July, up to now, has been basically scorching. And, even though the latest heatwave has passed, there’s still no rain. The ground is parched. Normally I’m bemoaning wet Wales, but not this year. I’ve never seen the grass as brown and dry in the 16 years we’ve been here.
The grass is dry and brown but it will recover when the rains come.
We haven’t got a hosepipe ban, yet, but I’m very aware that we can’t afford to just water everything willy-nilly. Water is a resource to use efficiently, only watering what needs to be watered and then just enough.
The grass may be pretty dead and brown, but once the rains come it will recover very quickly. So I don’t water the grass, which has a benefit that I don’t need to mow it either! The crops, however, are a different story. Unless they have sufficient water, yields will be low, at best.
In the large greenhouse I’ve a soil border to one side and the back. To water this I use a drip system. It’s left on overnight when necessary to slowly rehydrate the soil. Usually weekly is sufficient but it has been needed every other day at points.
The wicking pots usually only need filling weekly but with the heat it’s down to a few days. The old Chilligrows only hold about 5 litres and have needed refilling each morning.
Blossom End Rot on Tomatoes
Blossom End Rot
I did get a bit befuddled in the heat and distracted by a delivery arriving. I thought I’d filled the Quadgrows in the large greenhouse, but I hadn’t so they ran dry overnight. Next morning I thought the tomatoes were drooping a bit, checked the water and kicked myself. So now we’ve lost quite a few promising tomatoes to blossom end rot.
I thought I’d quickly try adding calmag to supplement the feed in the hope that it would prevent the blossom end rot developing, but it was too late. When the plants are pushing the growth envelope, they’ve no reserve left to cope with a shortage of water. I knew really that the damage was most likely done, but worth a shot.
New Tomatoes
Two of the tomatoes are new to me, Consuelo and Ddraig Goch. Consuelo gives reasonable trusses of small red tomatoes. Acceptable but nothing to set the world on fire. The Ddraig Goch (Red Dragon) is a Welsh tomato that I bought as a plant from a local nursery / garden centre. Proper sized, proper tasting tomatoes and loaded trusses. Result! Discovered it was bred for Medwyn Williams who sells the seed. No wonder it’s so good.
Ddraig Goch Tomato
Cucumbers
Still in the greenhouse, the cucumbers are doing well. This year I’m growing three types; Marketmore, Mini-Munch and Carmen. The first Marketmore was worthy of a show bench – straight and 13 inches long. Carmen are a favoured variety amongst show growers and actually produced a 15 inch long fruit.
Mini-Munch is new to me and I’ll grow it again. Small snack sized fruits, around 4 to 6 inches long. Masses of them! Harvested a dozen over two days.
Outside in the Veg Plot
Up in the polytunnel the sweetcorn, Swift, are about 6 feet high and forming well. The climbing French beans are starting to produce and we’ve had three good pickings already with more to come.
Outside onions, shallots and leeks are looking very promising. The sweetcorn is about half the size of the corn in the tunnel but still very acceptable for outside. Squashes are looking promising to say the least.
Made a mistake with the courgettes. I really should know that four plants is too many for our needs. People look askance at you when you stop them as they walk by and you offer a free bag of courgettes!
The Ddraig Goch tomato, how does it cope with greenback in all the heat we get now? I’ve grown alicante for years and it’s been excellent for yield and cooking and mainly greenback free but the last few years with all the sun and heat, they can look fully ripe but with a lot of hard green flesh inside making them very difficult to cook with.
We’ve not seen any greenback. It may have been developed as a show tomato, but it’s a good eating tomato.
I grow courgettes every year and always have a bumper crop. Not this year: they were looking really good and healthy then came the heat.They are in full sun from 10am so watering and feeding was a full time job. The first courgettes to appear had hardly grown before going yellow at the end.All the plants are producing male flowers with very few female ones.I have read that this is due to the high temperature and should produce female flowers when the weather cools.I hope so!
Hello John, I grew Red Dragon a few years ago & they produced very well. If Medwyn grows/sells them they will be good. I’m over in Ireland & yes, not always the weather you expect, just shows how much we should sometimes appreciate the wonderful rain.
Thankyou, I was going to buy some carrot seeds from Medwyn and thought I’d try those tomatoes as well if they are available but just noticed it is an F1 so I wouldn’t be able to save any seeds.