Shop Products
Houzz Logo Print
vjeko_gw

obsessive watering

vjeko
11 years ago

It's over 35C here everyday. At the beginning, I was obsessively watering everything from vegetables to fruit trees every day - I was just too worried they wouldn't survive. The results weren't good (strawberries, kiwi, cornelian cherry etc. had leaves turning brown - at least I thought it was due to my "obsession".

I then started watering vegetables daily, tomatoes and fruit trees deeply every second day (except some tomato varieties which needed the water)and adding worm compost tea and worms from the worm farm around the trees etc.

On the following web page, you can see the results - maybe someone has an idea how I can improve further/what am I still doing wrong:

http://freeweb.optinet.hr/~vbalas1/garden/gardening.html

fig 1 - american blackberry - this I am proud of - the fruit is large and the plant is doing well, but my other blackberries are just not progressing at all - small, very little growth - here I have quite a few worms around the plant

fig 2 - black currant - the leaves were going brown, a part of the plant is green, but not much progress

fig 3 - cornelian cherry - at the time I was watering once per day, the leaves were brown, now I can see some green leaves - not sure if it is the watering every 2 days or the last batch of compost tea, how do I make this plant "wake up" ?

fig 4 currant - There are several brown spots on the bottom leaves and the plant is not changing/growing at all - not sure what I should do - feed it more compost tea ?

I have another plant which is a couple of years old, is growing but there is no sign of flowering or anything.

fig 5 You can see the brown leaves - this is how the plant looked when I was watering it frequently - now it has improved but the leaves are still small and not so much growth (I fill buckets with water, leave overnight to lower chloride and water eg 5l per kiwi every 2 days).

fig 6 mandarin branch tips - just wanted to double check - the tips of the mandarins as well as the fruit were turning black - was this due to the too frequent watering ? - they seem better now with watering every 2 days but not too much progress

So, would appreciate any pointer on what I should do regarding:

- frequency of watering / how to recognise soil which needs to be watered (I can feel moist soil, but am not sure how often the plants should be watered)

- frequency of feeding with compost tea

- any problems or benefits of adding the worms around the plants

- anything else I need to give them

Comments (3)

Sponsored
Through The Garden, Inc.
Average rating: 5 out of 5 stars21 Reviews
#1 Landscape Design Build Firm Serving Virginia/Maryland & DC Area