One of the first things people are talking to me about out in the garden this year is what funny weather we’ve been having. Closely followed by ‘the slugs are wreaking havoc for me, how about you?!’ While heat waves have been raging elsewhere around the World, here in the UK, the summer has been unusually cold and wet. Seedlings have been slow to get started, plants have been stunted and slugs have indeed been leaving a trail of destruction in gardens everywhere. Well thought out plans for successions of vegetables have had to be scrapped as a result, while we think on our feet about how to best replace lost crops. It can be heartbreaking for us gardeners and a couple of years ago, of course, we had the opposite problem – heat wave and drought. How are we to prepare for this as gardeners? How can we raise vegetables successfully under these uncertain and wildly varying conditions?
One thing only seems certain, that there is no sure way to prepare ourselves for a perfect growing season. We need to be nimble on our feet and to have back up plans ready to roll, even if those plans are as simple as admitting defeat and accepting a lower harvest than we’re used to. However all is not lost and there are certainly ways we can learn from how things grew both this year, during cold and wet conditions and during drought years. I’ve pulled out three strategies that I’ll be using, that can enable us to hedge our bets a little and hopefully navigate difficult conditions in future years with slightly better odds of success.
Strategy 1 – Crop Diversity
One thing that is certainly top of my list is to aim to grow a good diversity of crops. During cold, wet years like this one, we’ve been noticing around here that brassicas – once they’ve got started – have been growing away nice and strongly. Salad leaves have also grown well, if they can be protected adequately from slugs. Leafy vegetables don’t need the heat of the sun as much as fruiting vegetables and so should crop as normal during cold weather. On the contrary, tender vegetables, the fruiting vegetables such as tomatoes, squash, courgettes and green beans, enjoy hot weather and given good irrigation and feeding, will grow away really strongly during hot years, providing good crops late into the year. This year, I've found they've been slow to get going. Growing both a good selection of leafy vegetables, along with a good selection of fruiting vegetables means that whatever the weather does, there will be something that thrives.
Strategy 2 – Plug Plants
Another strategy for both hot and cold weather, is to grow plug plants and I’m noticing that this really makes a difference. If you have the time and space to tend to plants in module trays and potentially also potted on into larger pots once they outgrow that initial space, these plants will have a really good start. And it makes sense that planting larger plants should give them a much better chance of fighting off slug attacks. It should also mean stronger plants go into the ground during a drought, rather than attempting to grow vulnerable seedlings in quite dry and harsh soil conditions.
During cold and wet years, make a success of this approach by supporting your plants at planting time with various slug defences, including something uncomfortable for slugs on the soil around the plant, like sharp sand or wool pellets. Sprays, such as ‘Grazers Spray’ are also available, that make the leaves of plants taste horrible to slugs, but which don’t affect the flavour for humans.
In hot, dry years, of course, it’s all about moisture control. A really generous watering-in at planting time really does make a big difference to how they take off during those first weeks. Water the hole before planting to send water deep and water after planting too to settle the soil neatly around the roots. Then, if you’re doing this already, you’ll know how beneficial it is to use a thick mulch to keep moisture in the soil. Use a 2-4 inch thick compost mulch around plants vulnerable to slugs, such as lettuce, cabbages and broccoli and use a 4-6 inch thick straw mulch around large, fruiting plants, such as squash, beans and as shown below, tomatoes.
Think also about how to get water straight through the mulch and down to the roots, ideally without needing to wet the surface of the mulch itself. Keeping the surface dry reduces evaporation and means all the water goes straight to where it's needed at the root zone. This gives us the double bonus of less wasted water and less time used up in watering. I like to use upturned pots (see above) or bottles with the bottom cut off, sunk through the mulch and into the soil near plant roots and I water into the tops of those.
Strategy 3 – Prioritise Health
A third strategy I like to use as an organic grower is to prioritise the health of my plants at all times. And I’ve touched on what we need to do for this already – it’s all about planting in a timely manner – not letting plants outgrow their pots or modules. It’s about watering and feeding as they need it. The big one – maybe the biggest way of promoting health – is to do everything to maintain a healthy, microbe-rich soil. Again, I’ve touched on this – mulch is the key to this, as is keeping the ground filled with plants at all times. If you’ve not tried this before, growing green manures between crops can be really transformative for soil health (see photo below for an example). And I really like to keep that mulch topped up. I give all beds a mulch with compost – a layer between 2-4 inches - even if straw is also going down for those larger, fruiting crops. And I keep an eye on how quickly it’s getting used up. Some beds need mulching a couple of times a year and others need it just once. I’ve written before about creating a healthy soil, so if you’d like to read about more tips and tricks for this, have a read of my article - Abundant Health.
Final Thoughts
This isn’t really a strategy, but a last thing to say is that it’s really important on years like this one to celebrate every success we have! You may find that it boosts your spirits to shift from noticing what has struggled to really noticing what has grown well and make a note to maybe include that next year. The inevitable failures have very often been beyond our control, but it may be that these plants will thrive in a future year. It’s always worth a try, but it’s definitely worth focusing a good chunk of your attention on what has gone well for you and for your neighbours too.
If you would like to read more about growing under tricky conditions or about maximising the general health of your garden, the following blog posts may also be of interest.
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