Roasted veg

The title of this post refers not to veg being cooked in the kitchen, but in the garden!

Our weather continues to be hot and dry, and frequently windy - conditions that my vegetable plants really do not like. Without me watering them frequently they would mostly have died long ago. Not many vegetables can go without water for over a month...

So far I've managed to keep my Runner Beans alive, but very few of the flowers have set pods.

I've tried the old trick of spraying them with a fine mist of water from the hosepipe, but it hasn't worked.

The weather has also induced most of my lettuces to bolt, even though I have watered them twice most days - once in the morning and once in the evening.

Fortunately, thanks to "succession sowing" I had some more lettuce seedlings that were big enough to plant, so I have pulled up the bolted plants and put the young ones in their place. They are going to struggle a bit unless the weather changes!

Lots of the vegetables love sunshine, as long as they can get plenty of water too. My cucumbers are a good example. Each of my 4 plants has many little fruits forming - one at almost every leaf-joint - so I'm fully prepared for a glut, as long as I can keep up the current watering regime!

Young cucumber "Marketmore"

Baby cucumber fruits wherever you look!

I'm also being careful to water my tomato plants at least once a day, even though they are in big (35L) pots. Leaving them to dry out completely and then flooding them would be almost as bad as not watering them at all. Keeping them at a steady level of hydration (not too wet, and not too dry) will help to prevent them getting Blossom End Rot, which often afflicts tomato plants that are in small pots which dry out quickly.



Tomato "Super Marmande"

Tomato "Tango"

My chillis are also loving the hot sunshine, mostly. I have two plants that seem to wilt very dramatically if left in the direct sunshine for too long, so I have been keeping them in the shade most of the time. The others are doing well though, and producing plenty of fruit. The flowers seem to set fruit much better in hot dry weather.

Chilli "Cayenne"

Chilli "Aji Benito" - an over-Wintered plant

I have lots of plants growing in pots and wherever possible I have equipped these with saucers. This simple measure helps a lot. When the compost in a pot is very dry, watering is often wasted. The water just runs through it and is lost, but if the pot has a saucer most of the water is retained and the plant can gradually suck it up over the next few hours.

Pots with saucers