Why do my plants wilt in the day & perk up at night?

roses

I have a variety of herb & veg plants in my garden. I have parsley, dill, oregano in the soil & tomato & cucumber in my plastic greenhouse.

The past few days, I have found that the cucumber & tomato wilt during the day & the leaves go saggy but during the night, they seem to stiffen up again. Then the same happens the next day....

The same also happens with my dill & oregano plant. Wilt in the day, the branches seem to sag but perk up again at night.

Also my parsley is turning yellow.

Is it too hot for them? How do I get them to stop sagging? Do they need more water? I water them twice per week.

dizzydolly

I hope someone has an answer ,cos mine are the same.

dumpy

It's all to do with the water.

Plants don't have bones like us so the only way they stand up is if their cells are full of water. Imagine a water bed, it's nice and firm if it's full of water but would be sloppy if it is half full.

So if your plants don't have enough water their cells aren't strong enough for the plant to stand upright. So they sag.

During the day little holes all over the leaves open so the plants can take in carbon dioxide. This allows water to escape. At night these holes shut and so the plant can hold on to it's water and the cells fill up and it stops wilting and so the plant looks stiffer.

So biology lesson over, you just need some more water!

The parsley going yellow could be carrot root fly... I can't do parsely at all, Mum always used to tell me it had to go to the devil 7 times before it would grow (?strange gardening myth??) my obviously liked the warmer environment down there as it never comes back!

roses

Thanks! i bought 2 parsley plants from b&q and planted them 5m apart. 1 is really flourishing but the other not so well. i might try moving that one tonight. will give the wilting ones some more water!

youngie

the unseasonly hot sun they need more water and possibly a bit of shade

Solomon_Broad

Check the temperature of your greenhouse. Higher heat will make the plants dry out more quickly, but at night when it goes cold the systems recover.

brindles01

I would say that your greenhouse is too hot at the moment for these delicate new plants. Can you try to organise some sort of shading for the plants? I noticed the other day that some peppers I had growing in a window for maximum daylight had started to flop in the afternoon and my first thought was that they had started to succumb to some lurgy but I moved them out of direct sunlight into shade and within a couple of hours they had perked up and that is how I have kept them since and they are completely okay.

roses

I take them out in the day & leave them in at night now

When the weather gets even hotter I think I will move the greenhouse in the shade.