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Timely Garden Tips
Timely Garden Tips
Farmers Market
Be sure to visit your local farmer’s market. If you want to plant garlic or potatoes next year, they may have some varieties you might want to grow. Keep checking each time you go.
Ask if they grew the garlic or potatoes and if it was locally grown. If so, then it should be alright for your growing area.
You will be planting the garlic this fall before the ground freezes and the potatoes you will store over the winter and plant in the spring. Try some of the blue or red varieties such as Adirondack Blue or Adirondack Red potatoes.
General
A natural mulch such as shredded leaves or pine straw can be placed around your flowers and vegetables. This will help prevent weed growth, improve soil texture and retain moisture in the soil. Pull weeds as they emerge.
Flowers
Did you purchase a flowering primrose back in January or February to brighten your home and still have it? Consider planting it in a part sun to dappled shady spot in your flower garden. It is a hardy perennial that will add some beautiful color in the early spring.
Check your local garden centers or mail order nurseries for plants to fill those empty spots in your flower garden. Plant some colorful summer annuals and perennials such as: agastache, bee balm, begonia, caladium, canna, coneflower, daisy, foxglove, hosta, marigold, rudbeckia and so much more.
Are some of your flower plants leaning in one direction because they need more sunlight? Place a marker at the base of the plant so that you will remember to move it to a better location in the fall. Make a note in your garden journal.
Vegetables
Check your cucumbers, yellow squash and zucchini daily and harvest when they are young and tender. An ideal time to harvest is when the cucumbers, squash and zucchini are 6 to 8-inches long and up to 2-inches in diameter.
After about 10-weeks of exposure to the sun and weather the waxy protective coating on the cucumber leaves wears off. This is about the time that powdery mildew becomes a problem and the cucumber plant starts to die off. Start another 3 or 4-cucumber plants now and you may be picking cucumbers right up until frost.
Continue to tie your tomatoes to the stakes. Be on the lookout for the tomato hornworm, which can do a lot of damage. If you see a tomato hornworm with many white capsules on it, you should leave it alone. The white capsules are the pupa of the parasitic wasp which has fed on the hornworm. It may move a little bit, but it is “essentially dead” and will not do any more damage. When the adult wasps emerge, they will hunt for other hornworms to parasitize.
If you did not place mulch around your vegetable plants, do it now to help control weeds from emerging. It will also keep the soil cooler and help retain moisture. Shredded leaves or pine straw are good natural choices.
Pests
Japanese beetles are a common problem in July. These iridescent green beetles attack and damage grape, hibiscus, roses, rose of Sharon, raspberry, viburnum, zinnia and many trees. After the Japanese beetles mate, the female lays her eggs in the soil. The eggs hatch into grubs that will feed on the roots of your lawn and other plants. A large infestation can kill large areas of your lawn.
Several things can be used to control Japanese beetles. Hand picking and soapy water is one method. Put warm water and dish soap in a container and holding the container under the beetle use something like a pencil, tap the leaf or flower. The natural defense of the beetle is to drop off to escape. In this case it will fall into the soapy water where it will die. Early mornings, while still cool, is a good time to catch the beetles.
A second method is using a good multi-purpose organic product that contains spinosad, such as Bonide Captain Jack’s DeadBug Brew. Spinosad is a natural soil bacterium that is used to control a wide variety of insect pests. Always read and follow the product instructions.
A third method is catching them in traps. It is important to place the traps far away from your plants that attract the beetles. The traps have a lure and a sex pheromone placed on the yellow vanes and a bag to collect the beetles as they fall. They do work, but skunks will tear the bags open and you will need to keep replacing the bags.
The Tanglefoot Japanese Beetle Xpando Trap Kit is a reusable trap, which uses pheromone and floral lures to attract both male and female beetles to control beetle populations without pesticides or harmful chemicals. The attached container catches the beetles and can be detached and emptied into a bucket of soapy water. If you raise chickens, they will eagerly eat the beetles. After the beetle cycle is over you can place the attractant in a sealed plastic bag or order new ones for next year. Clean the trap and put it away for next year, it will be good for many years and is worth the higher initial cost.
To control the Japanese beetle grubs in the soil a safe organic method is to use milky spore to kill them.
Cucumber beetles are a problem for plants in the cucurbit family which includes cucumbers, pumpkins, squash, watermelons and zucchini. They are easily identified by their yellow color and either black spots or black stripes. Controlling them can be done by hand picking, neem oil spray or using yellow sticky traps. Always read and follow the product instructions.
Diseases
Diseases such as downy and powdery mildew may start to become a problem. Scab, early and late blight, rust also start to show up. Again, a good multi-purpose organic product such as Bonide Captain Jack's Neem MAX can be used to help control these common garden problems. Always read and follow the product instructions.
Timely Quotes:
“The summer looks out from her brazen tower, through the flashing bars of July.” - Francis Thompson
“July is hot afternoons and sultry nights and mornings when it’s joy just to be alive.” – Hal Borland
Successful gardeners use the principle of working with nature to practice the easy, economical and environmental methods that can make gardening relaxing and rewarding.
Flowers that grow on spikes are a favorite among many gardeners. Coleus, foxglove, gladiolus, hyacinth, lavender, obedient plant, orchid and salvia are some common flowers that grow on spikes.
Are You a Gardener?
Many people do not think of themselves as gardeners. If you have a lawn, a few houseplants or grow some flowers and vegetables, you are a gardener.
It can range from beautifying your home to providing wholesome organic food for your family.
Gardening Can Be Easy and Relaxing
You might have just a few houseplants in containers on a window, patio or deck.
If you have more space it might be a small flower bed or a larger area to attract butterflies, hummingbirds and honey bees.
Some will concentrate on roses of every color and type. Others search for as many different varieties of flowers that they can find.
If you have a sunny location it could also be a few tomato plants in containers or a large area for vegetables and herbs that will feed the entire family with enough to preserve for the winter.
Keep It Simple
If you are new to gardening the secret is to keep it easy and start small. Each year you can expand your garden a little more. Your native soil may be very sandy or it may be heavy clay with a lot of rocks. For plants to grow properly you will need good garden soil by adding organic material to the native soil.
One year you may plant some flowers or shrubs along the front of your home. The next year add a flower bed along the driveway. And the year after that a flower bed around your mailbox or the tree in the front yard.
A vegetable garden works the same way. Plant what your family likes to eat. You may start with 100-square feet and plant half of it with tomatoes and the rest with lettuce, Swiss chard, parsley, dill and basil. These will supply you with fresh vegetables and herbs continuously during the summer.
Next year as you improve the soil you can expand your vegetable garden to include peas, beans, carrots, beets, zucchini, cucumbers, etc. By growing your own food you can be assured that your food is truly organic and free of pesticides.
It does not have to be a big project if you break it down into smaller easy to do steps. If you spend 10 or 15-minutes each day or every other day it never gets ahead of you.
Environment
Composting your yard and kitchen waste is also one small step. Composting is environmentally friendly and you will keep from adding to the landfills. Adding finished compost will also improve your soil and fertilize it at the same time. It is nature’s way of recycling.
Mulching around your plants with leaves collected in the fall will improve the soil and at the same time make your flower garden and vegetable garden almost entirely weed free.
Gardening Thought
“Earth is here so kind
That just tickle her
With a hoe and she
Laughs with a harvest”
- Douglas William Jerrold (1803-1857)
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