By Jennifer Fairfield, owner the Garden Mill
There are all kinds of things to do in the garden in August, especially watering:
I’m guessing you’re probably as tired as I am of dragging hoses, sprinklers, and watering cans around.
We finally got some relief, but mostly, we’ve just been getting quick little showers. Those little bits we got every now and then aren’t nearly enough. Everything needs at least an inch of water every week, and when the temps go really high, they need even more.
Mother Nature hasn’t been doing her part this year, so was up to us to make sure that everything stayed hydrated. This included our vegetable gardens, our flower beds, our trees, and our shrubs – oh yeah, and all of our plants in containers.
Unless we keep seeing regular rains, if you haven’t been watering your trees, you should really consider doing so – even those that have been in the ground for a long time may be feeling the stress of the prolonged lack of rain at this point.
You may not see that stress right away – it may even take a year or two to really show up – but it will show up, and it could take a long time for your trees to recover, if they ever do. Providing a good drink on a regular basis until we start to get regular rains again could make all the difference to your trees.
Aside from watering …
Deadhead your annual flowers in beds and containers to ensure continuous blooms. Perennials that bloom at this time of year should also generally be deadheaded regularly.
Harvesting is the major activity of vegetable gardening in August. I love going out to my garden every morning to see what I might be able to have for dinner that night. Isn’t it amazing how zucchini can grow from just a tiny little fruit to a baseball bat seemingly overnight?
Be sure to stay on top of picking at this time. Many of your vegetable plants, including zucchini, cucumbers, and beans will stop producing if you don’t keep harvesting.
August is also the time to put some “succession” plants in your veggie garden. Beets, radishes, lettuces, spinach, Swiss chard, kale, and peas all can be planted in August for harvest into the early fall.
Take a look at the seed packet for the “days to maturity” to determine how late you can plant and still harvest before frost (and some things, like kale, are even better after a light frost). To figure out your safe planting timeframe, just count backward from your average first date of frost (usually early October for our area, but you can get detailed information for your zip code here).
So, if your packet says that the days to maturity is 45 and it takes 5 to 10 days to germinate, then you need to make sure that you have your seeds in by about Aug. 10.
The lack of rain this summer has not been an entirely bad thing for gardeners. Mostly, we have not had as much disease pressure as we often do at this point, because many of the diseases we generally deal with need moisture to get going. However, high humidity and heavy dews can also allow these diseases to get going, and high heat and low humidity are good for other diseases.
In other words, don’t get complacent. Treat your garden with fungicide on a regular basis to prevent diseases. It’s best to take a proactive approach to keep diseases from destroying your plants before you can get a good harvest. If you’re already seeing signs of problems, but you’re not sure what, exactly, you’re dealing with, Cornell University has a really good website that can help. Good Housekeeping’s article on disease is a very good basic guide as well. Once you know what you’re dealing with you can decide on the best option for controlling it.
What’s bugging your garden these days? In my gardens, Japanese beetles are really driving me nuts – I spend a portion of every day dunking them in a bucket of soapy water in an effort to minimize the damage they are trying to do to the showy tick trefoil and rose mallow that appear to be their favorite things in my flower beds this year.
The other issue I’ve had to deal with is a plague of aphids on my asters. I didn’t realize they were there until there were a whole lot of them, and they’ve really done some damage. Grasshoppers, cabbage worms, and slugs are the biggest issues in the veggie garden. I’ve also seen a few squash bugs and cucumber beetles recently.
Controlling them is important, not just because they eat your hard work, but because they also transmit infection from diseased plants they’ve visited to your otherwise healthy plants. There are a number of options available for pest control, including some organic choices that are very effective.
The thing to keep in mind is that, if you are using any kind of product to kill insects, you also run the risk of killing bees. So, target your spraying carefully – don’t spray so much that it is dripping off plants, and don’t spray when it’s breezy – and avoid spraying when bees are around.
Keep your birdbaths cleaned out and filled – the lack of water affects the birds in our area as much as our plants. Your birdbath may be the only nearby source of water for them when it’s dry.
Same thing goes for your hummingbird feeders – keep them clean and filled so as not to promote bacteria, and to provide food and water for the hummers.
August Featured Product
Tree Watering Bags – This summer has been especially dry in the Chelsea area. With so little rain, it’s been hard to keep up with all the watering our gardens have needed.
Even more challenging are trees that have been planted recently. Newly planted trees need to be watered regularly because their roots aren’t able to take up enough water from the soil until they are established. This is true even in a normal summer, but it becomes more of an issue when we have the kind of summer we’ve had so far this year.
The Arbor Day Foundation says you should water new trees “generously” every 7 to 10 days during dry weather. To make sure that the water gets to your tree’s roots, it should be applied slowly, allowing it to soak into the soil, rather than running off. But who wants to stand there with a hose on a trickle, making sure that the water goes where you need it to?
That’s where tree watering bags come in. Zip one up around the trunk of your tree, fill it up, and then walk away. The water will seep out slowly, over a few hours, into the ground around your tree’s roots – right where the tree needs it. You don’t need to do anything more for another week to 10 days.
There are also low donut-shaped watering bags that can fit under shrubs. These things can literally be lifesavers – for your trees and shrubs.
