Dry and hot weather this week means we need to keep watering. If your plants are looking droopy, be sure to give them a drink!
Kitchen Gardens
In fruit and vegetable gardens, we’re
- • finishing the switch from spring cool-weather crops to summer hot-weather ones. Radishes, peas, and early lettuces are pretty much done.
- • cutting peas off at the soil line as they finish producing.
- • hilling potatoes and training beans up their supports.
- • harvesting new potatoes. Once your potato blooms, some tiny spuds are ready for harvesting.
- • succession sowing beans, corn, carrots, edamame, and cucumbers.
- • pruning our tomatoes and training them up their supports.
- • mulching our kitchen gardens. Straw, newspaper, or hardwood mulch will all conserve moisture while keeping weeds down.
- • cutting back herbs. For the most intense flavor, don’t allow your herbs to flower. An occasional shearing keeps them compact.
- • watering, watering, watering. Anything we eat the fruits of–strawberries, tomatoes, peppers, melons, etc.–benefits from regular watering.
- • weeding.
- • turning the compost heap.
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These 'Cancun' Asiatic lilies are blooming this week!
Ornamental Gardens
In other parts of the garden, we’re
- • weeding and watering.
- • finishing up planting of container-grown shrubs, trees, and perennials. It will soon be a bit too hot and dry to give your new plants optimal conditions.
- • mulching. Use 2″ to 4″ of mulch, and be sure to keep mulch away from plant stems and trunks.
- • watering pots at least once a day. For really lush flower pots, fertilize every couple of weeks with a gentle, water-soluble organic fertilizer, like compost tea or worm castings.
- • shearing back spent perennials for a fresh flush of growth. Catmint, salvias, and hardy geraniums all respond well to a haircut after they finish blooming.
- • cutting down spent daisies and daylilies. Instead of trying to deadhead daylilies, just cut them to the ground. You’ll get a a fresh, green plant instead of the half-brown foliage common to daylilies this time of year.
- • watching for butterflies!
- • we’re passing on mowing this week, as it has been so dry. If your lawn needs mowing, be sure to set your mower at 3″. Drought-stressed lawn has a hard time recovering from a too-short cut.
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