Tasks:
- Watering. Ease up on watering the tomatoes towards the end of the month to encourage the fruit to ripen.
- Continue to fertilize the annuals, vegetables, and roses bi-weekly.
- Harvest edibles as they become ready. Make salsa and homemade preserves with any surplus.
- Continue deadheading the roses and annual geraniums.
- Take cuttings of Hardy Fuchsias, Dogwood, Hydrangea, Ceanothus, and other perennials and shrubs.
- Divide Hardy Geraniums towards the end of the month, when temperatures are cooler.
- Water the Camellias and rhododendrons deeply a few times this month to encourage flower buds for next year.
Notes:
After a brief Summer hiatus, the pine needles start to drop in earnest by the middle of the month. If pine needles decomposed efficiently and were less acidic, I would use them in my compost heap, but they do not. Instead, I use them on the many pathways throughout the garden, and to line the edges of our driveway, keeping weeds in check. My trusty, zesty-orange Stihl hand-held blower and I force the needles, and later the leaves from deciduous trees, into some kind of order. This 15 minute activity in August will morph into a one hour weekly event before the leaf fall abates. And that’s just for keeping the driveway, deck and back lawn clear. More about this in September, October, November, December, and January!
In late July/early August, I like to take cuttings of a variety of perennials and shrubs to grow on in the nursery bed until the following Spring. Foolproof Hardy Fuchsias are a must, if only to feel successful when other cuttings fail. Ceanothus, Dogwood, Hydrangea, and Skimmia are all potential candidates. This year I’m going to layer some low-lying branches on some hydrangeas to propagate new plants. By many accounts, this is supposed to be a sure-fire method. We shall see!
Towards the end of August in a normal Summer, I usually have some extra homegrown produce which I turn into sauces, chutneys, and other types of preserved food. No such luck this year (2010). I might get enough tomatillos for salsa verde but that’s it. Instead, I’ll pick my own veggies and fruit by the pound at West Union Gardens. It’s not quite the same as growing your own, but homemade sauces, even if you didn’t grow the produce yourself, are infinitely tastier than sauce from a store shelf.
