If there's one thing I've learned this summer, with all our hot weather, it's that the greenhouse needs to be emptied of plants in May or June. I've been emptying it gradually all summer, but I should have done it all at once. It's just too hot in there when the afternoon sun is beating down. The greenhouse is for storing plants in the three colder seasons of the year.
We have two other summertime "storage compartments" for plants: the glassed-in sunporch on the left and the front terrace over the garage. Both face east, so they get good sun in the morning, when it's often cool, but are protected from intense afternoon heat. Problem is, the sunporch is already full. I guess I just have too many plants.
The other place that makes for good summertime plant storage is the north side of the house, below. We've given up, at least temporarily, on collecting rain water, but we haven't yet gotten rid of the big green rain barrels.
One barrel, empty, blew around in a windstorm this summer, split open, and ended up unusable. The barrels have just not proved to be practical. They are always either completely empty — during summers like this one, when it has hardly rained at all — or full to overflowing — in fall, winter, and spring, when we don't need the water. When the barrels do have water in them, they breed mosquitoes.
Plants that like having some afternoon sun can go in these pots set on the low stone wall on the northwest corner of the house. These are pots that I've emptied of dead or dying plants and hauled out of the greenhouse over the past two or three days. I dumped the soil out of them into a big trashcan dedicated to that purpose. Now I'm waiting for rain to wash the pots out because we aren't supposed to be using water outdoors.
Some of the leaves or pads (cladodes for the technically oriented!) of the Opuntia humifusa might have died of old age — I too have that kind of dried up pads in Arlington — but I see two, at bottom left and right, that seem OK. Don’t give up on it yet
ReplyDeleteWell, it really isn't a pleasant plant to look at in this shape. And it's so hard to work with — terrible sticky spines. Anyway, I'll try to keep the one in the pot going, but I don't want to leave this one in the groung in its current location. I did see those few new green pads. Time to cut them, maybe, and start a new plant in a pot.
DeleteWith the superheating of our planet, these summers will be the norm, I fear....
ReplyDeleteeven as far north as Leeds in the UK, the late-May task is to lime-wash the glass of your greenhouse for the summer.... it is never left as bare glass.
And, the recommended polytunnel covering is a 70% light transmission one....
We recycle all that soil directly onto the potager... I use it to earth up the spuds, mainly...
and can still water from our own reservoir... but how long 18cubic metres lasts I have no idea...
never really measured what we use... so I am watering by can... a five litre one.
We also now have three "trees" in our potager... one for each tomato bed at present....
they are 2x1.5m parasols that can be tilted to 45degrees....
they don't demand watering and can be "felled" in inclement weather.
Their shadow doesn't completely cover the bed and the plants get shade and sunshine over the course of the day.
To the passing motorist, the words "mad English fools" probably pass through their mind...
The young chard plants seem unaffected by the heat and sun... but my celeriacs are but grey powder.
I am going to ready Red Russian in modules this week.... for planting out in September... they winter well... we will have to start planting overwinter veg like pak choi and mustard greens, which are quick... and ones that you sow in the Autumn for a Spring crop...
I don't think we'll do all that. It's easier to just take the plants out of the greenhouse in late spring and put them back in October or so. We have an apple tree that provides partial shade to our vegetable garden, so maybe that serves the same purpose as those umbrellas. The soil we put in a big trashcan can always be put elsewhere, into pots or on the ground, at any point we choose. I had Red Russian Kale in the garden a few years ago. By August it looked like this year's plants, but it came back beautifully by Christmas.
DeleteAlso, you said we learn something every season.... I think we are on a very steep learning curve indeed... we will be changing our gardening regime quite drastically, I fear.
ReplyDeleteI'm feeling like I've been plunged back into my childhood. The North Carolina coast was like this, weather- and climate-wise. Hot, often humid. We didn't need greenhouses, because the temperatures were conistently high — 28 to 35 degrees C — from late April until mid-October.
DeleteKen, I'm just sending you an email...
DeleteYou do have a lot of potted plants which carry memories with them. I like having my potted plants around in winter to remind me that spring will come. Sorry you are going through a drought.
ReplyDeleteMy childhood also!
ReplyDeleteGrandfather had a several acres farm in NC and my mom and I w,ere California girls, plopped down in Charlotte NC with step father and his family.
I unknowingly impressed them by enjoying the chore of shucking corn.
Yes, I admire the energy you and Walt put forth with all of your potted plants, on top of the garden plantings!
ReplyDeleteWalt does nine tenths of the outdoor gardening. I had to give up springtime gardening back in California in the 1980s when I developed severe pollen allergies. So I do houseplants.
DeleteThere are rain collection barrels with lids, and they can be placed under downspouts so the rain runs in but the mosquitoes can't, should you be inclined to try again.
ReplyDeleteAnd I seem to recall that ground-up eggshells are good snail deterrent. Maybe right, maybe not.
Our barrels have lids. They didn't keep the mosquitoes out, however. Otherwise, the barrels worked the way you describe. The problem here is that we have two very tall conifers close to the corner of the house where the rain barrel stood, and those trees drop billions of short needles on the roof that wind up in the gutters. They run down into the rain barrel and clog up the hoses and spouts that were installed to let us get water out of the barrel and into watering cans. There was also a hose attached at the top of the barrel to drain away any overflow, but it was often stopped up with needles. The system just didn't work in our environment. We are thinking of having one of those conifers, a blue spruce, taken down this year or next. It's too close to the house and doesn't look healthy these days.
DeleteI'll have to read about the eggshell solution. Of course, with the current drought snails and slugs have not been a problem this summer. It's way too dry for them.