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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.
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. If the mulch is too coarse, rub it between your hands to break it into much smaller pieces, using gloves if needed, so it fits nicely between your new transplants. This will also help keep birds from taking dust baths and disturbing your plants. Pull weeds as they emerge.
Check your compost pile. If it is very dry add some water periodically to keep it moist during very dry weather.
Flowers
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
If you count back 2-months before the first frost, in most areas August is the month to plant cool weather vegetables. Lettuce, Swiss chard, kale, spinach and collards are popular choices.
If you want to plant garlic this fall, you will need to buy the garlic that is suited for your growing area. Usually, you will not find garlic in the big box stores or your full-service garden centers. You can find them online. There are more than 300-varieties with some of the purple ones being popular.
Check your garden daily. Cucumbers, eggplant, peppers, tomatoes, summer squash and zucchini should be picked when they are ready. This helps push the plants into producing more.
Check your potatoes, when they are past flowering and the vines begin to turn brown, it is time to carefully dig them up.
Shrubs
This is also a good time to do a final pruning of spring blooming shrubs. Pruning about 8-weeks before the first frost allows new growth to harden off and to be able to withstand hard freezes so you will have flowers next year.
Timely Quotes:
“August brings into sharp focus and a furious boil everything I've been listening to in the late spring and summer.” - Henry Rollins
"August is the border between summer and autumn; it is the most beautiful month I know." Sylvia Plath
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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