Gardening In Summer Season Tips

Summer is coming and it may keep you worrying about your garden! Here are some of our top tips for gardening in the summer season so you can keep your flower gardens revitalised and your vegetable gardens in high production.

Tips For Gardening In Summer Season

Perennial gardens can start to look overgrown during mid-summer, annual flowers may begin to fade and bugs may also start munching on your harvests.

Here are some of our top tips for gardening in summer so you can keep your flower gardens revitalised and your vegetable gardens in high production.

• If your perennial plants are done blooming, trim them back to clean up the dead flower spikes then remove seed pods. This will help keep your garden looking at its best and make the flowers in bloom stand out more.
• Deadhead annual flowers to encourage more blooms and give your plants a boost. Just pinch off the faded flowers and seed pods and soon your garden will be covered with flowers again.
• Squash borers are common pests that usually show up during summer. You can check around the base of your squash vines for signs of borers. If you see holes in the vines, save the plant by digging out the squash borers and burying the vines with some dirt.
• Don’t be afraid to give your plants trim. Some annual plants may start to look a little bedraggled because of the heat. After giving them a haircut, they will look so much better.
• Trim all your herbs regularly so they produce longer.
• With a little planning, you can enjoy a bumper crop of some cool crops for fall and winter. Root crops like carrots are seeded in the summer, but the leafy greens will show by late August or early September.
• Looking for a weekend project? You can build a cold-frame within a day or two (depending on the materials you use).
• Just keep picking! Crops like pole beans and zucchini will stay high in production when you harvest regularly and don’t allow any fruits to overmature. If you find you’ve had so much of some harvests, you can always share excess crops with neighbours or your local food bank.
• Now that the weather is warmer, pull out spent cool-season crops like peas, broccoli, radish, and lettuce. Add two inches of compost or aged manure to the area and replant it with some late-season crops. Turnips, carrots, beets, and kale will be ready to harvest in fall.
• Harvest some new potatoes from under still-green potatoes by scooting aside the mulch and gently prying them out with a pitchfork. Leave the plants intact so it can produce more taters until it dies back in late summer. New potatoes have thinner skins and can be used in the kitchen after just a few days of harvest.
• Feed annuals and container plants with foliar fertiliser to boost its summer-blooming power. Fish emulsions, kelp and seaweed fertilisers are great for supplying nutrients to plants. Just continue to feed it every two weeks through late summer to keep it from blooming.

For more tips on how to care for your garden. Check out these articles!