EP345 - September Herb Workshop & How To Revive Your August Garden.

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Your garden can look “fine” in August while quietly running on empty. With weeks of heat and very little rain, plants lose that fresh, lush look, new plantings stall, and even reliable beds start to struggle. We talk honestly about what prolonged drought looks like on the ground, from yellowed lawns and thirsty borders to the knock-on effects you can see across the countryside.

We also dig into the surprising stuff, like why blackbirds and crows start stripping apples and other fruit when everything turns dry. From there, we get practical: how to think about rainwater harvesting, why water butts feel essential the moment a hosepipe ban arrives, and why the best time to set up storage is long before the next heatwave. I share what I’m changing with my own polytunnel setup, and how early-morning watering becomes the only workable option in extreme temperatures.

Then we move to recovery mode: choosing plants that genuinely cope, using mulch to cut evaporation and keep the root zone cooler, and bringing in liquid seaweed as a simple way to boost resilience once moisture returns. We also touch on why seed sowing can fail in high heat, and how to adapt plans for carrots and other crops. To wrap up, I share details of our autumn herbal grow-your-own workshop with Laura Darcy, focused on building immunity with herbs, teas, and tinctures. If this helped, please subscribe, share it with a fellow gardener, and leave a review so more people can find the show.

Transcript

Why The Garden Needs Reviving

SPEAKER_00 0:11

How's it going everybody and welcome to episode 345 of Master My Garden Podcast? Now, this week's episode, we're looking at how we can revive the August garden, and I'll kind of get into why we would need to do that now shortly. Um so this week, weather conditions have continued along the same vein as we have had for quite a long time. And you know, it's dry, it's extremely warm for any of you who happen to be looking at this rather than listening. You'll see the big red face on me as I as I record this uh upstairs in the attic of my garage where I record all the podcasts, and it the heat is you know really, really warm and stifling. And but in our gardens, you know, and even across the countryside, obviously you hear the stories of farmers uh feeding feeding a lot of their you know what should be their winter feed now, um just to keep particularly dairy herds and things like that going. And you know, there's and potato farmers there we're hearing stories of them about potatoes just not filling out, not enough moisture levels. Uh some of them have irrigation, but many wouldn't. And you know, you're hearing of grain grain farmers on the one hand, certain parts of the country getting extremely good yields, in other parts of the country getting really poor yields, and it is definitely affecting certain areas more than others across the country as well. You have playing pitches, GA pitches, soccer pitches pitches, rugby pitches that are just pure yellow at this stage, and you know, there's sort of desperate attempts to get water onto them at this stage in order to keep them alive. And you know, it is it's definitely it's not unprecedented in terms of you know the temperatures and the the dryness. Possibly what is you know a little bit maybe not on unprecedented, but certainly not regular, is the the length of it now. Um, you know, so it has been kind of ongoing over a few months with very, very little rain or precipitation in in between. And that's what's making this quite unusual uh and quite I suppose putting quite demands on on lots of different things and people. Um when you flip that back into the garden, you know, I spoke last week about some of the the challenges here around fruit trees and after afterwards, actually, loads of people messaged in relation to blackbirds and crows whipping fruit away. And uh, you know, it's always when when something like this happens, you know, for want of a better

