Storm passed us completely by, though there were some beautiful thunderheads to the east. Not even a drop. Yay! I'm on the other side of the same coin, NJ. I can't conceive of it *not* raining in the summer. I frequently read in gardening books and even on GW here about not getting the leaves of certain plants wet. I've scratched my head for years. Doesn't rain get them wet all the time? We just got back from a road trip to Victoria, BC a few days ago. It doesn't really rain in the summer there either. It was extremely strange to see brown grass (where it wasn't irrigated) and occasional falling leaves and I was told this was normal in the summer. That just doesn't happen here except in drought years. We saw farms all over BC baling beautiful hay. They could cut and bale at the optimum nutrition level because they totally controlled the irrigation. Time to cut? Just stop watering. Take as much time as necessary to dry in the swath; heck, take a couple extra days to flip the swath and dry it through. It's amazing. We just can't do that here most years. Usually, when it looks like there's going to be a rash of a few days with no rain, farmers are dropping everything - even 9 to 5 jobs in town - to 'make hay while the sun shines'. Even then, it's unusual to get hay off with no rain at all on it. Most of the prairies here support "dry-land" farms with no irrigation setup at all. In an average year here, I only usually need to water the garden at the beginning, when seeds are close to the surface and yet to germinate. After they've established, I rarely need to pull out the sprinkler. There's at least an inch of rain per week or so and when there's not, the roots dig deep enough that they're good for a few more days until it rains again. This is only my second year doing dry bush beans, but I'm finding it difficult to mature them on the plant because of the short season and because the rain still comes in the fall, though less. Same for the pole beans, though, they're up in the air and do dry off a little faster. No rain in the winter - just snow, cold and more cold. We can go into the -30s Celcius for a couple of weeks at a time and -40 and below is not unheard of. I don't get to do cover crops. Typically, last frost is within the first week of June (or late May in a good year) and first frost is usually early to mid September (but can come as early as August in a bad year). We can extend harvest into early October by covering on nights where there's frost forecast. Crops mature, but don't really grow much by then. I've tried mulches a few times, but have discarded the idea. I know it's a great thing for many gardeners, but I find it cools the soil too much and there's not really a need to conserve moisture. Should we go back to drought years, I'd see about trying it again. Right now, though, I need heat heat heat to reach my soil. :)

Our conditions in MI were prolly the same as yours, JaG. I had great container plantings right up 'til frost when the material was not too temperature sensitive, but noticed the same thing with my tomatoes & peppers - lots of late fruit that never ripened. I also use a lot of tropical perennials in the floral display containers, and they took a long time to take off this year. We had regular frosts 2 weeks beyond our last frost date, and (garden) soil temperatures remained well below 55* until after the first week of June. Sorry for the cross-talk, HBG. I hope I'm close enough to being on-topic. ;o) I had thought about the possibility of an N deficiency - especially if you were using fresh bark/small pieces, but that wouldn't explain why one plant did well & another didn't. Still, I would put genetics well down on the list of probable causes. Remember this for next year: "By habit now, I literally rip the bottom half of the roots off every plant I use in containers. I then remove a healthy additional portion of the soil they come in before transplanting or potting." For plantings with many different plants (mixed containers) I save the old soil and roots in a pile, and after the plants are situated as I like them in the container, I use it to pack around the remaining roots to secure the newly planted plants. It's usually a much more water retentive soil than what's below it and works well to help keep good amounts of moisture near the roots until the plants are established. It's an example of how being familiar with the rules of how water behaves in containers can allow you to break the rule (of not using dissimilar soils in the same container) and make it work to your advantage. ;o) It may make you shudder to think of it, but I nearly always remove all blooms & buds from the plants I am newly planting. It hastens establishment & allows the plant to build a strong root system quickly, which ends up paying dividends over the long haul. You may have to go bloomless for an extra week or so, but I've always found it to be well worth it in the end. Good luck!! Al

Well, without any organic matter to eat, the worms you bring over would just leave. What is needed is organic matter, both to break up the soil, help keep it moist and feed the microherd that will help feed the plants. In the short-term, whatever OM you can add will help, in the longterm, your friend should be looking for OM, and making a compost pile. Spoiled vegetables and trimmings from the greengrocers, used coffee grounds or tea leaves from a coffee shop, etc., etc., can all be collected and added to a compost pile, along with grass clippings, weeds that haven't gone to flower, etc.. It sounds as though you have a bit of experience, so I'll stop there. I don't know how accessible bags of composted cow manure or compost and suchlike soil inprovers are in the UK, but adding a bag/cubic meter of such, along with finely ground bark, to the bed will be a quick start on improving the soil. I don't know if your friend owns or rents the place - if she rents, she may do better to confine her gardening to containers, even as basic as directly in a bag of compost (holes poked in the underside for drainage, slits down the top to plant into, and mulch over the whole to hide the plastic), and not trying to work directly with the soil. That way, all the "good" goes to the plants, especially if she is trying to grow vegetables. And if she uses more formal containers than plastic bags, she can take them with her to her next house. If she owns the site, then she can do anything she wants to improve the soil. Google, or look on these forums, for "lasagne gardening". It will give a basic means of improving soil without breaking your back digging it. You and your friend can use this to make more beds. In the meantime, you can add what you can to this bed, and start a compost pile or vermicompost bin for future compost, to add more later. I would do all you can to improve the soil, as above, then plant your flowers, and keep them well watered. You will probably need to fertilize them during the first year (at a minimum) because it sounds like the soil is less than optimal, and you can't get it there in a couple of weeks, never mind a couple of months. Use a balanced, slow release fertilizer, if you can't find an organic one, which would be that by definition. Diluted, liquid soil drenches would also work. Use a hardwood or bark mulch to cover the soil - it will limit weeds and help keep moisture levels up in the soil. Good luck with your project, and sorry if I covered things you already know.

In fact, if it's wet day, like during a thaw, the wet will keep the ashes down as well. Or you could bring some water with you to wet them down once they've been scattered.