, that keep us ticking over nicely whilst we are having regular rain, but its not enough in these conditions. 

We are currently having a few alterations and intend to get two or even three more water butts, so that should last us a bit longer next year.

Wrestling with the hosepipe 

There is another reason for not enjoying the watering experience and that’s having to wrestle with the very long hosepipe – well actually three joined together! 

This is one of the down sides of having a hundred and sixty foot long garden.

As I drag it around, the water suddenly stops and I have to go wandering around to find where it has kinked again! This happens all of the time and is very frustrating!

It also drags across my flower border, sometimes breaking flowers off. This makes for a very grumpy gardener!

Then comes the mammoth job of winding it back in. I think it goes without saying that it was not getting wound back in and could be found snaking all around the garden.

It can become a bit of a trip hazard, especially when the weather dictates flip flops!

Watering the greenhouse

The greenhouse obviously needs regular watering whatever the weather, but much more often in this heat.

Luckily we left an area to plant directly into the ground, so the Tomatoes and Gherkins are planted in there. This saves greatly on the amount of water they need. 

When we pull them up at the end of the season, it’s incredible how far their roots go down. I often wonder how the poor things cope in a shallow grow-bag.

The chillies are of course right at home with this weather and as a result are changing colour fast. Chilli sauce here we come!

I grow a lot of salad in the greenhouse as it doesn’t get as much wildlife eating it. Its safe to say that it is not enjoying these conditions and keeps bolting.

All those pots

I am gradually whittling down the amount of pots in the garden (supposedly). We did have a huge amount, as we’d brought plants with us when we moved here. I also potted up anything worth saving from this garden before we started the garden transformation.

Last year we reached the point where the garden was pretty much finished – well as much as any garden is ever finished! As a result I gave quite a number of plants away, knowing that I had nowhere I wanted to put them. However the number of pots doesn’t really seem much lower!

We have the pots that need moving into the greenhouse over winter. The lemons, agapanthus and grapevine.

Also some very large pots, one with a Camelia and one a bay tree.

Quite a few pots have tulips in, so at least these don’t need watering. Then there’s a few pots with herbs, which ‘normally’ don’t need much water.

The nursery, as I call it is behind the greenhouse. These are plants that are self seeded and I can’t resist potting up, perennials that I’m growing from seed that need to bulk up before going into the border, and cyclamen saved for pots in the winter.

I have five pots of Equisetum hymale, a prehistoric plant. I only bought one, but I’ve been splitting them as they wait for a permanent home, once the alterations are finished. Unfortunately they’re a marginal plant so like a lot of water!

And finally the walnuts! As the squirrels kindly plant them for me all over the garden (including in my pots), I can’t resist potting them up when I find them. I have no idea what I’m going to do with them, I have given some to our local woodland walk.

As a native tree it seems a shame to throw them away. Let’s face it, us gardeners love a free plant!

So it finally cooled down to a more normal temperature mid-week and we got some extremely welcome rain all day Friday. I can tell you that when I opened the blind on Friday morning and saw it wet everywhere, I nearly did a jig!

I hope it knows when to stop raining now, or we’ll all be moaning about that. Our British weather!

Stay safe, cool, and dry & happy gardening.