I remember the summer of '76 ... @WonkyWomble was born that year ... a summer of cracked parched fields and gardens, walks in the cool around 5am after early morning feeds, and the best crop of mushrooms ever seen on the meadows, hedgebanks and the village playingfield as soon as the first rain came
I'd planted a crab apple and a wildlife hedge that spring and watered them with our bathwater and washing water etc ... they all survived
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
hi iv'e recently sown a large bed (turnips,beet,radish, salad leaves, ) it seems to dry out as soon as I water it ! could I cover it with polythene or even that cheap weed surppressent to try and keep some of the moisture in the soil anyone got any thoughts pease ? I carn't get to water late at night so any ideas on this will be apreciated ! DD.
Plastic will just concentrate the heat and make matters worse. Here, clear plastic is used to fry the soil and ‘clean’ it of weeds. Black plastic pipes are used for solar water heating. If I forget to empty the hose or leave it lying around the water that comes out is hotter than my taps!
Your best bet is to improve the moisture retention of the beds by mulching with organic matter, anything you can get your hands on and as thick as you can afford. If you can set up a drip or soaker hose system that would help too - you can time it to come on in the evening to reduce evaporation (does that count as using a hosepipe, ban-wise?)
A quick and cheap fix is to push some hoops or canes in and drape in shade netting, again, anything you have to hand - old white net curtains are good.
Salad leaves will struggle to germinate now, it’s too hot. When the plants are a bit bigger they will self- shade with their leaves to a certain extent.
Mountainous Northern Catalunya, Spain. Hot summers, cold winters.
That was the first year for us in our new house with a proper garden. I spent the first part of the year double digging and plastering bare earth with any soil improver I could lay my hands on.
Planted up the veg, so happy! Then the drought. We did what we could, siphoning bath water the length of the garden, yuk. Came down one morning to find one row of carrots gone completely, disappeared. When I looked they had fallen down the crack in the very dry clay soil.
So in 1977 I planted sweetcorn, tomatoes, squash anything I could deal with in hot weather. We had floods, what can I say? That's gardening
"The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it." Sir Terry Pratchett
@Hostafan1 , from the data that I can see, it was a dry winter in England. This is the info for the winter 2017/18 from the Environment Agency (which only hold data for England, not the other parts of the UK). It gives a lot of data on river flow, ground moisture levels and the like. We do get a great deal of regional variation.
I accept that many parts were not as wet as here , but have a look at Devon, "over 125%" or normal rainfall for several months and "above normal" for the last 12 months as a whole. ( remember "normal" for Devon is WET )
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I'd planted a crab apple and a wildlife hedge that spring and watered them with our bathwater and washing water etc ... they all survived
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Your best bet is to improve the moisture retention of the beds by mulching with organic matter, anything you can get your hands on and as thick as you can afford. If you can set up a drip or soaker hose system that would help too - you can time it to come on in the evening to reduce evaporation (does that count as using a hosepipe, ban-wise?)
A quick and cheap fix is to push some hoops or canes in and drape in shade netting, again, anything you have to hand - old white net curtains are good.
Salad leaves will struggle to germinate now, it’s too hot. When the plants are a bit bigger they will self- shade with their leaves to a certain extent.
Planted up the veg, so happy! Then the drought. We did what we could, siphoning bath water the length of the garden, yuk. Came down one morning to find one row of carrots gone completely, disappeared. When I looked they had fallen down the crack in the very dry clay soil.
So in 1977 I planted sweetcorn, tomatoes, squash anything I could deal with in hot weather. We had floods, what can I say? That's gardening
( remember "normal" for Devon is WET )