Hey gardeners!
Mid-Summer is a good time to make sure you’re taking care of certain maintenance tasks with your garden. Some of those primary tasks to keep an eye on include: consistent watering, succession planting and dead-heading.
This monthly guide from Sow True seed suggests even more summer tasks for our growing zone, including planning for Fall, such as:
- Start seeds indoors for heading cole crops for your fall garden now.
- Direct sow radishes, carrots, beets, turnips, and kale in late July through August.
- Watch the leaves of your tomato plants for signs of leaf spot diseases.
- Continue monitoring for pests
- Garden flowers, whether annuals or perennials, benefit from “deadheading” after flowering. By removing the spent flower heads, energy is used to produce more flowers or foliage and roots. Many will produce another flush of blooms.
- Flowering requires lots of energy so it can be quite helpful to fertilize flowering annual plants with a balanced fertilizer once flowering begins. Fertilize one more time before the end of the season.
- Seeds can continue to be sown throughout July for late crops of beets, bush beans, carrots, Swiss chard, cucumbers, and summer squash. Cover with pre-moistened potting soil mix which will be less likely to crust and crack. To hold in the moisture, cover the rows with a very thin layer of mulch or floating row cover fabric.
For a few alternate sources and explanations of similar tasks, you can also check out this article from The Empress of Dirt, and this entry from The Joy Blog.
And for upcoming in-person learning opportunities, keep an eye on https://vinesgardens.org/events/.
