Wicking beds are a great way to save water and keep your plants happy over Summer.
They do have one downside though - most of them are made of metal and can heat up a little too much in the full Sun.
This can cause them to dry out quicker than usual as well as cooking the roots of plants near the edge of the sun ward side.
The pic above shows what is probably the best, cheapest solution - grow trailing plants down the side. We have a trailing variety of tomato doing its thing and shading the edge of the bed.
The second pic is of an alternative - grow heat loving, tall plants (in this case, Corn) and use it to shade the other plants and, in fact, the whole bed.
In the last pic, we've left the rhubarb alone so that it's large leaves shade as much of the side of the bed as it can.
So, it's that easy to beat the heat in wicking beds. You can cover them with fabric, build shading devices, but, as I'm often heard saying, 'why not take the simple route and let the plants do the work themselves'?
This is #originalwork. The pics or videos were taken by yours truly.
