Tips
Take advantage of the wilting heat to fiddle with crisp stems that are prone to breakage: tie up floppy dahlias, unravel wayward bean and morning glory vines, tuck tomato branches back where they belong in the trellis. At midday these plants are limp and easy to work with – assuming you’re not so limp yourself you can’t bear to be out there.
This is about last call to cut back repeat-blooming roses – new growth needs quite a while to toughen up before freezing weather. But cutting them back is well worth doing ; by now a lot of the old foliage is bound to be freckled with blackspot or turned to lace by the Japanese beetles. Removing it instantly makes things look better, and it usually results in a good flush of fall bloom.
Even when it’s too hot to work, it’s not too hot to write, and the notes you take now will come in mighty handy when it’s seed and plant order time. Which tomatoes are ripening soonest? Which ones are fighting off the blight? Is there a rose that doesn’t appeal to our little brown and green pals? Which daylily is covered with buds, its blooming days still to come? You might think you will remember this stuff, but the chances are you won’t.
Dahlias always make larger flowers – with longer cutting stems – if you disbud them, and as they swing into high gear in late summer this small attention can really pay off. Just use your fingernails or a manicure scissors to remove the small side buds that form under each large one.
Summer squash should be starting heavy production long about now, so it’s time to start lifting those leaves. Neglected fruits don’t just grow tough and watery, they tell the plant – by their maturing seeds – that it’s okay to quit making more.
So the squash mantra is always “keep them picked to keep them coming ” … but don’t try to get ahead by picking them too soon. Zucchini looks cute when it’s finger sized, topped with a stiff, unopened flower, but it doesn’t taste like much at that stage. Ideal harvest time for zucchinis – and crooknecks, straightnecks, pattypans and cousas – is shortly after the flower opens ( shortly being defined as anywhere from an hour or so to 3 days).
In very hot weather, plants wilt at midday even when they aren’t thirsty, but if yours seem to be slow reviving , look pale, or show other signs of stress, that stress may be dry soil. Don’t be deceived by a damp top layer, dig down 3 or 4 inches to check. When watering is indicated, be sure to do it at ground level or use the sprinkler early in the day. Wet leaves and humid nights are a justly famous recipe for the spread of fungus disease.
If the weeds have gotten ahead of you, the best thing to do is admit it. Then take a grass shears and chop off the flowers – or seedheads, as the case may be. Pile the cuttings in deep shade, where they can decay – or sprout and THEN decay – without causing further problems. The living weeds will rebloom before long, but this does give you some breathing room – and it’s far and away the most efficient use of limited weeding time. The results don’t LOOK as tidy as getting some small corner nicely weed-free, but the payoff in future weed prevention is far larger.
Early bush beans should be slacking off soon. You can just let them peter out, but after all the work it took to prepare the bed, it’s nice to do something else with it. If you have pole beans coming along, might as well cut off the bean plants at ground level and plant some greens (try to leave the bean roots in place to nourish the soil).
If you don’t have more beans on the way, cut the plants down to about 5 inches tall. Water well, then feed with a mixture of fish emulsion and liquid seaweed. In about 2 weeks they’ll be back to full size and ready to make a second crop.
