Away for a few days... Questions

I have no automatic watering and no volunteer to come round and water. Going away next weekend (2 days ) and the next weekend for 3 days.

I gather i should be ok on the watering front but my bed mix seems to dry out awful fast, it cracks on the top.....?? never had this problem before but not done sfg before. Is this normal?

My other big question is do I leave the hoop houses up but maybe the ends up for ventilation incase it gets too hot. I dunno what to do????????

Stick your hand down in your MM and see if it is really getting wet.

How far along are your plants? What do you have? Depends on what plants, whether they can go without water.

What is the temp. during the day in your area?

That's funny, my soil is cracking on top also, but I figured it's because I'm not using MM. I stuck my fingers down into the soil as deeply as I could, and it's nice and moist below the cracking surface...but that won't work with seeds in there so I'll have to step up the watering.

Have you thought about offering to share your bounty with a neighbor if they'll step across the property line & check up on things twice a day? I assume you're still in danger of frost & such, so twice a day would be needed to uncover/cover the plants. (It's so weird to think about that, since we've been in the 80s, and even 90s, during the day...though last night got down to the 40s.)

I am wondering if it is the mels mix, I followed the recipe if anything a little less peat.
I have pots on the deck with potting mix nice and wet and my regular garden soil beds are wet but this stuff is drying out sooooooooooo fast!

The top inch or so dries out fairly fast in the MM but the lower stuff stayed wet in my bed and we hadn't had any rain to speak of for nearly a month just cold or hot drying winds.

The dried top one inch or so layer kind of insulates the rest of the bed from the drying quickly from dryinbg winds & sun.

The vermiculite helps retain the even moisture where it's needed .

Last night was the first rain we have had , it pee'd it down all night and is still dropping it in very fine fast copious amounts. Nature has now re watered the beds to a serious amount , the excess is moving through to the ground levels .

Suddenly the beds have taken on a new lush green look and not only given us oodles of new flowers but a fair few weeds as well ..

I'm going scissor hacking when it stops raining.

I am not sure what gardening zone michigan is, but I also have a hoop house and have been trying to figure out the same thing
IT all depends on whether its going to be too HOT or too cold.
In my area there is still the risk of frost, and so it could freeze overnight, but then again, it is very warm in the day times and it gets really hot in there during the day times.
I am thinking that by the time I go away for 5 days I will be past the freeze and the plants in my hoop house are the hardy ones, and so my only worry will be watering
I might follow givvmestanps suggestion with my neighbour.

I use a setup like this it waters twice a day for 10 min or what ever
you want to set it for.

Hogger, you make the most interesting posts.

Much appreciated!

I'm just lazy so my mind is always trying to come up with an easier way!

Hoggar wrote:I use a setup like this it waters twice a day for 10 min or what ever
you want to set it for.

I had a similar set up for the glasshouse but the distribution nozzles were a failure . What distribution nozzles or pipes do you use on your outside stuff ?

On saturday my lass got an email from a seed house offering a £60 ish watering set up for less than half price.

Emergency water rationing such as no hosepipes or auto watering devices has been implemented in England this weekend for the forseable future . It covers over 20 million consumers , so they have a store house full of the irrigation stuff that they are having difficulty moving .

She called me over to see if it was any good ( better than what we already have ) , on looking at it , it has a very varialble programming on the water control box , full mains water pressure adjustable spray heads , dripper droplet heads , running off a 1/2 inch supply pipe and breaking off into 1/4 inch pipes so the volume and pressure of water to the heads is at optimum levels .

We now have two sets up coming via a carrier company , two at less then half price saving us just over £69 ( 100 $ usd ?? ) as the postage & packing is free on orders over £50 .

I am sifting through the ideas people ! Thanks for replies.
I think that this coming weekend I will have to leave the hoop house open to the elements. As low as the temps are going to get overnight, it is going to be in the 60's during the day and I dont want it to get too hot. I will figure out the watering this week. For now it may just be some bottles with small holes poke in the bottom so that they drip... drip drip