September 2018 gardening advice

Beans

by Jennifer Fairfield

So, it apparently wasn’t my imagination – we really did have a dry summer. At least, that’s what the National Drought Mitigation Center’s United States Drought Monitor report for Michigan says, and I guess they ought to know! According to these guys, the western part of Washtenaw County is experiencing “moderate drought” conditions. And we’re not alone – much of the lower peninsula is “abnormally dry,” or in “moderate drought” or “severe drought.” The weather prediction for the next two weeks is showing some good chances of rain by next weekend, but I’m not holding my breath – they’ve been saying that all summer, and most of the rain has just skipped right past my house. I’m not putting my hoses and sprinklers away just yet. 

Even though summer is winding down, there is still a lot to do in our yards and gardens this month.

In the vegetable garden:

• Keep watering your veggie garden. As long as you have plants producing, you need to make sure they are getting sufficient water – about an inch a week.
• Pull any plants that have finished producing and compost them. In their place, plant baby leaf lettuces, radishes, or spinach. You can even put in kale at this late date, as kale is pretty hardy and can handle some frost. It’s supposed to be pretty warm for the next few days, so be sure to cover the ground with some mulch and water frequently to help keep the soil temp down, as some of these won’t germinate as well super warm soil, and nothing will germinate in dry soil.
• Do not compost tomato plants or any other plants showing signs of disease, as composting is not guaranteed to kill many garden diseases. Toss them in the trash.
• If your tomato plants are still putting out new flowers, pinch them off by mid-month. Those flowers won’t mature into ripe tomatoes before we get our first frosts, and removing them helps your plants put all their energy into maturing the fruit that’s already there. I normally recommend doing this task early in the month, but I’m taking the chance that the weather people are correct in their prediction that we are in for a warmer-than-usual fall and winter. There is apparently going to be an El Nino this year, which gives us warmer (and wetter) than usual fall and winter weather. Which means we might not get our first frosts quite as early this year. And then again, we might. So, keep an eye on things, and be prepared to cover plants up at night late this month.
• Keep harvesting beans, summer squash, and cucumbers so that they will keep producing while we still have warm days. Winter squash should be ready to harvest this month as well. Even though it’s called winter squash, plants like butternut and acorn squash also can’t take frost, so really need to be harvested before frosts start hitting.
• Herbs should be producing really well now – my parsley and basil are huge! If you can’t use all the herbs your garden is producing right away, you can easily preserve them to use all winter long. Simply wash and dry them thoroughly, then chop them and put them into zipper bags, squeezing out all the air before putting them into the freezer. This doesn’t work well for basil though, so make pesto with your excess basil, and put it into ice cube trays and freeze it. Cover the pesto with a thin film of olive oil before freezing it to keep it from discoloring.
• You can also dry herb pretty easily. Simply hang them upside down in a dry area until they are completely dry. Then strip the leaves off and store them in a zipper bag or other airtight container.
• Continue to spray your tomatoes, peppers, squash, and cucumbers with fungicide. The heavy morning dew and warm days we are getting now perfect conditions for some of the diseases that plague vegetable gardens. Regular spraying of fungicide will help slow down the progression of disease and extend your harvest. I’m saying this from a position of experience. I have had one of those summers where I just haven’t been able to keep up with all of the spraying, and my garden has suffered because of it. My zucchini have powdery mildew, my cucumbers started showing signs of downy mildew a couple of weeks ago, and now are really suffering – and also now have powdery mildew! Some of my tomatoes have bacterial spot as well. So now it’s a race to have the fruits mature before the diseases kill the plants entirely. One way to try to help make that happen is to step up my spraying activity. I’ve also switched to copper fungicide, which has a better chance at holding the diseases down than any other organic options.

