Gardening – The Last Months Of Summer
The beginning of August signals the rapidly approaching end of summer and the beginning of autumn. There are a lot of things going on during this time of the year and, for gardeners, there is a lot of work yet to be done. Between getting the kids ready for the school year and keeping up with a busy social calendar it can be easy to neglect your garden, but it is important that you give your garden the attention it deserves during the last hot months of summer.
The most important thing to do is to ensure your garden gets plenty of water. This is always important, but it is even more so at this time of the year because gardens can quickly dry out. It is best done either at the start of the day or at the end of the day, and regular watering should continue until the autumn season begins. If you are taking a vacation and do not have an irrigation system, you should ask a friend or neighbor to keep up on your watering for you.
Another important step is to deadhead certain flowers in your garden. Once a flower starts to turn brown and wither you should cut off the spent flowers. This will help more flowers reproduce, prolonging their flowering season.
If you have a vegetable garden, this is the time to begin harvesting any fruits and vegetables that you are growing. Harvesting should be done at this time of the year, but it is all too easy to put it off for a few more weeks. The problem with waiting is that your crop’s quality could be poor, or the entire crop could be ruined, particularly if the weather rapidly deteriorates.
As the autumn months approach us, it is also time to start thinking about next year. This is the perfect time to replenish your soil with green manures. When autumn arrives you can start planting bulbs for next year’s spring flowers. This is also the time to start thinking about what vegetables you want to grow next year and to start cutting back or splitting up some perennials, in the hope that they will produce more flowers next year.
As you can see, even though the end of summer is approaching, there are still quite a few tasks to be completed, but the effort you put in now will be worth it for many years to come.
