By Jennifer Fairfield
(Publisher’s note: This is part one of a two-part column. The second part will publish tomorrow.)
Take advantage of the slightly cooler weather to get lots of things done in your garden this month.
In the vegetable garden:
I don’t know what to say about the rain situation around here. We’ve been going from torrential downpours to hot, dry spells, and back again. It makes it hard to decide what and when to water. However, the forecast for the next week or two shows the temps staying somewhat high, with no rain of any significance in sight, so keep watering your gardens.
Anything you have planted recently, like lettuce, radishes, carrots, spinach, etc., will need sufficient water to grow and produce before the real cold weather sets in. And it’s still not too late to get a few more plantings in, if you want to extend your season. Leaf lettuces, radishes, and spinach all do well in cooler weather, and don’t need a lot of time to produce. But get them in soon, so they can produce for as long as possible.
Don’t stop harvesting your summer crops yet – zucchini, cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, beans, and herbs should still be going strong (if they haven’t been hit too hard by diseases). Pick them frequently, so you get the fruits at the peak of flavor, and to encourage the plants to keep producing as long as the weather stays warm.
Tomato plants are probably still putting out new flowers, but flowers that are just forming now are not going to have time to mature before we get our first frosts, and leaving them on means that your plants are spending unnecessary energy on growing those, when they really should be using all their energy to mature and ripen the fruit that is already there.
So, pinch off flowers that are just now coming on – except on cherry tomato plants, as those can probably still ripen new fruits for a little longer. By about mid-month, you might even want to remove any small tomatoes that are on plants, as they aren’t going to have time to mature before frost hits, and it’s better for your harvest to not waste the plant’s energy on them.
Pull any plants that have finished producing and compost them, if they are not diseased. Throw out or burn any plants that are showing signs of disease, as it’s not likely that composting them will kill off diseases over winter, and you could just be re-introducing those diseases to your garden next year when you add your compost to the garden in the spring.
If your plants are showing signs of disease, but haven’t fully succumbed, regular spraying of fungicide can help slow down the progression of disease and extend your harvest. If you are seeing significant disease on some of your plants (my tomatoes have pretty much given in to early blight this year, following all the rain we got earlier in the season), it is probably time to pull the plants and resign yourself to waiting until next year to try again.
Be sure to get all the debris, including as much of the root system as you can, so that you aren’t chancing leaving the disease in your garden for next year. Also be sure to remove weeds from the garden. Some of the diseases that impact our garden plants can overwinter on weeds from the same family, such as jimsonweed and horsenettle, which are in the same family as tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, and potatoes.
Flowers, Shrubs, and Trees:
I know some of you are ready to toss your summer flowers, and I can’t blame you. It’s been hard to keep them from just frying in the heat. Some of mine are ready to go, while others are doing just fine, so I’ll probably leave some and replace others with the fall plants that we are starting to get in today, including mums, asters, ornamental cabbages, and pansies. All of these will give you a good show of color well into the cool fall weather.
If you have tender summer-blooming bulbs, such as begonias, dahlias, and gladiolas that you want to save for next year, they can be dug up and stored over the winter. After their foliage has died back, dig them up, gently clean them off, let them dry out, and then store them in a cool, dark, dry place for the winter.
Cover them with peat, straw, or other dry, loose (this is one good use for packing peanuts) to keep them dry and let air circulate around them.
Divide perennials this month. Plants that have outgrown their space or are starting to fade in the center are prime candidates for digging up and moving or dividing. If you end up with plants you don’t have space for, give them away to friends. That’s what I will be doing later this month with some of mine – a friend will be coming over to help dig them up and taking them home with her.
It’s a win-win for both of us – I get my flower beds cleaned up, and she gets more flowers for the native prairie she is working to spread on her property.
September is also a great time to plant new perennials, trees, and shrubs, but do so early so that the plants have time to get their roots established before cold weather sets in. Also, be sure to water newly planted trees and shrubs consistently all the way up until the ground freezes. This will give them the best chance of survival through the winter.
And, if we get a warm spell in the winter, and the ground isn’t frozen for a little bit, water them again then. Keeping them well-watered for the first two or three years of their life on your property is key to a long life, which, considering how much you generally pay for trees and shrubs, is a good thing.
Are you seeing webs of worms or caterpillars on your trees right now? Fall webworms, like the tent worms that show up in the spring, spin a web of silk that the worms feed inside of – webworm webs are found on leaves and the ends of branches, while tent worms spin their webs in branch junctions. The web protects them from predators as the worms feed.
While I generally tell people not to worry too much about webworms – because, though they are unsightly, they don’t generally do a lot of damage – if you have young trees with few branches and leaves, the damage can be significant, so it’s not a bad idea to try to at least reduce their numbers.
The easiest thing to do is to break open the web with a stick or rake and let the birds and predatory insects at them. A strong blast of water can be effective for branches you can’t reach. The only organic insecticide that works on these guys is Bt (Bacillus thuringiensis). However, Bt kills any kind of caterpillar, including those of monarchs and other beauties we like, so I only recommend using it if you absolutely have to, and then very carefully – avoid overspray and spraying near plants that other caterpillars might be on.
Be sure to clean weeds out of your flower beds before they go to seed. Weeds that are left to go to seed now mean you’ll have even more weeds to pull next spring.
Fall-planted bulbs that bloom in spring, such as daffodils, tulips, alliums, and crocus can be planted around the end of the month or in early October. The ideal time to plant them is after we’ve had a few light frosts, but before the ground is frozen.
Add bone meal or fertilizer specifically made for bulbs to the planting hole at the time of planting to help encourage root growth. We are hoping to have bulbs start arriving in the store soon, depending on a number of factors. One of those factors is when the ships actually make it to the U.S.A., which has been a challenge for lots of things this year, and bulbs aren’t any different, as most of them come from Europe.
Keep an eye on our website and Facebook page – I’ll post there when they come in. Or, if there is something you want to be sure to get your hands on early, let us know, and we can put you on our list of people to call when they arrive.
If you put house plants outside for the summer, treat them with a pesticide meant for indoor plants before bringing them back inside.
(Part two of this column will publish on Saturday.)
