May get a brief respite come Sunday. But not for long. The growing rooms are now being misted with a hand spray twice a day besides the watering.  

Well I'm treating everything as if its a hanging basket now! My water butt has been empty for days so it's a matter of tap water being left to outgas before watering.

It is looking stunning out there though!

I do Love Summer

Harvested most of my garlic from the borders before the bedding plants hide it all.  They got hidden last year and consequently some garlic got left in and that’s what I’m digging up now but it’s produced some really good fat bulbs this year and they’re a month early too!

Also had enough tumbling toms for our salad today and the blackcurrants have produced but not enough to make jam, although they’ve only been in a couple of years!  

Continuing to water the garden most evenings!  

I think we'll have a water meter shock at the end of this quarter; but Bess & i agree we love our green so much, we'll have to pay the fee.

Strawberries and gooseberries are finished; garlic all harvested and used; blackcurrants now half harvested (this is about a week early- not as bad as I thought). Runner beans have been flowering since the end of June and we've already had cucumbers, potatoes, and most of the peas.

Struggling to get the butternut squash to fruit however.

Scarlett Emperor runner beans now showing their red flowers .The wild strawberries are flowering and fruit is springing forth. Sugar Snaps are growing well and hope to see some flower buds shortly. Sweet corn needs watering most days. Herbs are doing well.

Runner beans have set and we have 2cm tinies- no use yet of course but this is very early.

Squashes are setting. Water an issue.

Now my bedding plants are established I’ve stopped sprinkling the borders every night because it’s drying so quickly and just wetting the top layer is only encouraging shallow rooting.  So I’ve taken to giving them a good soaking once a week to try and encourage the roots to go deeper and stay cooler.  The baskets and tubs need watering morning and night though!l and I’ve given up on the lawn!  

Isn’t it ironic that when the weather’s good enough to spend time enjoying the garden, the garden is suffering from the effects of the weather. 

Watering done by the can now .Direct to base of plants every day. They are in partial shade Two times a day as the sun move east to west. This includes the hanging baskets. All TWO of them. My TWO planters out the front are also watered at the same time of !7:00.

All I`m doing in the garden is watering with the hosepipe and filling the pond up every few days. As we have a water meter it`s probably expensive.

A hosepipe ban may come into force during the next few days so a watering can will be the only option.

The pond will need a 'freshen' over the coming days and that will be a 10 watering can job ( for someone else he hopes! I'm sure I can sell it as a workout!)

As for the garden? Maybe so many pots and planters isn't such a good idea.........

I suppose there are pluses and minuses to each weather type..... I'd rather the rigours of this type though as with food and water the garden has exploded in colour and growth like never before ( only been here since 2012)!

Hmmm!  My grapevines are both doing well with bunches of plump fruit. But the black grape, which is always the heaviest cropper, has sprouted two more bunches of flowers!  Anyone got any ideas why?  

Could well be the sunshine and heat has brought out the extra flowering.

At least we don't have to mow the lawn.
Spent some time to take the opportunity of raking moss out while it's so dry. Quite a bit of it. I was surprised.

Looks horrible at the moment but I reckon/hope it might pay off.

Gonna' take a fair drop of regular rain and care to bring it back.....Ah sure it was stuffed eitherway. Looking forward to the challenge or a new roll out come September.

grass is brilliant at recovering, once we get some sustained rain you'll be amazed at how quickly it recovers

Yes, grass will recover and I think we sometimes make the mistake mollycoddling it too much.  It’s better to give it a good soaking once every week or two than a quick sprinkle every day. Just wetting the top only encourages shallow rooting and makes it vulnerable. Although I’ve stopped watering mine to conserve water.

Anyway, my borders are looking really lovely and I’m glad I planted them thickly enough to provide full ground cover this year, otherwise they’d be dehydrated and shrivelled. They only get a good watering once a week. 

We're almost looking at dust bowl conditions..

A good steady fall of rain is expected over the weekend so things might improve.

We have a hosepipe ban but the good wife sneaks out with the watering can for the flowers and the tomatoes in the hanging basket which are just ready..Just enough to stop wilting, mind.

We’ve only had a bit of rain these past three days but it’s doing the garden good. The lawn is starting to go green again, not with grass though. With raspberry suckers!  

I’ve got raspberry canes in one of the borders and they probably shoot in the lawn every year but get cut with the grass. This year the grass isn’t growing so it’s not being cut and neither are the raspberry shoots, which are still growing!  When it dries up we’ll have to mow the raspberries!   

Hardy buggers indeed. They would grow all around you given half a chance.

Love the jam on toast.

Did some tidying in Gemma’s garden this morning. It’s so dry that there’s hardly any green and we gave up on the veg patch weeks ago when the water butt dried.  She has two plum trees growing espalier style on a wire netting fence and the fruit has dried up and wizzened. They’re now prune trees! 

Mowed the lawn today to take off any weeds that might be seeding and was surprised to get 3 loads for the green bin. Even more surprising was how green it looked afterwards - the grass has been growing. We could do with another "occasional soak" to give it a boost.

I wonder if your dried plums are tasty enough to make plum gin, Caz? Somehow I doubt it.

Roger

No, I’ll give the prune gin a miss.  The plum tree in my garden is doing OK though as I’ve been watering the borders on a weekly basis, so I might just try making plum gin Roger!  Which reminds me, I made bramble brandy last year and the blackberries are ripe now too! 

The lawn under the feeding station has been green the last few days. Due to germination of Niger Seed from the feeder for the goldfinches ..