In the flower garden:

• If your annual flowers are starting to fade, pull them and replace them with mums, asters, or pansies for great fall color. We will have all of these in the store, beginning next week.
• Tender summer-blooming bulbs, such as begonias, dahlias, and gladiolas should be dug up after their foliage has died back. Clean and dry them, then store them in a cool, dark, dry place for the winter. Cover them with peat or straw (Styrofoam packing peanuts also work) to keep them dry and let air circulate around them.
• Don’t be in too much of a hurry to plant spring-blooming bulbs, such as daffodils, tulips, alliums, and crocus. The ideal time to plant them is after we’ve had a few light frosts, but before the ground is frozen. Adding bone meal at the time of planting can help encourage root growth. Bulbs will start arriving in the store in the next couple of weeks, depending on temperatures. If it’s still really warm, I may delay getting them in until it cools down a bit. Once they are in, you don’t want to wait too long to get yours though – the best ones go quick! If you get them before it’s cool enough to plant, you can store them in your refrigerator in a brown paper bag (to keep the light from encouraging them to grow). Just don’t store them near fruits and veggies.
• Divide perennials this month. Plants, like my catmint, 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.
• September is also a great time to plant new perennials. Many garden centers have sales at this time of year, so take advantage of them, but do so early so that the plants have time to get their roots established before cold weather sets in.
• Be sure to clean weeds out of your flower beds before they go to seed so as not to end up with even more weeds next spring!
• Before we get any signs of frost, bring house plants back in that you put outside Plant trees and shrubs now. As with perennial flowers, garden centers tend to put trees and shrubs on sale now, and you can get some great deals. Planting these in the fall gives them time to put down roots while we are usually getting good precipitation, so they are better established come next summer’s hot and dry conditions.
• for the summer. Be sure to spray them with a pesticide first, to keep from bringing in unwanted guests as well.

Trees & Shrubs:

• Whatever you plant, be sure to water it thoroughly from the time you plant up until the ground freezes. Until they really get established, the roots are not very good at taking water up from the soil, so you really need to keep them watered.
• Are you seeing webs of worms or caterpillars on your trees right now? These nasty little creatures are fall webworms. I came back from vacation last week to find a whole bunch of them on my young red bud tree, and I wasn’t happy! Because my tree is young, and doesn’t have a lot of branches and leaves yet, I don’t want to just let them have their fill. These guys, like the tent worms that show up in the spring, spin a web of silk that the worms feed inside of – webworms 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 webworms 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 – in the case of a young tree, 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. If the tree has enough branches that pruning won’t significantly impact shape and size, you can also prune the branches off and drown the worms by sticking the branch in a large bucket of soapy water. 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.

Lawn:

• September is the time to overseed bare patches in your lawn. Start by raking away any dead grass and roots, and then sprinkle some seed in. You can also add a little bit of top soil to give the seed a better chance to take hold. Don’t forget to cover the area lightly with a little mulch (straw works well) to keep moisture in. Keep the area well-watered. Once the grass starts to emerge, remove the mulch so the new grass doesn’t get smothered.
• Fertilize your lawn this month to encourage good root growth before winter. MSU Extension Service says that Labor Day Weekend is the perfect time for this chore.
• Consider de-thatching your lawn. This is something that most people don’t do, and maybe should, if they want a really good looking lawn. According to the MSU extension, “Thatch is the accumulation of dead and decomposing turf stems, leaves and roots intermixed with live plant roots.” Leaving clippings on your lawn is good for it, and does not have anything to do with thatch, though could be a contributing factor if you are cutting off too much grass at a time.
• Continue to mow, but raise the deck on your mower to a height of about 3.5 to 4 inches. Any shorter and your lawn won’t have the insulation it needs against the cold this winter. Much longer isn’t any better though, as it promotes something called snow mold disease, which will leave ugly bare patches in your lawn next spring.
• Rake up the leaves that fall and use them as mulch or add them to your compost pile. Leaves left lying on the lawn can also promote snow mold disease. Run over them with a mower to chop them up, as whole leaves tend to mat down and can suffocate the plants you are mulching or your compost. You can also mulch them into your lawn – it helps you use less fertilizer and reduces spring weeds.

Birds:

• Start feeding the birds again, if you stopped for the summer. Migrating birds will appreciate the additional food as they make their way to their winter habitat, and those who stick around will be able to build up fat reserves against the cold days and nights to come.
• Clean out bird houses that were used for nesting this summer. Some of your birds will use them for keeping warm at night during the winter.
• Keep birdbaths full – the birds are suffering from the lack of water as much as our plants are!
• Continue to fill your hummingbird feeders. You can help these flying jewels make their long journey to their winter homes in Central America by providing them with food now, when they are working to add body mass that they will turn into energy for all that flying. And since some of the birds actually spend their summers even farther north than SE Michigan, leaving your feeders out longer into the fall can help the ones who are migrating through here later. So leave them out well into October – just be sure to bring the feeders in at night if we are getting freezing temps.

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by Sara Swanson

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