Well, Ma Dutch and meownself took a short vacation last week to visit the northern end of the great state of Utah and to take in the Cache Valley Cruise-in. Since we were going to be gone 3-4 days, we asked the youngest daughter that lives fairly close to us to watch the house, take care of the three Beagle dogs and water the plants. Well she did a great job of taking care of the house and the pups; as for the third one, the jury is still out on that one. She took care of my 'mater and pepper plants since they are in containers at the edge of the patio but forgot all about the two types of squash, the grand kids pumpkins (for jack-o-lanterns), the cucumbers and the watermelon that are/was(?) growing in the garden patch along the north fence.
When we got home on Sunday, I found that several of my Roma 'maters have ripened, more fruit has formed on the Early Girl and the peppers and fruit are getting bigger. As for the plants in the garden spot-well they hadn't seen any water since I watered them before we left town on Thursday. My daughter thought that she didn't need to water them 'cuz the sprinkler system came on every other day. (Sprinkler system is for the lawn-not the garden). When I found that these plants didn't watered, I got water on them PDQ and saturated the soil. I may have saved Ma's bananna squash, but everthing else is still looking rather wilted; may have to give them a low dose of plant food and see if they revive any.
The main thing that I learned from all of this is that next year, everything that I plant is going into self watering containers.
When we got home on Sunday, I found that several of my Roma 'maters have ripened, more fruit has formed on the Early Girl and the peppers and fruit are getting bigger. As for the plants in the garden spot-well they hadn't seen any water since I watered them before we left town on Thursday. My daughter thought that she didn't need to water them 'cuz the sprinkler system came on every other day. (Sprinkler system is for the lawn-not the garden). When I found that these plants didn't watered, I got water on them PDQ and saturated the soil. I may have saved Ma's bananna squash, but everthing else is still looking rather wilted; may have to give them a low dose of plant food and see if they revive any.
The main thing that I learned from all of this is that next year, everything that I plant is going into self watering containers.