From Mélie’s Garden
When July and hot weather arrive, it is hard to keep up your motivation to garden. The beach and other activities are too seducing, but if you follow the simple July chore list below you will have a happy and healthy garden that will continue to grow well into the fall.
JULY CHORES:
Weed, weed, weed – weeds take lots of moisture away from the other plants. You can solarize them in particularly bad spots by putting down black plastic, weighed down with bricks, and the sun will cook the weeds under the plastic. This doesn’t look pretty, but it does do the trick for particularly pesky weeds in a couple of weeks.
Water – plants need a minimum of an inch of water per week, either from you or God! If you don’t have a rain gauge, it is a good idea to buy one.
Deadhead and cut back plants that have bloomed – often they will bloom again.
Prune roses, after they have flowered and fertilize with organic fertilizer. If you have black spot, treat the plants with a good fungicide or homemade one (2-3 Tbs. Baking Soda and 2Tbs. of liquid dish washing soap mixed with a gallon water) and spray every 7 – 10 days.
Cut back and feed container plants – they especially need food and water to continue to bloom and grow into the fall.
Mark perennials that need to be moved, but don’t move them until after August 15th. Make lists now of improvements you want to make for next year – even photograph a bed you think needs work, so you can remember what plants to buy in the spring if you can’t make those adjustments this fall.
Continue to plant vegetable seeds for crops to pick into the fall: bush beans, beets carrots, broccoli, lettuce, peas, radish, small summer squash, spinach, Swiss chard and turnips. Lettuce and spinach seeds won’t germinate if the soil is above 80 degrees, so plant those seeds a bit in the shade if you can.
