shazam1 said:
Thanks for the response Luke !
I might look into getting a shade cloth but how 70% blockage do you get ?
The plants are in decent sized pots and I seem to water every second day due to the heat causing them to shrivel up.
Shazam,
not sure what you mean by how 70% blockage? If you are asking how much light do you get through 70%, you still get quite a lot.
I was camping over xmas for 4 weeks I had to leave the garden beds unattended for that time, I put the cloth up as we had a strong possibility of super hot days.
I noticed no detrimental impact on my cucumbers, tomatoes, corn or peppers, all which continued to thrive under the cloth.
I have taken it down now as it is a large 6m x 6m piece and the wind causes some wear and tear, so until I really need it I will leave it down.
When you say you are watering your pots every second day, how do you water them and for how long?
One thing I have noticed since swapping to drip irrigation is that my previous hand watering was more or less ineffective. I would hand water for 30 mins every day, but I would intensively water each plant where most of the water was lost to run-off in the raised bed & pots, and it never really penetrated the soil. I have since found with drip irrigation that the slow release of water allows it soak the soil, and your run-off is minimal. It might be slower, by try soaking your pots in a tub of water (add some ferts at the same time) - leave it to soak for 15 mins and see if that extends the time between watering.
Also there are a lot of threads on here about the soil used in the pots. Myself I am using a mixture of coir, perlite, vermiculite, compost.
Cheers
Luke