Heat And Drought Across The Country

SPEAKER_00 3:05

word, you step into the shoe of the blackbird or into the shoe of the crow and you wonder why is this, and just everything is so dry, so barren, uh, food, moisture, you know, is just not there for them either. So things like apples provide obviously some food, but also um you know, water in effect, and that's why they're whipping them off the trees the way they are. So, you know, there's there's challenges. Then, you know, in the anything that has been planted this year, newly planted this year, is struggling, needs a lot of water, and then you know, pair that with hose pipe bands, very low reservoirs if you're on schemes. Even here, I save the water off the polytunnel. I have the capacity to save 4,000 litres. I've never, you know, I've got close maybe a couple of times to using it all before it it got a chance to top up from rain. Um, but I've never actually completely wiped out. Uh this year I did, and just on the night that I did or the day that I did, we got about three hours of really, really heavy rain, which kind of filled the tanks and buffered it a little bit. But it didn't it didn't solve the issue in that uh I'm pretty much gone now, and there is kind of signs of occasional showers, but certainly nothing that's going to fill those tanks again for for the polytunnel. And as a result, it's making you know it's making growing difficult in the in the sort of flower garden or the you know the ornamental garden. There's challenges as well, like for example, dahlias are flowering at the moment, but there's a kind of a dry look about both the flower and the leaf. There, there's there's no vibrancy in the plant. The plant is doing its best, it's pushing out its leaf growth, it's pushing out its flower, it looks reasonably well, but it there's no freshness about it, no lushness about it, and that same thing is true for many flowers as well. So this is going to be a good time. Um, you know, if you look back over the 12 months, what what we have in our heads currently is what we're experiencing, generally speaking. But if you go back over it, and it's interesting when you kind of scoop back over all the episodes of the podcasts, you know, we are without a doubt, you know, we're we're experiencing longer periods of certain things. At the moment, it is longer period of drought, longer period of of intense heat, but in the spring it was the opposite, it was a longer period of not cold as in frost and snow and and that type of thing, but a longer period of wet and cold through the spring. And that's a flip of last year. So last year we got that really good spring, but when these periods of sort of things that are difficult in the garden, like a really wet and cold long spring, they they seem to be longer, you know. So what we experienced in the spring of this year wasn't anything particularly different to what we experience in other springs. You know, you can get a wet and cold March or a wet and cold April. But what happened, what seems to be happening is that there is more longevity in these varying periods, you know. Um this period of drought that we've had, you know, we've had similar in terms of heat and in terms of you know lack of rain, but again, it just seems to be extended over a slightly longer period of time than what we have become accustomed to. And as a result of those changes, those fluctuations, we you know, we're we're looking at kind of more difficult times and conditions for gardening, I would say, over the last few years. Um is it normal weather weather cycles? I don't know, you know, but certainly there's things we

Rainwater Storage And Hosepipe Limits

SPEAKER_00 7:10

can learn you know from these periods to help us going forward. And that is kind of a very long-winded version or way of telling you that's kind of the topic or most of the topic of this week's episode. So in terms of the garden as it is today, you know, I have had, as I mentioned, some some challenges in the edible garden. A lot of the apples are gone, um, whipped off the trees while I was away. Very little you can do about it. I've seen some great tips from from various people who listened to the podcast last week and have sent their their kind of tips in. And there is there is things that you can give can do. Um But I've never seen blackbirds and crows taken taking fruit the way they have this year, you know. It was just they were really they were needing that moisture that was within the fruit, and hence they they took them and and uh used that. Um so it's it's trickier than you know than we're used to, but there's learnings in that. And I suppose the things we can learn is firstly, you know, for me here, number one is to you know very easily increase the capacity of what I I harvest off my tunnel. Um some years I may not use it, but at least then if something like this occurs again, which likely it will, that you know you have the capacity to have harvested more. Definitely in our gardens we should be harvesting more. We should all now be looking at it. Um again, we have hose pipe bands. They don't it doesn't take a lot for a hose pipe band to come into place, especially when we're on public schemes. You know, water is relatively scarce, there's a huge amount of water being used in other areas that you won't hear people talking about, but things like data centres are using huge amount, huge amounts of water. Um so we all in our own homes should be you so be should be coming up with little techniques um to allow us to continue to garden, you know, the essentials obviously. Um so water butts, storage, things like that are going to be are going to be vital. The other thing we should we should be doing is now, especially at the at the moment where where things are struggling, have a look at what is really doing well. Look at those plants that are not you know batting an eyelid at what's happening weather-wise and are just continuing on. You know, um I had I sowed last year in the in the perennial grow along, I sowed some uh gora seeds, and they are just they look class at the moment. They look like they're made for this type of weather. And they were tricky seed to sow, tricky seed to grow. I had limited success, I only got three plants in the wind up. Um But in terms of those three plants, they've hit the ground and they got a watering in at planting stage and they haven't batted an eyelid at all this dry weather, and they're flowering wonderfully. So, you know, there's a uh a really good solid performer. Uh, I mentioned already a couple of weeks ago the hardy geraniums, again, not batting an eyelid at what's happening in terms of in terms of dry weather. Whereas the dahlias, as I said, they are flowering, they are put they they do have lush growth, but it's a kind of a a harder looking, there's a kind of grey look about them as opposed to uh a lush,

