Planting Summer seedlings

Well, this past week since I planted the summer seedlings, I have lost 6 of the Orange Celosia and maybe 8 Periwinkles. It is a miserable feeling to see your newly planted seedlings all wilted, shriveled up and ready to give up. A couple of the Zinnias too are looking like they might go either way. One of the reasons I think, might be the summer heat.
Orange Celosia

Periwinkles

We had potted the seedlings on my terrace. That is where my compost bin and storage bin for manure, soil etc is kept. After planting them we kept them in a relatively shaded part of the terrace but the summer heat is still probably to much for the delicate seedlings.
So I visited Master Seeds at Barafkhana to replenish the Celosia and buy some pots.

The gentleman there told me that I was probably killing the seedlings off by watering them twice a day. According to him, the seedlings and in fact all the plants should be watered only in the evenings and not more than twice a week even in the scorching Delhi heat!
As of now, I have shifted most of the pots from the terrace to the garden except the Portulaca, the Kochia grass and some Cosmos which are all still on the terrace. These seem to be the most hardy and unbothered by it all. I have also stopped watering the pots in the mornings. In fact, I plan to water them now only when they start looking distressed. The Zinnias too are doing relatively fine.

But there is a silver lining to the proverbial cloud. Losing all those seedlings gave me the push to collect some seeds for next year. And while I was scouting around for seeds on my terrace, I came across a few treasures. Some Periwinkles from last year that had self seeded and lots of Red Celosia! But thats fodder for another post.