July Gardening Advice for Manchester – 2015

by Jennifer Fairfield

Editor’s Note: Manchester resident, Jennifer Fairfield, owns and operates the Garden Mill in Chelsea, serves on the Manchester Community Garden Committee, and volunteers with the school gardens at Klager and the MECC.

Rain, rain go away! How many of us have been singing that song lately? I know I have been! Yes, June tends to be one of the rainiest months of the year, but this was just plain silly – we had almost double our average rainfall for the month. It makes it hard to get much done outdoors, and there is so much that needs to get done, since all the rain is making everything grow like crazy (including the mushrooms growing in the tree line of my front yard)! I guess I shouldn’t complain too much though. Come August, I’m going to miss all that rain! Well, maybe not all of it.

I have been trying to work on removing a large part of my lawn and replacing it with flower beds this spring, but the rain has made that challenging. First, it made it impossible to get the equipment into the yard to remove the existing grass and some dead trees without destroying the grass we did want to save. When that finally got done, I couldn’t get soil delivered because the soil was too wet to be screened. The soil finally got delivered and then it rained another almost two inches on Saturday. In an effort to get the soil spread out on one of the beds before the next round of downpours they were predicting, we spent Sunday and part of Monday shoveling and raking all that wet, heavy soil. Then they changed their minds about the rain. It figures!

If you don’t have ten yards of heavy, wet soil to shovel and rake, there are some other things you might want to do this month in your garden and yard.


In the veggie garden:

• All this rain is setting up conditions to be great for a lot of potential issues in the vegetable garden, so be sure to keep up a regular schedule of spraying with your favorite organic fungicide. One problem we seem all but guaranteed to deal with this year is cucumber downy mildew (which can show up in cantaloupe, pumpkin, squash and watermelon as well). In a normal year, we don’t see it here in Michigan until much later in the season. According to the MSU Extension, it’s already here this year, and it could take out the crops of both home and commercial gardeners very quickly. So treat your plants now, and keep treating them weekly. We have two different options in the store for this problem – Serenade Garden Disease Control and Earth-Tone Garden Fungicide from Espoma. I only recommend the Espoma product, which contains copper, as a sort of “last resort” because it can have some negative effects if used too much. If you haven’t seen any sign of disease yet, start with a weekly application of Serenade, as a preventative. This is the same product I’ve been recommending for preventative treatment on tomatoes. In my garden, all of my tomatoes, squashes and cucumbers have been getting a weekly application from the minute they went into the ground, and I have reapplied it after some of the heavy rains, since it can get washed off. If you are already seeing early signs of disease, copper-based products like the Espoma Garden Fungicide are the only organic product likely to have any chance.

• One key to preventing the spread of disease in your garden is to not do too much when everything is wet. You can easily transport disease from one plant to another with your tools, hands, and anything else that comes in contact with the plants, such as gloves or clothing. When things are wet, it’s much easier for casual contact to result in a disease hitching a ride. Reducing the amount of time you spend in the garden when it’s wet will help reduce the chances of your being the cause of the spread of disease. Whenever you are in the garden, be sure to clean your tools in between plants. I keep a bottle of rubbing alcohol handy for this purpose. I give my pruners and sheers a quick wipe with an alcohol-soaked rag after doing any trimming or harvesting with them, before I move onto another plant.

• If you have plants that look like they are wilting, and you’re asking yourself how it could be possible that they aren’t getting enough water these days, the answer is probably that they are getting too much! Phytophthora root rot is a fungus that can affect many plants, including cucumbers, squash, tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, blueberries, strawberries, raspberries, clematis, lilies, sedum, and many trees and shrubs (this is not a complete list!). The fungus needs water to spread, so this is likely going to be a bad year for this disease in our gardens. The key to keeping this disease at bay is good drainage. That’s hard in the best of circumstances this year, and at this point, there isn’t a lot you can do about it now. Trying to do anything to change your drainage now could cause damage to the roots of your plants. You can take note of drainage issues though, and work to correct them for next season. If you are seeing signs of Phytpthora root rot, the best thing you can do is pull the plants that are affected so that you lessen the chances of it spreading to other plants. There are really no treatments that have proven effective once this disease infects your plants. Plan to plant in a different area for a couple of years until the fungus dies out for lack of a host (though there is some question as to how effective that might be, since the disease is apparently very long-lived). You can plant other things that aren’t affected by this disease, such as corn, in the meantime.

• The rain is really making all the weeds happy though! It’s a real challenge to keep on top of weeds right now, but it’s necessary, because they can get out of control quickly.  Weeds are another way some diseases get spread to your garden plants, so keeping them out can only help in the fight against disease.

• Slugs are also loving all this rain – and the earwigs aren’t too upset either! Both of these creatures don’t like the hot sun, so cool rainy days are right up their alley. Normally, they only come out at night, but when it’s a dreary rainy day, they can be feeding all day long. If you’re finding lots of ragged holes in your plants, and you’re not seeing any insects on them, chances are good that one of these creatures is to blame. If you take a look under hiding places, such as mulch, you might actually see them – if you care to. My favorite solution for these guys is Espoma’s Bug and Slug Control. A little bit sprinkled around the base of the plants where you’re seeing damage is often all it takes.

