How much should I be watering containers in this heat?

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Have lots of plants in pots (varying in size...from tiny ones to much larger 30cm+ ones).

Obviously the small ones dry out fastest, but I'm finding I'm watering my large tomatoes at least twice a day at the moment as they're dry down to the knuckle. And I'm finding this to be the case in my pots of compost which are meant to retain water as well as the peat-free, fast-draining kind.

Is this too much watering? I'm doing it as soon as my plants look droopy (sunflowers especially struggling atm) but it's a lot more than I'm used to doing...and am wary about watering vegetables too much, especially tomatoes, as it'll make them flavourless...

You need to keep it up, unfortunately. Remove any lower leaves from the tomato plants to reduce water loss but if you allow them to dry out too much, there's a risk that the fruit won't fully develop and become mealy or split.

Can you mulch them? Someone else tell me if that’s a bad idea.

I find once a day is fine if I do it at dusk - so about 8/9 in the evening here.

Mine are all done twice a day when it's this hot. Did at 8am this morning and will do again at 8pm tonight.

Mulching doesn't really work with pots. Root shade helps, though. I have some cosmos waiting to go in a planter and have the pots in a big plastic tub, at the moment, so I can properly drench them and they're shaded a little.

Twice a day at the moment. I would not usually do it that often.

I'm doing twice a day early and late. I've underplanted my tomatoes and beans with some bedding - begonias, busy lizzies etc and that seems to help. - Brightens up the pots too.

Mine are still only getting once a day but it is a proper soaking (till I can see the water running out of the bottom of the pot) in the evening 8pm ish.

That's really good to know others are doing it twice a day too, thanks!

Shade helps so much - my lettuce and parsley in planters are doing really well because they're shaded by the tall corn.

I'm wary of mulching using my semi-rotted home compost because I always seem to get pests/disease that way, and I don't have many other materials to work with (dry grass cuttings maybe - but doubt they'll keep much moisture in the soil underneath?).

In last year's heatwaves I used saucers under the smaller pots to conserve water and that worked well, but I'm using them at the moment to prop under my homemade planters for good air flow

I bought a solar powered watering system from irrigatia, and set it up at the weekend.

Before setting it up, I was having to drench all the plants with a couple of cans of water twice a day. I did it in the morning, and 8 hours later in the afternoon they would be floppy and need another 2 cans.

The pump automatically drip waters them for 5 minutes, every 3 hours while the sun is out. The plants are doing great! And with no real effort from me. I'm really impressed with this bit of kit and would recommend it.

@YawningAngel do you have a link to the list please?

It helps if you stand small pots in a seed tray (with holes so they're not actually sitting in the water) surrounded by damp gravel, it keeps the humidity up and they don't dry out so fast.

Terracotta pots are a nightmare for drying out quickly, plastic or ceramic ones are better.

Stand smaller pots in the shade of larger ones.

www.irrigatia.com/