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Garden Diary – Too hot, to be gardening!
Well, that was certainly a hot week! Far too hot to be gardening, unless you count constant watering, which I don’t as I find it quite boring! To me it’s frustrating seeing all the jobs I’d like to be getting on with instead of standing there sweltering. A number of the crops have been loving the heat, one being the tomatoes. We got our first ripe beefsteak tomato ‘Brandywine’ last week, which I know I go on about a lot, but you would if you’d tasted it, it’s delicious. It’s not at all like those big tasteless varieties, it’s soft, creamy and full of flavour. We made it into our…
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Garden Diary – A week of two halves!
I have a smile on my face using the title ‘a week of two halves’ as every time I hear that expression, it makes laugh. What else would it be? Three halves! Anyway, back to the weather… last weeks weather reminded me of a blog I wrote in May, ‘Golidilocks weather didn’t last’ as it was exactly the same pattern. The first half of the week was perfect, warm enough to be out and about with an odd small shower to help the garden, but then… oh it got hot! Too hot for most of us. Of course everything in the greenhouse was loving it, especially the chillies which I…
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Heatwave – Monsoon. How the Flowers coped
It’s been a strange year for flowers, some came and went so quickly as a result of the heatwaves and generally hot summer. Quite disappointing when you’re looking forward to seeing them. Others like Ligularia ‘Desdemonas’ huge leaves kept wilting, but then revived with a small amount of water and went on to flower. The Walnut’s drunk all the Water Lots of the mid-summer perennials just didn’t reach their usual size. The thalictrum being the most obvious down in the white garden. It only reached about half the normal height, with very few flowers. I suppose it’s not that surprising that quite a few plants in the white garden have…
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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…
