How My Garden Grows

From this on 4/2010: Container Garden 4.25.10 To this 6/2010: Contained Garden 6.14.10

Friday, June 25, 2010

Poor Drained Plants

This is what my precious plants looked like when I returned home from work this evening:

Squash
Drained Plants 6.25.10

Cucumbers
Drained Plants 6.25.10

And even my hardy tomato plants!
Drained Plants 6.25.10

I'm hoping water will perk these vegetable plants back up to their normal selves. The heat really seems to be the culprit. Perhaps the coming changes (including a lot of transplanting) will help.....But probably not if it's the heat.
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2 comments:

  1. kathyJuly 1, 2010 at 8:49 PM

    Its really a challenge to grow vegetables in containers and I think you are doing great! I tried pumpkins once and they didn't do half as well as yours plants.

    It seems to me that the wilting is because the plants can't get enough moisture from the soil. They recover at night after you water again, but during the hot day the soil should be able to hold more moisture for them. My suggestion would be to get a bag of rich compost. Lift up the plants without disturbing the roots too much and put as much compost as you can below and around the edges of the roots. This will hold more water during the day. It will also help the roots to grow bigger to pull in more moisture for the plants. I think the potting mix you used is maybe too light for big vegetable plants.

    You should also provide partial shade if the plants can't handle full sun without wilting so much. Maybe a piece of lattice above the plants on sunny days.

    Do you have holes in the pots? They are great pots, but there should be drainage holes in them. You don't want the roots alternating between too much moisture and then too little.

    I don;t know what transplanting you are planning, but it will be good to get them into more and richer soil. But don't damage the roots if you do transplant.

    Hope this helps! I look forward to watching your harvest!

    Kathy

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  2. DawnMarieJuly 5, 2010 at 1:13 PM

    Thanks, Kathy! I appreciate your advice. The pots do have drainage holes. I think I may have damaged the roots of my two best cucumber plants. (Oh, no!) But the other three seem to be doing well. The plants have partial shade. I think I'm going to try some of the water globes to make sure they have water when I'm not home. I have a generic one from Target in my indoor peace lilly. It seems to work really well for it. Here's hoping!

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