Beat the Heat

A quick up date this week.. for those of you who don't live in Greece  I would like to inform you that ITS HOT   BLOODY HOT.. daytime temperatures between 22 and 38 today and likely to get hotter.


http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/261604


That's no fun for us poor humans with so much water in our bodies  you walk round wondering if your blood is actually boiling.  Shortened tempers are also a common side result of this  hence the reply when someone asks politely how you are,  you bark back  "Hot  what do you think!"  Then growl (grrrrrr)


But  if we mere mortals are suffering then our beloved veggies are having an extremely rough time of it.  As you may remember from .last week  a few plants were looking a little parched  so priority this week is water and shade


WATER

To facilitate automatic watering we bought two automatic timers .  Total cost 55 Euros and they were fitted easily (Ahem with help from Thannasis)
and are now programmed to water for two hours in the morning and two hours in the evening.  Sorry the photo didn't come out so I will take more and let you see them in action (Actually they just sit there  but well you know what I mean)
Ok so watering  DONE!  lets hope we see some improvement in that area.  next moving on to the shade.




SHADE
Most veggy growers here use green netting.  its quite cheap  we calculated that to cover an 8 x 9 meter area would cost about 22 euros.  Two things::  you can get different thicknesses  depending on how much light and heat you wish to allow through and if you are careful you can reuse it for the next year.


Well thankfully again our benevolent land owner comes to the rescue and says he has extra green netting so  off up to the farm to collect and put in place

Ok so green netting going up over the toms and cucumbers.  Again very thoughtfully  our netting came with little hooks on the side which made it easier to  fasten to the fence,  ground or poles.

We did think that perhaps next time when  we plant toms and put up the cane  we might arrange the cane into a kind of box shape shape  rather than wig wam type shape as this would facilitate the laying of the netting.  I think it remains to be seen now how long our erecting efforts will last.  One good wind could pull everything down  but hey this is trial and error anyway so on-wards and upwards with the learning curve folks.
so  Shade  DONE 
(We may add a bit more next week)

Ok  so after all those exertions and a bit more weeding, we really felt we had done enough in THE HEAT..... So other produce was pruned and collected.  there are actaully lots of toms growing and the courgettes look yummy

We optimistically thought the melon was ready so Sarah bravely harvested it and we tried it  .  result  really needed another week  but would be fine if marinaded in Pimms.  I bow to Sarah s superior judgement in this

Brenda weeded away til the proverbial goats came home and Helena and Theresa sorted out the produce to be collected this week.  We are certainly getting some nice bags of food each week  and more each week.  Now as you can see some aubergines (egg plants  US friends),  cucumbers , lettuce, toms, spring onions and basil.

Well as i was hoping for a British win at Wimbledon  my contribution was the bottle of champagne  We didn't win the tennis so we toasted the watering system and the green netting.   CHEERS




(Sorry about the t shirt, it' s my happy face   looks really daft)


Next week we will update on the effectiveness of our shade and watering efforts  till then  have a cold shower and try to stay coooooool