The BIG Dry
Can you guess the five things plants need?
A farmer was seen doing a rain dance yesterday - well, that about covers the weather news! Anyway… where we do have a small amount of irrigation or plants that were planted early - everything is looking really good. But where we don’t…!
Each plant needs five things; can you guess them? Answers at the bottom of the page. There is always a sixth magical element that only those with green fingers truly understand and that is that the plants need some TLC.
It’s just very difficult to do that when you can’t control one or more of the five things they have to have. Plants love consistency and probably humans too. If they get the right proportions of the five things they need then they do very well indeed.
A green house is a great way to control these five requirements. But you can’t have green houses all over the countryside, although in Holland they do, and for a tiny country like they are, they punch way above their agricultural weight and are the second biggest exporters of food in the world.
So can you guess the five things yet? Well, obviously they need a consistency of water, sunlight, nutrients, air and finally the one that most people miss… They have to have the right temperature.
Each species of plant likes the five conditions in different amounts; for example, sweetcorn like it very warm but cauliflower and peas prefer it cooler, but they all like a consistency of the five elements in order to grow well and be free from disease and overcome pests.
Your veg box Farmer: David Fryer