Plants That Cope With Dry Spells

SPEAKER_00 10:50

a lush look about the plants. The flowers themselves are not as full, not as you know, not as uh not as many petals on it. They're they're kind of they're like a forced flower. Um so you know that the plant is is struggling slightly. Now they're still performing, they're still flowering, but it's just an example of like hardy geraniums definitely look to be made for anything that comes their way. Same with the the goras, the verbena boriensis or banarienses doing the same, just not batting an eyelid. So, you know, certain things just seem to be loving anything that this year has thrown at it, and so that's where we can kind of take our you know our guidance for what we might plant, you know, in future beds or whatever the case may be. Um obviously the other thing that you'll see around the place is, and we mentioned you know, we've covered it on episodes before, your your shrubby type plants, you know, uh as opposed to your your perennials or your you know your perennial borders and things like that. But your shrubby type plants that okay, they need to get established first, but once they get established, they tend to be a little bit more deep-rooted and they're a little bit more resilient. So again, they'll cope with kind of any kind of longer periods and they'll grow away once once you get them established. Now, obviously, in that first year or two years, the roots are not there. So we need to get them established, and when you get them established, then they're they're much more resilient. Um, other kind of tip tips in terms of reviving the August garden, um mulching the ground again so that we we don't want any bare ground. Um out the back where the polytunnel is the sort of field that it's in has kind of just left to grow. And it's grass, it's weeds, it's you know whatnot, it's untidy looking. But there's plant cover on it. And you know, any of the nights that we're getting a dew on the on the grass, that dew is being retained in in that growing zone. So that is continuing to actually grow. So longer plant cover, uh you're not getting that evaporation. You know, if you've open spaces in your beds, as soon as the sun hits that, which it is it's hitting early in the morning and it's staying all day, you're getting huge evaporation off your beds, and it's just making that top zone where the roots are very, very dry. So mulching will help you there. So, you know, mulching with bark, bark mulch, uh, farmyard manure, good quality compost, uh, you know, leaves, chopping up old branches, anything that covers that soil, eventually when the rain does come and the water does come, it'll you know, it'll start to break down and and add organic matter to the soil. Grass clippings, while you won't have many of them because literally lawns are not growing, um there's yeah, I I I went on holidays on the 23rd of July, came back, the lawn barely needed a cut. Um I gave it a cut, but haven't looked at it since. And it looks like the day I left a month ago. So it's just not growing. But if you do have grass clippings, just sprinkle them around the base of your plants. Um they will, if the weather stays the way it is, dry and so on, they will crisp up, but they will still create a cover that if there is a dew at night, for example, or if you do water certain plants that are just being being potted in uh or planted in, you won't get that evaporation because the ground is covered. So, you know, that's that's kind of things we can do. It it's it's tricky at the moment because yeah, hose pipe bans, lack of water in in water butts that we may have in the garden. Um speaking of water butts, again, as always happens, water butts sails when we're in the middle of a of a drought go through the roof, um, because everyone gets water butts to uh I suppose fill them um from probably from the taps in some cases, but like the time to put them in is the autumn time, the winter time, when we know we're guaranteed to have rain, fill the bloody things and have them then for yours for when this c happens, as opposed to you know getting it in the middle of it when there is no rain falling, but I know you do have it then going forward, so yeah, definitely, definitely, and for me here, um I'm gonna have to get some some form of way of getting continuous water into the polytone because it's even it's even in these

