I'm in the east mids and was doing some digging today (soil is clay) and while the top 8 inches or so is moist, below that it is still dry. Not a good sign for this time of the year.
That really isn’t good I must say that last summer was not kind to my garden. It is very free draining with full sun exposure. Some plants died, some switched to survival mode stopping any growing let alone flowering. Obviously I tried to water as much as K could but it still wasn’t even remotely enough.
Reading about soil still being so dry makes me worried, especially since no rain is forecasted for the next at least ten days again.
I wonder if it would help to use the water in the water butts and continue watering even now to try and get the soil saturated a bit more?
I know it sounds odd to water the garden in February - but what else can be done to prepare the garden for potentially another dry summer?
Frost here as well this morning, so no cutting back for me. one year, being over conscientious, I thought I’d get an early start and pruned all the hydrangeas in March, frost nipped the top buds, I had to do the lot again, so now I start those on the 1st - 2nd week in April.
Gardening on the wild, windy west side of Dartmoor.
Have been looking at the long term forecast ( not that it is very reliable) and here in the east midlands to the end of March it predicts mildish days but frosty nights, so won't be doing much outside yet. Roll on April.🙄
Last years summer dry weather had a bad effect on the veg plot, even with watering there wasn't enough to give a good crop of potatoes, where we usually have potatoes stored until December they ran out in September, then the late wet weather stopped my digging the veg plots over, so its just this last week when I found the ground dry enough to complete the digging, live in South Wales, usually the wettest place, and this is mainly over a railway bed with about two foot of soil on top.
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Reading about soil still being so dry makes me worried, especially since no rain is forecasted for the next at least ten days again.
I wonder if it would help to use the water in the water butts and continue watering even now to try and get the soil saturated a bit more?
I know it sounds odd to water the garden in February - but what else can be done to prepare the garden for potentially another dry summer?
Any thoughts please?
Another frost this morning too so the winter weather is still very much here!
one year, being over conscientious, I thought I’d get an early start and pruned all the hydrangeas in March, frost nipped the top buds, I had to do the lot again, so now I start those on the 1st - 2nd week in April.