There’s still another day to go here in Melbourne before this current heatwave ends. Rumour has it that, at the end, we’ll win the dubious honour of having the “longest number of consecutive days over 40 degrees since 1908”.
I have to admit that, since quite a large number of my plants are in pots, I expected to have a mostly dead garden by the end of this week. I thought that maybe, if I was lucky, the more robust vegetables in the ground would survive, but everything else would be dead.
Turns out plants are tougher than you think! Admittedly I’ve been watering them twice a day (morning and evening) and at one stage I thought one of my capsicum plants was dead but it revived after a thorough watering.
My capsicum plant at the end of the next day. The day before it had been lying on the ground all shrivelled up.
Not only have my plants been surviving far better than I thought they would (or could) but some of them even flourished in the heat!
My herbs went from not existing to germinating in the space of only a few days.
My strawberries that I worried about dying in their pots before I got them into the ground are suddenly flowering!
Likewise, my sickly looking tomatoes are starting to set some fruit (of course some plants set fruit when they are distressed as an attempt to procreate before their genetic material is lost, but we’ll assume mine are flowering because they’re healthy and want me to have my tomatoes…).
My non-dehydrated-capsicum has even set a tiny little capsicum – and has some more flowers on there, too!
So while Summer can be doom and gloom in the garden (and making sure plants have enough water is a must), it’s not always as dire as you think!
Are you sweltering in the Summer heat? How do you cope when it gets too hot?
Sorry it’s so got for you but your post warmed me up. It’s freezing cold and there is snow on the ground in indiana. Do you want to switch for a few days?
Hot- not got
Oh I definitely think so! Even our overnight temperatures have been horrible here (around 28C) so there’s no real chance to cool down! And I do like snow!
Ahh to be warm again….
Tonight I’ll dream of ice and snow and you can dream of brilliantly hot days at the beach 🙂
It’s a perfect swap!! Dream on, friend!
T is nice and icy here, and my back lawn is frozen over. I dream of temps like yours so my tomatoes and peppers can flourish!
Oh your so right about the heat, but as with yours my garden has faired okay. Tomatoes are chock full of flowers and time fruit and that damned pumpkin seems to grow a meter in every direction every day. The only disappointment is that all my lovely rocket has bolted, but hopefully it will self seed and I’ll get some more. Also my spuds, which look spectacular last week have really suffered, I wonder what this means for the harvest?
My potatoes are dying back, too! I can’t work out whether it means that they’re ready to harvest, or whether they just can’t cope with the summer heat.
Sounds like your garden has held up quite well. I share your amazement when a good watering changes a sad limp dead looking plant back to bouncy health. Some of my potatoes have carked it, but I am still hopeful they will have had enough time to develop some lovely starchy tubers. Great to see your germinating herbs have come through. I had some beans and cucumber seed that I planted a week ago that just started to break through when the heatwave started. I thought for sure they wouldn’t make it, being so young, but they were barely affected. Seedlings are tougher than you think!