PLOT LINES

AFTER AN EXCEPTIONALLY DRY SPRING, TIM FOSTER GIVES US THE LOWDOWN ON WATERING

- WITH TIM FOSTER

By the time you read this, the record dry spring should be over. Not only because we'll have had a bit of rain but because it's summer, not spring.

The dry weather has been useful in a number of ways, not least by stemming the tide of slugs. Remember last year? It was almost the exact reverse of this with things only just starting to dry out in June. It was universally recognised (well, on our allotment site, anyway) to have been the worst spring in living memory - wet, wet, wet and slug, slug, slug.

Yet, strangely, I fear drought more. It is the never-quite-knowing-when-it-will-end feeling, with the accompanying suffering of plants. Yes, you will say, but the suffering of plants due to slugs getting their gnashers around the leaves was pretty extreme. Well, in theory, we can do things to limit slug damage. We can never water everything and enough. When mature trees start to shed summer leaves - that's serious and distressing (fortunately, not this year so far). However, I kept thinking about all of those newly planted little trees put in this winter in woodland and hedgerow creation schemes.