It’s summertime, and the living is easy, as Billie Holiday sang. Summer in the garden is the time to relax and enjoy the fruits (literal and figurative) of your gardening labors. Plants are growing, flowers are blooming, and your vegetables should be in the ground and growing like mad. So sit back in your chair, sip a cool beverage and enjoy the sights and smells.
Feel relaxed yet? Yes? Ok, jump up and start working on your summer garden tasks! (Did you really think there wouldn’t be any work to do?)
Essentially all of the things you need to do now are preventative maintenance and damage-control:
Feel relaxed yet? Yes? Ok, jump up and start working on your summer garden tasks! (Did you really think there wouldn’t be any work to do?)
Essentially all of the things you need to do now are preventative maintenance and damage-control:
Cultivate Cultivate Cultivate
Now is the time to work your soil to ensure it remains loose and also a good time to add compost, which you can buy at any garden center if you don’t have a compost pile of your own. This will help your current plants and prepare for new flowers or shrubs you may want to add in the fall. Be sure to stay away from plant roots.
It’s also time to weed (isn’t it always?) and to add mulch to keep soil moist and weeds down.
If you’ve never done it before, get a soil test. A test kit costs $9.00 from the county offices of the Penn State Cooperative Extension. They’re also available from your local garden center. The Cooperative Extension will analyze your soil and give you lime and fertilizer recommendations so you can amend as necessary. Remember: healthy soil is the best way to keep your plants pest free. Which brings us to:
Now is the time to work your soil to ensure it remains loose and also a good time to add compost, which you can buy at any garden center if you don’t have a compost pile of your own. This will help your current plants and prepare for new flowers or shrubs you may want to add in the fall. Be sure to stay away from plant roots.
It’s also time to weed (isn’t it always?) and to add mulch to keep soil moist and weeds down.
If you’ve never done it before, get a soil test. A test kit costs $9.00 from the county offices of the Penn State Cooperative Extension. They’re also available from your local garden center. The Cooperative Extension will analyze your soil and give you lime and fertilizer recommendations so you can amend as necessary. Remember: healthy soil is the best way to keep your plants pest free. Which brings us to:
Pest Control
There are many means to keep pests out of your garden, but I prefer organic, non-pesticide methods. Here are a few to get you started.
Attract predators who will eat your pests: Install a birdbath (preferably with flowing water to keep the mosquito population down). Birds will happily snack on insects all day long.
Make your own anti-aphid spray: Use 1 tablespoon of pure castile soap (which is made from vegetable oil, not animal fat, e.g., coconut, olive oil, etc.) to one gallon of water and spray on aphid-ridden plants.
Don’t kill good garden bugs: Make sure you know what it is before you kill it – some insects are very important to your garden’s growth (bees) and others will eat the real pests (ladybugs, spiders).
There are many means to keep pests out of your garden, but I prefer organic, non-pesticide methods. Here are a few to get you started.
Attract predators who will eat your pests: Install a birdbath (preferably with flowing water to keep the mosquito population down). Birds will happily snack on insects all day long.
Make your own anti-aphid spray: Use 1 tablespoon of pure castile soap (which is made from vegetable oil, not animal fat, e.g., coconut, olive oil, etc.) to one gallon of water and spray on aphid-ridden plants.
Don’t kill good garden bugs: Make sure you know what it is before you kill it – some insects are very important to your garden’s growth (bees) and others will eat the real pests (ladybugs, spiders).
Pruning and Thinning and Watering, Oh My!
Take a look around your garden and thin seedlings to ensure that the rest of your plants have room to grow. But! Don’t just throw them out – plant those seedlings in their own containers in case you need to fill in bare spots where other plants have died.
Prune back any spring flowering shrubs now, and don’t forget to deadhead spent flowers to ensure new flower production all through the season.
Make sure to water early in the morning and deeply to reduce plant disease problems.
The last thing I urge you to do this summer is to take your houseplants outside and give them a little vacation from the stuffy inside air, they’ll thank you for it.
Take a look around your garden and thin seedlings to ensure that the rest of your plants have room to grow. But! Don’t just throw them out – plant those seedlings in their own containers in case you need to fill in bare spots where other plants have died.
Prune back any spring flowering shrubs now, and don’t forget to deadhead spent flowers to ensure new flower production all through the season.
Make sure to water early in the morning and deeply to reduce plant disease problems.
The last thing I urge you to do this summer is to take your houseplants outside and give them a little vacation from the stuffy inside air, they’ll thank you for it.
1 comments:
I'm slightly against thinning seedlings. Maybe that's because I'm a pack-rat by heart. I like to just plant seeds in those little plastic greenhouses you can get from the store, then transplant them out to the garden. I plant 1 seed per each peat pot, then save the rest of the seeds for replanting any pots that didn't germinate, or use them for next year's garden. At least ... that's the plan. This is only my first year gardening, so I'm going to see how well that's going to work!
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