Bit dis heartened by weather atm

[Keiran Roles]

Looking at my 2 empty beds after the summer devistation smashed through my garden, destroying most of my strawberries And other Greens I was growing ..The blueberries still going strong. I've got two batches of strawberries. Just hanging on. My spring onions are still going nuts But 2 complete garden beds were destroyed through the heat and the sun. ..Now its raining most days and well theres drainage but the soil is still a bit moist ..so ...what to do.. plant seeds ... and what kind... or just move the garden beds to a better location ..thats not gunna stop the rain tho .. and if its not 100°c the sun is mostly fine provided i plant taller plants to protect the smaller ones (i say plants i mean veggies) .. i dont know maybe share your heart breaking stories and talk about how you over came it .. time will tell how i deside to proceed... fingers crossed ..

 

[Lucas]

Try covering with some 25% shade cloth to stop a bit of the direct sun and heat
cheers Lucas

 

[Jacqui]

I here you Keeping my potted garden from drying out too much in summer is a struggle. Adding coconut coir to my potting mix and mulching heavily has helped a little You may need to fix some shade cloth across the beds as Lucas says. You could loop irrigation pipe over your beds similarly to what Mark did in one of his “growing food in small spaces” videos

 

[Isobel Lewis]

We are taking this year as a learning year. Next year we will be implementing shade cloths. We were fortunate that despite getting nearly 200mm in 2 days that our current crop seems to be coping well with it. We nearly lost an entire squash plant from the wind though.

 

[Chris4066]

I'm in the same boat on my balcony - the 33 degree days and now a full week devoid of sun has been rough. To add insult to injury, my building decided to replace the railings on all the balconies to bring things up to code - and I've lost 15 percent of my bloody floor space! I could only laugh.

I guess I'll be buying that book on vertical gardening now.

 

[GKW]

I guess we can all see the dark side when the weather goes against us, but then again even if I lose a few plants or my lawn goes off given the recent drought and high temps or due to the near 400m of rain (knocking off some veg) I copped in my part of Sydney in the few days up till last Sunday....I still count myself lucky.

I think of those affected by the past and recent bush fires and / or now floods and think.."well I've still got my house, no damage and my family is safe, whereas others lost everything"... Unlike some of our country cousins, we still had drinking water in the greater Sydney dams and limited ability to water our fruit and veg which meant we just adapt process and what we plant out and where to account for the water restrictions we face. Bit of a PITA but I guess there's a lot of people who were burnt or flooded out, or living in a regional town on the verge of "Day Zero" for water supply who swap places with the likes of me in a heart beat.

I've learnt some lessons from this heat and rain and hopefully will remember same next time we encounter the same weather conditions.