Family Wedding and Watering Plants

 Tiny Plug Plants

I was at a family wedding last week. We do seem to be going to quite a few at the moment as our nieces and nephews are settling down. I still think of them as toddlers running around but most of them are reaching or have passed the age of thirty so they are toddlers no more. 

 

Thankfully we didn’t have to travel too far this time as it was just over the water near Exeter in Devon. 

The last wedding was in Alicante and although I was getting the impression they chose the far away holiday destination so we wouldn’t take them up their invitation, we went anyway. Apparently it’s quite the in thing to go to exotic places now, not only for the wedding but also the stag and hen do’s.  A friend of mine went overseas no less than five times last year to his mates stag parties and it cost him most of his wages but at least he’s amassed some air miles so he can go somewhere on his own to give his liver a rest.

The wedding venues the relations have chosen have all been fantastic and there are so many factors to take into consideration when doing the planning especially the unpredictable weather. Precautions were taken and all of the outside ceremony areas had some lovely canopies put up just in case the weather turned. The day was forecast really heavy thunder, lightning and rain so this was a wise precaution to take. The young people camping just had to hope their canvas was waterproof. 

As it turned out the precautions weren’t needed to keep the torrential rain off, they were more being used as shades from the sun. Somehow the weather predictions of the impending storm just kept being put back and back, much to everyone’s relief.   

I do realise that at weddings it doesn’t really matter about the décor, the food, weather or if things run smoothly, it’s all about the loving family members and friends getting together for a good old knees up and celebrating the couple’s big day. I’m saying that for anyone who is getting stressed about planning a wedding as I am beginning to realise just how much time and energy (and money) can go into them. 

The storm did come. It was very late at around 10:30 in the evening and the spectacle was better than a firework display and on par with seeing the Northern Lights.  Everyone came off the dance floor and stood at the windows oohing and aahing at the sheet and bolts of lightning passing over us. You can’t plan or buy that sort of spectacle. It made my night.  

The rain was a deluge for a short while and gave everything a good watering.

Watering

As the storm wasn’t passing over our house back home I left instructions for my lad to water my young plants and vegetables twice in the day. Some of them are really young, especially the 70 perennial plants that arrived an hour before I left for the airport. 

We potted them up into small pots and put them in a sheltered area away from direct sunlight until they established a bit. I’ve actually never seen plant plugs as small as these before, to give you an idea of the size you can probably get at least 8 of these tiny plugs into a regular plug cell. If you recall I got them all for €2 so I wasn’t complaining and they arrived healthy enough.

My lad asked me when he should water the plants and veggies in the garden. I said just water them when you can, it doesn’t matter to me when they are done as long as the roots have water.  There are some that say leaves get scorched in the heat of the day but I have never had that happen to any of my plants. The beads of water are supposed to act like magnifying glasses and scorch leaves but there’s nowhere on the planet where this would happen so that doesn’t bother me.   

Late in the evening is said to be an issue too if the leaves don’t have time to dry off as they could get mouldy. I’ve not really experienced that either with more mature plants. Generally if you need to water then it’s going to be a drying breeze anyway.  I suppose in an ideal world we’d be watering either in the early morning so there’s less evaporation or late afternoon as it gives the plants time to dry but sunshine and rain come at any time and mostly together at this time of year so we might as well just go with the flow and do it when we can.