Mulching To Cut Evaporation

SPEAKER_00 15:30

types of temperatures, it's even difficult to be watering, you know. You can you have to really do it very, very early in the mornings because at any other time it's just too hot in there. So, you know, you want to be for me, I want to going into next year, I want to create some some form of a maybe not automated, but certainly some level of automation that it's it's a lot easier to keep that tunnel the way the way it should be. Um but to revive the garden now, um, okay, looking ahead for the next kind of ten days, there isn't actually much sign of rain on the horizon. Uh potentially we might get heavy showers in isolated locations, you know, so that's an opportunity to fill your water bullets and so on. But we're not going to get it, looks like for the next week to ten days there isn't, you know, a prolonged period of a couple of days where there's a bit of rain falling, where the ground firstly gets to cool down a little bit, where the ground, after a couple of days, gets to actually absorb the moisture that is falling in the rain, and that the plants actually start to be able to take it in and then begin freshening up. Now that doesn't happen overnight, so that needs you know a period of a few days, maybe a week, you know, of some little bit of moisture happening all the time. Now, if we do get these isolated showers and you have done your mulching, and all of that rain that falls isn't either flowing away, you know, in a in a in a gush, or it is being held there by a mulch, that's a good thing. So that's why I'm saying mulching, even though it might seem at this stage of the year that it's not worth it, it definitely will be. The first time that the rain falls, you will hold more of it in the in the root zone of your plants if you've done your mulching. So that's really important. The other thing I've mentioned on loads of occasions before, and it really is worth mentioning again in relation to uh container, any container plantings you might have, any you know, shrubs, uh, perennials, anything that is looking a little bit tired or a little bit um under pressure from this weather, seaweed is going to be your friend, and because it really does create a resilience and add a sort of a toughness to the leaves and a resilience to the plant. So it increases the root zone, it um adds vibrancy to the plant. So when something gets a shock for from disease or from a period of wet or period of cold or a period of of warmth or a period of drought, whatever it is, if if a plant has experienced a shock and it's just looking a little bit worse for wares, seaweed is one of the best things to sort of revive it and give it that freshness. Now we're we're only in the middle of August, so as we go into the end of August, September, we still have several good months, you know, in the garden. Our perennial border still should be looking great up until October, end of October, up to heading for into November for first frost. Um, once we can get some moisture, but the minute we see some little bit of rain coming, some bit of moisture coming, just get seaweed into the mix that will really, really help your plants. Um, other plants, you know, maybe roses could be struggling, they will become susceptible to diseases, hedges, the same thing. So anything that you know may become stressed will become susceptible to disease, and that's where seaweed really is your your friend, and it will strengthen the plants, you know, before something else gets in on top of them. So watch for that as we come out of this dry period at some stage. It's mad because earlier in the year a couple of listeners were laughing because I mentioned it will stop raining at some stage, and it will, and it did. And now I'm gonna say the opposite, it will start raining at some stage, uh, but it's just not on the cards for for the week ahead, anyway. So, yeah,

Seaweed Feed For Stress Recovery

SPEAKER_00 19:30

they're they're kind of I don't know if that has helped massively, but I think a lot of people are struggling to, you know, seed sowing has been really tricky. Um temperatures are just really, really high. Keeping keeping stuff moist is really high, really difficult. You know, I've sewed carrots outside, as I mentioned, a couple of a couple of times, and they've just got singed. Now, at this stage I've given up on not sewing outside, but I'm gonna do uh and I haven't sewed them yet, but I'm gonna do another sewing, a big sewing in the polytunnel with the aim of getting me over the winter with smaller carrots. Um, so I'm not gonna have my outdoor carrots this year, uh, and that's really disappointed for me. Um other other things like uh my raised bed. I actually have never ever ever um watered the raised bed apart from when I plant in something. Uh I've never had to. You know, I use quite a lot of organic matter in that. Um it's generally speaking a bed that you know crops will grow in regardless. Um, but this year it has been a real struggle and I don't have rainwater saved at that location. I've been very, very tight on rainwater, as I mentioned, and so I haven't been able to water that bed and have just you know let it do its thing. Onions are not filling out, they're still there, but they're not thriving. So it's been a tricky, tricky, tricky year. Um I know that I saw this week that um Botanic Garden in Wicklow, one of the one of the best open gardens in Ireland, that they've made the decision, I think, I think from the end of August, uh just check their socials to not open the garden going forward past that point because they're finding it just so they they present the garden in such a brilliant way, and it requires a level of you know effort and work and work to keep to present in that certain way, but with the amount of water that is required to keep a garden looking the pristine way that they present, um it's just putting a lot of demand on them, and they've decided, I think it's from the end of August, to not open past that. Now, maybe maybe things will change if the if the weather changes and so on, but that just goes to show, you know, a garden that's open all the time, a garden or a gardener that's so experienced and well able to, you know, present and look after his garden in a really great way. i is is struggling with it. So, you know, it has been a tricky year. And as I mentioned, when it comes to sowing seeds, that has been tricky. Um, very, very hot, um very dry, very hard to keep. Especially when you're in seedling trays or if you're you know sowing seeds in a tunnel or whatever, it's very, very hard to keep that moisture level right, just with the intensity of the of the heat that we've had. So yeah, it's a it's it's it's been a tricky year. But definitely seaweed will be your friend as we start to you know get to the point where we're we're getting a little bit of a rainfall again. Mulch the same. It can be any type of mulch, but just make sure that you are mulching down, and that will be a big, big help. The other thing I wanted to talk about was on the workshops are back for for for the autumn. First the first one is the on Saturday the 5th of September. And