• As your vegetable plants start to set fruit, it’s time to fertilize or “side dress” them. This will give the plants a little extra boost when they need it most. By this time, the plants have used up most of the available nutrition in your garden.  Providing a little more fertilizer at this point will help your garden produce more. Don’t just sprinkle it on top, though – carefully work it into the top inch or so of soil. Fertilizer left on top of the soil often will just wash away before it can break down and be useful to the plant. Don’t get any closer than about four inches from the stem of the plant, both to prevent damaging the roots and because you want the food to be available to the new root growth as the plant is growing and putting out more roots.

• If you are growing tomatoes, do you prune them? Did you know that was even a thing? Pruning your tomato plants  can help promote airflow, which can help deter disease. Pruning also helps deter insects, and promotes larger fruit growth. If you’re not familiar with the concept, you can read up on the techniques here.
• What are you picking in your veggie garden these days? I’ve been picking lots of lettuce, herbs, sugar snap peas, radishes and beets. Some of my other crops that would normally be producing by now are a little behind because I was a little behind getting them in. But I am seeing flowers on my cucumbers, peppers and tomatoes, so it won’t be too long, now! My beans are starting to reach for the sky, too. I can’t wait to pick the first ones and eat them right off the vine! July is also a good time to plant things in your vegetable garden in order to extend your harvest.  Direct sow lettuce, spinach, peas, beets, carrots, and Swiss chard at the end of the month, to be ready for picking before it gets too cold.

In the flower garden:

• In your flower gardens, give your plants a little fertilizer boost now too. They’re busy putting on a good show for you, and that takes a lot of energy, so help them out with some added nutrition. Fertilize flowers in containers weekly, and don’t forget about watering them if they are placed where they aren’t getting the rain.

• Deadheading is also key to keeping a lot of your plants flowering. If you let the spent flowers go to seed, many plants will stop producing flowers and work on maturing the seeds. While that may help the plant produce offspring, it doesn’t help you if your goal is more flowers this year. Deadheading is important for most annuals and perennials.

• Make note of plants that are looking leggy or are showing signs of thinning at the center. This is an indication that you need to do some dividing. Dividing should be done when the plants are not in bloom, so wait until after they have finished blooming, but be sure to divide and replant before it gets too cold for the plant to recuperate.

• If your taller plants, such as lilies, glads, and dahlias are flopping over, they may need support. There are a number of options, but these days I’m in love with the Y-stakes we have at the store. They come in a variety of heights and are super-flexible so that they can be bent to almost any shape to help keep plants upright. I’ve got some perennial salvia that is getting a little overgrown (definitely a candidate for dividing this fall), but the Y-stakes came to the rescue! One of the best things about them is that they disappear in the foliage so they aren’t even noticeable(if you look closely at this picture, you might see them!), and don’t distract from the beauty of the plants.

• Just because we got a lot of rain in June, doesn’t mean we can forget about watering the rest of the summer. It would be nice if it worked that way, but it doesn’t. So, keep an eye on rainfall amounts, and be prepared to water if we are getting less than an inch of rain each week. And don’t rely on the weather forecasters for rainfall totals. Your yard may not be getting the same rain as the location they report. A rain gauge in your yard is the only way to be sure of the amount of precipitation your gardens are getting!

Lawn:

• With all the rain, it’s been hard to keep up with mowing. Remember to only take off the top third of the grass blades each time you mow. Mowing off more than that causes the grass to put more energy into growing leaf than into growing roots, which stresses the roots, and therefore the entire plant. It’s better to mow more frequently than to cut off too much all at once. That’s easier said than done when it rains constantly, though!

• Try not to walk on the lawn too much or use heavy equipment when it’s really wet. Doing so can compact the soil, especially if you have heavy clay soil as most of us in SE Michigan do. Compacted soil makes it hard for the roots of your grass to get the air they need, which can kill the grass (or any plant).

• Also remember to keep your grass cut to no lower than 3 inches. This helps to suppress weeds in the grass, and helps provide shade to the roots during the hot sunny days we know are coming.

For the birds:

• Lots of birds are busy with their second broods now. I have a bluebird momma who is currently not happy with me because I’ve been doing a lot of yard work a little too close to the house where her babies are. I keep apologizing to her, but she seems unimpressed. She does still manage to bring them food on a regular basis though, so I’m not too worried. I also just realized that I have a bird I have not yet identified tending a nest in a dwarf juniper near my front door. It’s a great shrub to have a nest in because the needles are so dense that it’s almost impossible to see the nest. It took me a bit to find it, and I knew it had to be there – I didn’t figure she was going in and out just for fun. Luckily, we don’t use the front door much, so when they hatch, we won’t be disturbing them frequently.

• Keep any eye out for baby birds in your yard as they start to fledge. For the most part, there is nothing you need to do for them, except not hurt them as you go about your chores, like mowing. My brother and sister-in-law sent me the above picture of a baby robin they had found in their yard in New Jersey right after the wicked storms went through early last week. They were concerned it had been blown out of its nest or that the whole nest had been blown away. It turned out that momma was nearby, keeping an eye on him, as my brother learned when he went to try to scoop the little guy up into a shoe box to try to get it out of harm’s way (the neighborhood cats)! They left the little guy under the capable care of his parents, which is generally what you should do, as long as the baby isn’t in imminent danger. Get them out of the way of lawn equipment, or out of the middle of the road (or your store’s shed as I did yesterday!), if you find one there, but otherwise, as long as they are mature enough, they’ll be fine without your help. Here is a good article from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology that explains when and how to help a baby bird.

• Keep your feeders cleaned out and filled. Ditto for your birdbaths.

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by Sara Swanson

Sara Swanson is an editor, writer and founder of the Manchester Mirror.