Its been really hot the last couple of weeks, 30's with 80 - 90% humidity. Not good for a lot of veg, especially the cubit family (pumpkins, cucumber, zucchini) they get white patches on their leaves and eventually die back if it's really humid.
I managed to fluke something with the zucchini the other day. I noticed that we were not getting many male flowers. All the female flowers had tiny fruit but without pollination they were all dropping off. Not sure why, I read heaps of stuff on the subject and there were too many conflicting articles.
Anyway, I decided to play cupid grabbed a small paint brush & a male flower from a neighbouring plant and went around polinating all the girl flowers. I must admit that I felt a little weird but the results were astronomical. The zucchinis all took and there are now 22 zucchinis all growing. I think I'm going to have to hit the recipe books shortly.
I was forced to remove my watering system just before the summer hit. I had painstakingly installed (about 3 years ago) a soak system that was made from recycled car tyres. I thought that it was a great way to use up some of those pesky tyres and it would also save water. Hmmmmm, it also deteriates quickly and splits and bursts under pressure. It's way too hot to sit out there and re-jig another and hand watering is not my style so I have placed a soaker hose over the beds and am using that. It's not ideal but it works for the moment, I'll have to get cracking on a sprinkler system after it cools down a bit.
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