Sowing Setbacks And Crop Reality Check

SPEAKER_00 22:55

in the springtime I did this one with Laura Darcy. So it's a herbal grow your own herbal garden workshop. And we I suppose loosely base it around 10 her 10 popular herbs or herbs that everybody can can grow and maybe should grow. So the herbs that we we sort of base it around but not exclusively are chamomile, peppermint, lemon balm, canengela, thyme, sage, rosemary, echadacea, oregano and yarrow and but we also talk about you know our what we would call weeds, nettles, we would talk about you know basically every type of herb, mullion, all of that sort of stuff. And what what we what we're gonna do on this workshop is we're gonna focus on building immunity going into the winter time. So that's going to be kind of the theme of it. So we're looking to build immunity in our in our bodies and we're gonna do that through uh teas, herbal teas, tinctures and Laura is you know second to none when it comes to knowing what herbs you can use. And there literally is a herb for every ailment but and you know people come and they ask questions about what about this or if I have that is there you know something for dry skin on my hands or is there you know whatever the case may be strengthening my hair and Laura has all those answers but what we're gonna kind of center the the workshop on is building a little bit of immunity in our bodies going into the winter time. In terms of how it works it's very much interactive. So myself and Laura sort of dovetail together seamlessly across the day um where I will look after kind of the growing side of it. So we'll look at all these herbs we'll sow seed we might take cuttings we'll have um plants of these on the day as well and you know we'll look at how these grow what what we need to grow them uh what how we can incorporate them into our gardens how we can add them to you know what we already have we'll also create um a herb bed on the day so a specific bed with with herbs in it and you know we'll we'll show how to plant up that how to how to have a herb garden for yourself um so that's kind of the the the gist of it but it really is going to be centered around building immunity so far we have there's 14 spots maximum on it so far there's two spots gone so anyone else looking to come uh please get booking now I am putting the link to it in the show notes and yeah I'll start doing a little bit of promotion on it over the over the next week as well. So um it's yeah it goes from 10 in the morning until I think it's half three in the afternoon lunch is provided and yeah it's it's a really nice day out as well. So you know if you are interested in boosting your immunity or your family's immunity or you want to ask

Autumn Herbal Workshop Invitation

SPEAKER_00 25:55

questions about herbs or you're interested in herbs you're interested in you know how they can support us in our in our gardens you know from a wellbeing perspective from a culinary perspective from all of those aspects then this is a a very very good workshop. So Laura is Yarolyan Herbs and she runs a lot of different courses she has monthly subscription boxes as well so yeah really really good herbalist and yeah we work well together so looking forward to that so that workshop is Saturday the 5th of September and the link to that is in the show notes. In the meantime we're we're hoping for some nice light rain uh over over many days to freshen everything up and when things do start to freshen up remember what I was saying about seaweed that really is useful so liquid seaweed generally speaking is going to be the most the fastest way of you know giving plants a really nice sheen again so yeah bear that in mind and uh yeah hopefully hopefully as I say we'll be getting a little bit of rain soon but that's been this week's episode thanks for listening and until the next time happy gardening