Heat and Drought 👨🌾 4th field update 📷
Hello, Hive gardeners! 👨🌾 📷
The last update was more than a month ago; we then went to an island. Now we’re back home, and the first thing we did was head out to the field to see how things were going. It’s been hot - between 35 °C and 40 °C every day - and the drought has been going on for three weeks now. But this time, we weren’t caught off guard. There’s enough water for irrigation - we did empty three 1,000-liter water tanks, but I found a solution for that, too.
Basically, as I said, it’s a severe drought, but I have enough water, and I’m most proud of two huge watermelons. They aren’t ripe yet, so I’ll leave them for a while longer. To be honest, I didn’t believe anything would come of it, because no one around us had managed to grow them. I hope no one steals them from me :)
Two weeks ago, before we went to the beach, we dug up our early potatoes. They aren't very big, but there were quite a few of them, and they're really good :) 😋
We still have two more rows of potatoes to harvest; this is a later variety, and once everything has dried out completely—in two or three weeks—we’ll dig them up.
All the neighbors say this is the year of the cucumbers. It’s true—we’ve grown a huge crop, and my wife has already pickled 20 jars. And they’re still growing. We’re going to run out of jars for pickling :)
There are also quite a few eggplants - white and purple ones.
And the tomatoes. They've started to change color, and some of them have even ripened.
I'm convinced that everything is growing so well (and weed-free) because of two things: we've placed black mulch under most of the plants, which retains moisture in the soil and prevents weeds from growing, and we water them intensively.
I mentioned that I have three 1,000-liter water tanks.
In addition, this year I also bought a battery-powered flow pump that I use to transfer water from the river into tanks or to water the plants directly. It cost me a little over €100, including two 30-meter water hoses, but now I can see that it was worth it.
Yeah! 😎
And to wrap things up, here’s yesterday’s harvest.
Lots of cucumbers, as well as everything else - tomatoes, green beans, zucchini, eggplant, and even green lettuce.
Thanks for reading!
I’ll check in when there’s something new.
If someone is interested in my fieldwork - how it started this year:
https://ecency.com/@seckorama/work-in-the-fields-3rd
https://ecency.com/@seckorama/work-in-the-fields-2nd
https://ecency.com/@seckorama/the-first-fieldwork-of-the
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An incredible harvest!!! Amazing. Pickles all winter for you!
I think you're right about mulch. It also helps with bugs and bacteria in the soil which help make the nutrients more available and give tastier veggies and increase resilience.
Thank you. Next year, we plan to cover the rest of the field with mulch.
Excellent friend, may God and nature bless your harvest
Thank you.
That is a haul!
And pretty warm over there by the sounds of things, glad everything survived! For some reason it didn't enter my head to use IBCs for water tanks, we're vaguely considering them for our aquaponics setup XD I think it's because we were kind of hyperfocused on larger "actual" water tanks as we want to use them for drinking water as well as the garden.
Tanks like that are pretty common around here. People even put them on trailers or pickup trucks, drive to rivers, fill them with water there, and then use it to water. But that water isn’t suitable for drinking.
That'll help with more intense droughts. Is it happening because of the weather changes or is it something common?
It's really nothing out of the ordinary; there are droughts every year in July and August. There are fewer of them now, but that's because they last longer—two to three weeks on average—and the temperatures are a few degrees Celsius higher.
Oh understood. Asked because there was a big temperature increase in some areas and maybe it could be related...
It’s true that the whole area gets hot, but every August I’d run out of water in my tanks and have to ask a friend with a water pump powered by a gas generator to fill them up for me. Well, now I don’t have to wait for anyone anymore—I can do it myself, and it’s even easier. Those gas-powered engines are loud.
It's great to see such diversity in the harvest! Congratulations!!
!pimp
Thanks. I have been in the field for about seven years; I'm still learning, but each year I'm doing something new :)
The heat has really been tough lately. I hope your crops stay strong despite the dry weather. Wishing you a successful harvest in the coming weeks.
Thank you. I’m counting on everything to grow now, as long as we water regularly (though it might turn rainy) until around the end of October. And we’ll plant something else where we harvest the potatoes.
That sounds like a great plan. I hope everything grows healthy, and hopefully the rain comes at the right time. Wishing you a bountiful harvest, and good luck with the next crops too! 🌱😊
Thank you very much for the support!