Sometimes things just go wrong. It’s been a challenging summer, with record breaking heat waves bringing more troubles than just watering woes. Who knew that high temperatures could also entice pests large and small?
In this episode, Ben reveals all he has learned from an extraordinary summer and demonstrates what he will do to combat these problems in future. Fortunately for us, Ben has made all the mistakes so we don’t have to. Thanks Ben!
For more on how to grow soft fruits, see our video:
https://youtu.be/RgkC5I7NpUA
Discover how to roast your own delicious pumpkin seeds:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhUEy3y9psg
If you love growing your own food, why not take a look at our online Garden Planner which is available from several major websites and seed suppliers:
https://www.GrowVeg.com
https://gardenplanner.almanac.com
https://gardenplanner.motherearthnews…
and many more…
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If you’ve noticed any pests or beneficial insects in your garden lately please report them to us at https://BigBugHunt.com
Ben, thank you so much your honesty! Just the best video for us mere mortals. I've got sandy soil, I've decided to spend the winter working on my soil, I've borrowed a neighbours tractor and built a heap of horse manure. There's always next year!
I have been having a time with squirrels and mice the squirrels ate all my nectarines the mice tore up my flowers and now there is a baby possum tearing up my flowers the squirrels I tried feeding the birds and the squirrels are fighting with the birds I never has a hard time with squirrels especially two that are so evil they tear up everything and stole all the fruit of my tree The the mice tore up all my flowers this year I was looking at my flowers and something out of a cartoon watched my flower in the flower pot by a mouse eat the flower and watch the flower go down as the Mouse was eating it
Great video, I had problems with white flies this year
Thank you
Thanks for this video, it was eye-opening! My beans just looked the same and now I know why my newly sown carrots only bolted. I have been gardening in the south of Germany for seven years now and this year I grew my courgettes vertically to save some space and indeed it helped against the mildew. We had a pidgeon issue in the past on our balcony when two years in a row pidgeons tried to build their nest on our awning. Since we put a plastic crow on the railing they have not tried again.
It was 116 at our part of CA recently, these summers have been tough
All summer to right now in september I only had male blooms on my zucchini.
If you are struggling with a water supply with restrictions, I would absolutely recommend getting a grey water system set up. Even if it's just a hose from the washing machine out a window into a large container. We have a large bin (almost ibc size) with a dirty water pump so we can put it on the trees up hill from the house and the amount of water from just three people is massive. If you don't want to put it straight onto your vegies you can move it around the paths around the beds so it filters through the grass or dirt and makes the surrounding ground more damp. Just make sure it doesn't sit or puddle for more than 24 hours and you use the right soap for putting on plants.
If you have access to straw bales, putting two or three around any trees that are struggling with cracked soil not even untying them but they'll protect and retain the moisture around the roots.
I currently have the opposite situation in Melbourne Australia, we've had such wet last three years.
Hot dry summers contribute to powdery mildew? Wouldnt humid conditions cause it more so
Forever thankful for this channel!
We had thirsty mice in our garden. They were eating tomatoes, but damage went down as soon as I placed some shallow bowels of water around the garden.
Thank you for displaying the reality of gardening. It is refreshing.
welcome to gardening in Bahrain 48 degree Celsius in April
So sorry the Grand Solar Minimum is making your weather crazy, too. It got so hot here in North Florida (multiple days between 100 – 107 F!!), that vegetables like green bush beans produced miserably and had an off taste, and tomatoes suffered blossom end rot. Next year, I'll be using more shade cloth, and planting earlier than usual. Planting early is a crap-shoot, though, because a late frost can be devastating. Guess I'll be buying more frost blankets this year, for sure! BTW – You might try some deep south gardening tricks for your sweet corn. Plant it in larger blocks if you can, and invest in a drip-tape system. That way, you can keep them well-watered and fed. Sweet corn needs lots of water and are heavy feeders, requiring LOTS of nitrogen. I use a water-soluble nitrogen fertilizer through the drip system, but if you're going totally organic, chicken manure works well. I actually let my chickens graze the garden when it's fallow, and concentrate them where I hope to plant corn or onions in the next season.
Ben I had to laugh when you tasted that scotch bonnet chilli! Our curry cum chilli taste buds are right at the back of our tongues, almost down your throat so you always get a kick after you've swallowed it. I've tasted my curries when cooking them and thought they were mild, only to disagree with my verdict when I swallowed the mouthful.
When I had that powdery mildew attack my leaves I sprayed them with Listerine. I watered it down 1:10 and sprayed it liberally over the leaves (including undersides) and that made the world of difference to them and they carried on growing well and I didn't have to remove and leaves. Yes, you do have to re-apply, just once a week did it.
One last thing – it's learnt, not learned. We're British, not American/Canadian 😉
EDIT: Forgot to mention, I've got two large water butts which emptied pretty quickly this year thanks to my tomatoes and onions. I've got a condenser dryer and have brought back a 25 litre container from work, washed it out and storing water from the dryer which I'm experimenting on some plants to see how it affects the garden.
I do badger rescues and whenever we get someone contact us asking us for advice about badgers raiding their garden, we say to put food out but cut it up small as their jaws don't open that much. If they've got food given to them they're less likely to dig the garden up. Stick some wildlife cameras up and see what you can find 🙂
a hose pipe ban? Wow!
OH Man, thank you for this video, Ben. Such a hard year here too, and I appreciate that you shared your trials with us.
Useful tip about growing squash with a trellis. Thanks.
Does anyone have any idea what type of paneling/windows are being used for the greenhouse? They're stunning!
Thank you Mr Ben : )
Interesting that your runner beans were doing better than the French beans, even allowing that the runner beans are partially shaded: here (Great Lakes basin in the U.S.) the conventional wisdom is that runner beans want gently warm air temperatures and cool but not cold soil on their roots; we have a number of green bean varieties which take heat in the 90's-F although that's about surviving: for most beans (in my experience, anyway), 90's-Fahrenheit is too hot to set fruit.
Can not you make a shade, even if it's cobbled together from some old hessian/burlap sacks?
Slugs. I've never gardened through a summer, no matter how hot or how dry (ten weeks, one year, and in parts of the world if ten weeks without rain were all the farmers and gardeners had to contend with they'd be dancing on air!) that the slugs were discouraged by any conditions either Nature or I could create. That battle is endless.
My money would be on the badger; they'll do you mischief just because they can, but if you're sure it's the foxes, I'd lay wager the foxes are digging for mice or voles which might be in those potato beds because like the foxes, they're hungry.
To put the foxes or the badger/s off, have you tried sprinkling the plants and the beds, both, with either (hot) red pepper flakes, or (hot) red pepper powder? It won't actually harm them, but one taste of the stuff is usually enough to give them a distaste for the food they associate with it and after that just the odor may deter them. The downside is, you have to reapply it after a rain or maybe after a good wind, too, and it's ineffective against insects and birds because they're not affected by it, and I don't know that it deters slugs, either.
Can you compost leaves with powdery mildew?
grats vlog mate i really enjoy watching your vlogs
can i ask a question why only one ibc why not 4 so you can use only water you've collected that will save you alot money in your water bill if you can save a winters Werth of water and use that in the summer
Badgers, foxes reap the blame for a lot of badger activity.
Ditto from Australia Centeral Queensland where 32 -42 in the garden is quite normal in summer and most of the growing guides for vegies can be thrown out the door
love that Rhubarb behind you!