Help with watering courgettes

Help with watering courgettes

Peter Norris

May 27, 2016

The courgettes came into the ground today with each their "chimney". Really like a lot of the sight of this bed, which reminds me a bit of an old steamship, and which at least does not look like anything else in the kitchen garden. The combination is a result of a rather prolonged drought in the middle of summer a few years ago. Here it was so bad that even the courgettes were thirsty and hung with the leaves. At the same time, they were almost impossible to water, as the large leaves covered the entire bed so that the water from the jug ended up in all sorts of places other than where the roots could get hold of it. The only option was to lift the leaves and hand water each plant - quite slowly so that the water did not just run off the dry soil. I quickly got tired of the hassle.

Therefore, each plant now gets an irrigation pipe (sawn down pipe) stuck into the soil by its side - at a depth so that the water reaches the roots. In case of need for watering, you can then just walk along the bed with the watering can, possibly just push individual leaves aside, and fill the pipes.

The spinach in the outer rows was planted out a while ago, and presumably ends up being harvested before the courgettes spread all over it.

PS: to counteract stinging nettle rot (the fruits rot at the flower end), crushed eggshells are sprinkled in both the plant hole and the tube.