Been getting lucky the last 12 days.. Probably 3" rain came after i hit em all with 15 gallons of water. Been able to stay away from the patch for nearly 2 weeks and get some fishing done on weekends and after work..instead of being a slave to the patch humping 2 five gallon buckets of water at a time for 4ours through the brush.
Im loving my 100g fabric pots I've watered twice since they were transplanted in. Basically like they're in the ground. Took my straw mulch off all of them yesterday, laid it out on a tarp in the sun and hit it with a bunch of D.E, dried it all out and tried to kill off any eggs or anything, Then wrapped it back up because the rain was coming, and already had rain so its still no mulch/cover, hit the first few inches with more D.E. and im probably going to hit everything in the yard with neem a little before the next rain... Pests have been having a fest on my back yard this year... I've found fungus gnats, leaf hoppers, aphids, mealy bugs, ants everywhere, luckily no caterpillar or slugs (yet at least..).. I've got power ran out to the plot now though, and going to unplug the cameras for a little bit and get some fans going out there after this rain... Its nice not having to water, but its tough to get a good dry cycle out of the roots. I use like foot long cedar shingles strips as name tags and am able to pull them out and check how deep the moisture line goes, not super accurate, But helps... and shows these pots stay moist pretty long, Good thing Ive got a good amount of perlite and vermiculite in it. Also, stuck a meat thermometer (only has like a 4 inch probe) into the side of the pot, right in the middle and when the temps are high 80s and the hottest days of the year so far, I havent seen that thermometer go above like 75 at most, usually will be 60s even mid day, a couple inches in... Have seen absolutely no signs of heat stress at all so far which another positive of the pots. Hopefully we get through all this rain now and have a relatively dry sept/oct.
Looking forward to the rest of the season...Great job everyone, You guys are making me proud Mass has some great growers.
Cheers