Summer Heat

Oh the heat is getting to me, the family, my pets and of course our gardens. The kids are preparing for school (we homeschool but we still have to prepare our minds for the structure of our school time). They don't feel like being outside when it's hot. The garden is drooping. What can you do to help the gardens?

Set up a few pop bottle sprinklers. Take a pop bottle (two liters are fine although smaller will do well especially for container gardens). Drill a small hole into the cap. Place the cap back on. The hole has to be big enough to let some water through but not a gushing amount of water. Cut off the bottom inch or two of the pop bottle. Place the bottle in the ground. You might want to place the bottle into the ground at an angle. If you place it straight up and down, it might not leak out as needed. You can put a medium sized rock in the bottle to keep it from blowing away. The rock shouldn't be able to cover the hole completely. Fill up the bottle and the garden will be watered at root level.

There are nozzles you can buy at home and garden stores and online garden stores that you add onto the pop bottles to do the same trick. But it's a fun activity to do this with the kids. These pop bottle sprinklers are great for when you go on vacation.

Aqua Spikes at Park Seed Company

Happy hot gardening everyone!

KM