By Jennifer Fairfield, owner the Garden Mill
(Publisher’s note: This is the first of two parts of this column. The second part will publish tomorrow.)
Every time I think I have seen it all with regard to Michigan weather, I am proven wrong.
We all know that the weather in Michigan can be… choose your adjective – changeable? unpredictable? frustrating? interesting? challenging? – whatever word you use to describe it under normal circumstances, I have to say that last month pretty much took the cake.
It was 80 degrees on May 2. We had freeze warnings mid-month. It got to almost 90 last Tuesday. And just because it could, we had overnight lows around 40 for the last two nights. Oh yeah – and it snowed somewhere in there, too.
Fortunately, I haven’t had the time to plant my basil yet, so I didn’t have to worry about it getting hit by the low temperatures the last couple of nights – basil doesn’t like it below 50 degrees, and the last two nights would have seriously challenged the basil, had I managed to plant it already. I guess being too busy sometimes has its benefits.
Along with getting basil planted, there are lots of things to do this month.
In the veggie garden:
Finish up planting all of your summer veggies as soon as possible. This includes tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, squash, cucumbers, and herbs. Waiting much longer will mean fighting mother nature at the end of the season to end up with a good harvest for all your hard work.
You can still plant some seeds, including carrots, bush beans, dill, and cilantro for about another two weeks. Be sure to read the package information about how long each variety you are planting needs to mature. Figuring that our first frost usually hits around Oct. 5, you can determine how late you can plant things and still hope to get a good harvest.
For anything that needs support, be sure to get stakes or cages in at the time you plant so that you don’t damage roots later. Be sure to mulch them at the time of planting, too. Mulch does a number of great things for your plants – it keeps the soil temperature consistent, suppresses weeds, helps retain moisture, and helps prevent soil-borne diseases from spreading to your plants.
Make a plan to spray tomatoes, cucumbers, and squash with an organic fungicide regularly, throughout the season. Begin as soon as you get the plants in the ground, and follow the manufacturer’s instructions for frequency (usually weekly). The last couple of years, we have had lots of disease pressure including blight, powdery mildew, and downy mildew, which can only be prevented, not cured.
Spraying on a weekly basis can help prevent the diseases from getting started, as can making sure to space your plants properly. Good airflow through the garden helps things dry out in between rains, which helps keep spores from growing. If you’re not sure what sort of fungicide to use on your plants, come talk to me – I’m happy to make recommendations.
Weeding is an important part of keeping your plants healthy and producing, even if it’s not everyone’s favorite chore. Weeds compete for water and nutrients, and they can also be disease carriers. Doing a little weeding every time you’re in the garden can make it seem a little less tedious, and getting weeds before they get too big is so much easier than waiting until they are towering over everything.
Be sure to immediately and thoroughly water anything you plant, and make sure the soil is kept moist where you sow seeds. Newly transplanted plants aren’t as efficient at taking up water as those that have been in the ground for a time, and can easily get dried out. Seeds also need moisture in order to germinate, so be sure to give the whole garden a good drink whenever we aren’t getting sufficient
rain.
Cabbage and broccoli can be started at the end of the month for fall harvest. Plant seeds directly into the garden, or start them indoors and transplant the seedlings into your garden by late August. They’ll be ready to eat by late September or early October. To protect these cool-weather loving plants from the heat of summer, try planting them in a shady part of your garden or in the shade of other plants, or use shade covers to keep them cool.
In the flower garden:
Plant summer-blooming bulbs if you haven’t already. This includes dahlias, gladiolus, lilies, begonias and canna lilies.
Wait to trim back the foliage of your spring blooming bulbs, such as daffodils, tulips and alliums, until the foliage has died completely. Although you may be tempted to trim them sooner to tidy up, leaving the foliage will help the bulb use the sun’s energy to feed itself for next year’s blooms.
June is prime planting time for perennials and annuals, but be sure to water them in well when you plant them, and keep them well-watered throughout the season.
Perennials will be spending the summer putting out lots of roots so that they can be well-established when winter hits. Those roots need good watering in order to grow well, and new roots aren’t as efficient at taking up water as established roots.
Annuals, on the other hand, will spend the season putting on a show – they know they won’t make it past this season, so they concentrate on creating seeds, which generally come from flowers, so you end up with lots of flowers. Keep them deadheaded, and they will just keep on producing more flowers in an attempt to produce seeds.
Just remember that all that flower production needs water, as well as some fertilizer every now-and-then. Use a low-nitrogen, high-phosphorus fertilizer to get the best flower production. Too much nitrogen can produce lots of foliage, but not a lot of flowers, and can cause some plants to get leggy and flop over.
The secret to keeping your container plantings blooming all summer long is to keep them fed and watered. As containers fill up with roots, they don’t hold water very well, so you need to be sure to keep them watered. And, since the plants are in a container, they can’t get their nutrients from the soil around them, unless you provide it.
Just be careful not to over-water or over-fertilize, especially with chemical fertilizers. Too much of a chemical fertilizer can “burn” your plants – a sure way to kill them. Too much water will drown them.
Keep an eye out for pests in your garden, and get them before there are so many that they overwhelm your plants. Be sure to identify who is doing the damage before you reach for the insecticide though – the right solution depends on the pest – and be careful when spraying any kind of insecticide around flowering plants, as insecticides of any kind can be harmful to bees and other pollinators.
It’s best to target your spraying to the actual pest you are trying to rid your plants of, and do it in the evening, when bees and butterflies are generally not as active.
