A Break from the Heat!

20 years ago

Finally, a break from the heat! We awoke to rain and 65Â° temp this morning with a high of 75 today - woohoooooo!! My gardens are lovin' it (I can just tell). This comes after days of 100+ temps.

I really can't say enough good things about MiracleGrow's new Liquafeed. This is the first year I have gone from the 3 month granular fertilizers, which don't really go 3 months when you water pots every day, sometimes twice a day. But thought I'd give this a try this year. It has kept my garden a lush green and handled these sweltering hot days in full sun quite well, compared to past years. My petunias in full sun do wilt by 4pm, but bounce right back after the sun goes round to the other side of the house.

The Liquafeed says non-refillable, but hubby, always up for a challenge, did figure out a way, and I bought the powder, mixed with water, and now I can feed my all of my gardens for $1 or maybe a little less, instead of $2.50. I just wet the leaves, and within a couple of hours once the sun hits them, they look so healthy, lush green, and standing so nice and tall. My petunias have thick stems, not leggy, although I do frequently pinch them back, so I never have to chop them all off at once and be "bloomless" for 2 weeks :~)

Hope everyone has a wonderful relaxing weekend!

Dianne

St Joseph MO

Here is a link that might be useful: My gardens

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Comments (5)

keesha2006
20 years ago
thanks for sharing that. I had wondered how that stuff works. I use Peters liquid when I water, but it is such a pain..my hubby fills buckets and measures the liquid for me. We work as a team..he fills and measures..I carry :) Ofcourse he gets the job of sitting on the step filling buckets.. :) But I want it that way, I don't trust he will not miss something, or over or under do....I like the fact that the mircle grow works well in the hose...a one person job..Thank you for sharing that. I might have to give it a try now.

How did you fair in the storms a few nights ago. I hear they were fierce there..some of St Louis is still without power I heard. We too had some pretty good storms, but NOTHING like yours.
diannesjmo
Original Author
20 years ago
Hi Keesha, we didn't get the storms the other night that St Louis did - they are about 4 hours east of us. St Joe, where I live, is 40 minutes north of KC. However, my son's friend lives in St Louis, and she said it was awful without power, it was so hot. She works for an insurance company, and I haven't heard from her since, so I know she is swamped. She called during the storm, but only talked a few minutes.

Hahaha, I know what you mean about hubby watering. Mine is like "sure I'lll water for you, I know I can fit the whole yard in during one commercial". I think he knows that's what works on me :~) He's great about all my projects though, so I don't complain. And we are on a sprinkler system, which is great when I'm working come fall, or in a hurry. But most times I want to hand water so it gets to the roots of the plants.

On the Liquafeed bottles, just use the flat side of a bottle opener. GENTLY, pry around the cap til it pops out. Then with a funnel, I put about 2 inches (or up to that indentation/line where the label starts) of MG powder. Fill with water, I use a stick to mix it well, snap the cap back on securely,and I'm ready to go. I have 6 bottles, so I do them all at once. They are so quick to use.

Now, I have only used the powder once, and it tuned everything a VERY dark green, so I may use a bit less powder in the bottle. It was a trial and error thing for me. Hubby tried to ballpark the amount of powder/water ratio I needed, but that may have been during commercial, too :~) So this is my starting point. Also, the reason I say gently pry the cap off, is that it's plastic and cracks if you pull too hard.
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faltered
20 years ago
Yep, definitely cooler here for the next couple days, too. It'll be nice to get a break from the heat. Although, I don't mind it too much. The summers are so short here that we just soak up any nice days we have.

I haven't had much success with MiracleGrow. I used it on flowers and veggies and didn't notice much difference in fruit or flower production, or even lushness of growth. But glad that it works for you. I have my first tomato ripening and can't wait to bit into her when she's ready.

Tracy
gldno1
20 years ago
I just visited your lovely gardens via Photobucket. They look wonderful and don't seem to be suffering from the heat.
You do have lots of pots to keep watered.....I'm not too good at that!
tindee
20 years ago
Well, I'm here in St. Louis. Hot as *)*^!! In my area we have a 4-6 day window of expected completion for our electricity. Storms came thru again today and knocked out another 200,000 households and more are coming in throughout the night. Hopefully the cooling off spell will make a big difference this evening.

To make matters worse, there are basically no hotels in the area - quite a few have no electricity & the others are all booked up by partylite convention until the 22nd. I have a reservation for a hotel room for my family beginning Sunday until whenever we have our power restored.