Greetings!
Time was around 7:15 am when I peeped outside from my window and saw that the sun was up already. I didn’t waste any time; I jumped out of bed, took a bucket, and went straight to the tap outside to collect water for watering the plants in my garden. I have been consistent in watering the plants every morning and evening, but I skipped yesterday evening due to how tight yesterday’s schedule was. So, I needed to be very early this morning to reduce their stress under the sun, as the sun was already up, though not an intense one.
It would have been better if I had constructed a way to direct water from the storage tank to the garden. That would reduce the stress of fetching, carrying, and sprinkling, but it would cost a lot. Moreover, the garden is just a mini one, not a large one that requires heavy watering. Besides, this is something that doesn’t take me up to 10 minutes, so there's actually no need.
After fetching the water, I carried it to the garden, used a cup to scoop the water from the bucket, and sprinkled it on the plants. Not just sprinkling—the main target is to wet the ground, which I did perfectly. Although I water the ground every day, it usually looks as though water didn’t touch it the previous day because of how crazy the sun has been during the daytime. Even yesterday, when harmattan finally landed in our part of the world, the sun was still fierce, as though there was no harmattan.
The plants have been catching up well, but I think the high sunlight has been affecting them, even though I water them every day. Some of them have leaves that don’t look fresh but appear shrunken and old. I concluded that maybe that’s the nature of the pepper because some others have been fresh and flourishing.
The oldest set of peppers has been producing flowers for a couple of weeks. I’ve been observing to see if those flowers will mature into fruits, but they keep coming out as flowers. That’s why, whenever I water that plant, I make sure I pour a lot of water and sprinkle some on the leaves, hoping to nourish them. Maybe it’s the sun affecting them, and the water will help loosen them so the flowers can turn into fruit.
I finished the watering in a few minutes and also watered the set of bitterleaf I planted. I haven’t had any issues with the bitterleaf; it’s been growing very well, even with the hot sun, and I don’t water it as often as I do the peppers and tomatoes. From what I’ve noticed, plants, I mean in this category, that grow from stems are stronger and can withstand any weather better than those planted via seeds. This bitterleaf is proof to justify that.
I hope this watering will shield the plants from today’s hot sun, which was already out at the time of watering. I just hope they keep surviving.
Thanks for reading.
All photos used are mine