Plants in hot weather
16 June 2023 10:44 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
igenlodeTen pints of water used this morning -- that's all my three water carriers emptied at once. (And since I can only carry two at a time, it's going to mean several replenishment trips!)
I repotted the smaller towel-tomatoes and the self-sown marigolds (which are in flower) into somewhat larger pots, simply in order to give them larger water reservoirs. The tomatoes had put on a *huge* amount of growth and pretty much filled their pots since I repotted them three weeks ago. I do have some more Very Large Pots this year, thanks to a neighbour who dumped a large selection outside her gate to "please take", but haven't deployed those yet, although it would probably be better not to keep on repotting things up a small size every few weeks; I am short of compost, which in the absence of lockdown can now be replenished, and short of physical space, which cannot!
The flax has now finished flowering (so about three weeks of display) and has lots of fat seedheads ripening. I harvested seed from the poached-egg plants, which are long since over (as with the poppies, I didn't actually sow any of the saved seed from last year but simply retained self-seeded plants, but I still feel that I 'ought' to ensure a seed supply just in case), but since there is more ripening I didn't as yet empty that pot.
The poppies are almost over, although the bees are still enthusiastically visiting the late blooms (they also seem to love the cornflowers, which are in magnificent display; I don't need to plant 'bee-friendly seed' as I already have a supply of native weeds which they adore... although to be fair, all those cornfield plants did originally come from a packet of seed advertised as such). The first few pepper-pot seedheads are almost ready to harvest, and I'm planning simply to attempt to *eat* the poppyseed this year; it's doubtless not the right variety (Thompson & Morgan warns that the seeds of many poppy species other than the opium poppy are not edible), but I used some of the spare seed in cooking last year and nothing terrible happened. The 'weed bank' in my soil is so rich in poppy seeds at this point that I really don't need to sow any, just to refrain from weeding them out of other pots :-p
I potted up the rocket from its eggbox six-pack, and abandoned the pak choi from that same attempt, which didn't seem to germinate at all, or only badly (wizened seedlings that came up the wrong way and died). The coriander has produced one or maybe two (one, again, seems to be upside down, waving its root fruitlessly in the air) seedlings; the chives, none at all. The seed must be too old now, I think.
I repotted the smaller towel-tomatoes and the self-sown marigolds (which are in flower) into somewhat larger pots, simply in order to give them larger water reservoirs. The tomatoes had put on a *huge* amount of growth and pretty much filled their pots since I repotted them three weeks ago. I do have some more Very Large Pots this year, thanks to a neighbour who dumped a large selection outside her gate to "please take", but haven't deployed those yet, although it would probably be better not to keep on repotting things up a small size every few weeks; I am short of compost, which in the absence of lockdown can now be replenished, and short of physical space, which cannot!
The flax has now finished flowering (so about three weeks of display) and has lots of fat seedheads ripening. I harvested seed from the poached-egg plants, which are long since over (as with the poppies, I didn't actually sow any of the saved seed from last year but simply retained self-seeded plants, but I still feel that I 'ought' to ensure a seed supply just in case), but since there is more ripening I didn't as yet empty that pot.
The poppies are almost over, although the bees are still enthusiastically visiting the late blooms (they also seem to love the cornflowers, which are in magnificent display; I don't need to plant 'bee-friendly seed' as I already have a supply of native weeds which they adore... although to be fair, all those cornfield plants did originally come from a packet of seed advertised as such). The first few pepper-pot seedheads are almost ready to harvest, and I'm planning simply to attempt to *eat* the poppyseed this year; it's doubtless not the right variety (Thompson & Morgan warns that the seeds of many poppy species other than the opium poppy are not edible), but I used some of the spare seed in cooking last year and nothing terrible happened. The 'weed bank' in my soil is so rich in poppy seeds at this point that I really don't need to sow any, just to refrain from weeding them out of other pots :-p
I potted up the rocket from its eggbox six-pack, and abandoned the pak choi from that same attempt, which didn't seem to germinate at all, or only badly (wizened seedlings that came up the wrong way and died). The coriander has produced one or maybe two (one, again, seems to be upside down, waving its root fruitlessly in the air) seedlings; the chives, none at all. The seed must be too old now, I think.