Drought in the (vegetable) garden? This is what you need to try
Summer is a time when we usually fill many harvest baskets in the vegetable garden . But thanks to the persistent heat and drought, your harvest may be at stake? Learn from a professional grower what really makes your vegetable garden thrive in the summer, but even if you don't have a vegetable garden, this can save your plants!
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In her vegetable garden in Ghent, Heleen Calcoen looks with admiration at the strong, growing crops again this summer. Does she have to weed, hoe or water all the time? No way. Heleen has a golden tip for drought and heat: she uses hay and straw as mulch on the vegetable garden beds. “I call that 'my spread straw bed': everything is arranged for me. And that straw bed has proven to be invaluable in the past dry and hot months,” she says in the July edition of Gardeners' World magazine .
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- Choose plants that can withstand drought
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How does this work exactly? Heleen: “Before planting, I watered my vegetable garden bed intensively. I gave it water (and vegetable fertilizers), mixed the water into the soil by hand or with a garden rake, and repeated this until the soil was like a mud puddle, ready to be planted. After planting, I immediately put a lot of hay and straw on top, and that was it. It required extra work and water, but it saved a lot of both in the months that followed.” The mulch covers the entire soil and helps to keep the soil moist, ideal in dry periods!
Tip! Ask the farmer (or another sales point) for straw without (grass) seeds, to prevent wild growth in your beds.
So take this vegetable garden tip to heart, so that you don't get any surprises in the summer. Heleen does give a small disclaimer: "Drooping plants, for example in the greenhouse, or during extremely long periods of drought, get extra water if there really is no other option. But everything the plant can do itself, it does itself." Laughing, she concludes: "I try to pass that on to our son too: everything he can do himself, he does himself - but that is more of a mixed success."
Want more tips from Heleen Calcoen for the vegetable garden? Every other month you can read her column 'Sprouting is life' in Gardeners' World magazine . In the July issue she shares, among other things, what to look out for when harvesting seeds. Also in this issue:
- Alan Titchmarsh explains how to make your (ornamental) garden drought-resistant and what the best plants are for this.
- Monty Don shows you how to give your borders a summer boost.
- Nature guide Govert de Jong explains how to bring more life into your garden by choosing local plants.
You can read all this and more in the latest edition of Gardeners' World magazine . Have you got it yet?
