Plan ahead and keep pots together
6:50am Saturday 16th August 2008
SO you’re away in the summer holidays, when your crops are at their peak, your bedding plants need dead-heading regularly and everything, especially hanging baskets and containers, needs watering. What do you do?
If you’re lucky enough to have a kindly neighbour or relatives close by who can pop in to do the watering and pick some of your tomatoes, lettuces and green beans, then you’re laughing.
But if no one’s going to be around, you need to plan ahead.
If you have a lot of pots, cluster them together in a sheltered, shady place which is open to the rain and feed and water them thoroughly before leaving.
If you have hanging baskets, make room in a bed and dig a hole in a cool, shady spot where you can sit them, and drench them with water so that the soil underneath gets wet.
Alternatively, dunk the basket in a large bucket of water or a tub trug. Let the water soak into the soil from below, but avoid submerging the basket completely to avoid the soil spilling out of the top. After doing that, transfer the basket to the hole in a shady spot.
Simple automatic watering systems can also be set up for your containers using an upturned bottle full of water set into the pot. The water will be slowly released as the compost dries out. Or use strips of capillary matting tucked into the compost at one end and a bowl of water at the other.
Remove all flowers from plants in containers, not just the faded ones, before you leave. Hopefully you should have a fresh-looking display of new blooms on your return.
Most soft fruit will be ripening now and much of it can be picked before you go.
Apples and pears won’t be ready until you come back so don’t worry about those.
The vegetable garden should be well watered before you go and any vegetables which are ready for harvesting should be picked, blanched and frozen, if possible.
Try to plan your vegetable garden to tie in with your holiday dates, so you are not sowing a load of fast-growing crops which are going to mature – and bolt – in your absence.
If the weather is hot and dry while you’re away don’t expect to return to a lush, green lawn.
To minimise damage, though, don’t do anything which will encourage it to grow fast when you are away, so don’t feed or water it just before you go.
You shouldn’t have too many problems with your perennials and shrubs while you are away, as well-established plants have strong roots that will go deep enough to find moisture.