Chris Collins on…five tips for a sustainable summer
- Keep your soil healthy. I like to add a top-dress of compost to container - homemade if possible – to help boost growing plants and retain moisture. I’ll also add an organic feed such as comfrey pellets or liquid feed. If you’re growing hungry food crops, such as courgettes and tomatoes, they will benefit from being summer mulched. The mulch should be lower in depth toward the plant crown, allowing puddling when watering. This in turn creates humidity around plants, and bats away the dreaded powdery mildew that courgettes often succumb to.
- Get deadheading. This is when you remove spent flowers to encourage further flowers. This keeps the colour coming but also helps pollinators with a longer season of nectar and pollen. Plants such as roses or seasonal pelargoniums will certainly benefit, and at the same time you can pick off any dead or fading leaves. This practise will also help deter common mildews that appear during the hotter drier weather.
- Collect water where possible. With rain scarce this summer, consider using grey water - saved from washing up (make sure there’s no strong detergents) - and used on mature specimens of shrubs. Water early morning or last thing in the evening to maximise the impact and reduce transpiration. Use the finger test for containers to check if the soil is moist a few centimetres down. If it is, the plant does not need watering. Test the weight of your pots, by lifting them up when they are fully watered, so you can recognise when they need a drench.
Water your wildlife. Remember to provide a cool pool for birds and bees to drink and bathe too. Solitary bees need to hydrate and cool off, and sometimes use water to mix materials for nests. Birds need fresh and clean water to keep their feathers in good condition. They splash vigorously while bathing to loosen dirt, remove pests and diseases, and then preen to spread natural oils. Like us, birds need water to drink because they shed moisture though droppings and respiration.
Garden songbirds often lose more water than other birds due to their dry, seed-heavy diets. Smaller birds need around 15ml per day. Pigeons and doves also have specially adapted tongues that act like straws. Ensure you change the water daily, so it doesn’t become dirty, and diseases are not transferred from one bird to the next.
- Change your feeding regime. At this time of year, I move from more general fertiliser to a potash-based feed. Potash or potassium is the nutrient that encourages the production of fruit and flowers, so this is the ideal time to apply. I use comfrey ‘Bocking 14’, which Garden Organic’s founder Lawrence Hills discovered was a fantastic fertiliser, soil and composter improver, bee magnet and compost accelerant.