Summer Gardening Tasks

I am just getting ready to thin the fruit on the Peach and Apricot.
I am a little late but still can get the weight down on the limbs to avoid breakage. Looks like some propping with 2x4's is in order too.

Summer in the garden is an easy time. Just a bit of weeding and a lot of watering (or spot watering with the irrigation system).
If you have a vegetable garden or fruit trees then it is keeping up with the produce-yum.

Just a reminder to keep an eye on your fruiting plants- including vegetables to check for heavy areas and thin out the numbers. Citrus don't usually need this but if the limbs are long and leggy sometimes the branches on the citrus can break too.

The fruit trees that are in the most danger are peaches, apples, nectarines, persimmons and
apricots. Plums and pears self thin for the most part.
Heavy branches may need propping and I usually thin fruit down to be spaced evenly on the branches rather than in bunches. I want to be greedy and leave more but that has lead to breakage in the past.

Other garden tasks include: keeping up with snail bait and or patrol, dead heading (removing dead flower heads), deep watering trees (once per month in the summer and early fall) and
lawn fertilizing (and of course mowing!). For other parts of the garden use a slow release fertilizer that works for 6 months. I usually apply this in the spring and fall. Watch for yellowing or leaves that have green viens and yellow leaves. This is a sign of iron deficiency and the liquid iron or chelated iron formulas are best for this.

Enjoy the long,warm days and evenings. Keeping a nice garden and patio area really pays off in the summer!

Violet Agression

Heart shaped leaves. Lovely little dark purple flowers. Green
lushness. Who would have guessed such a nice ground cover would become a rampant pest. Well, I should have.

I didn't plant it and yet these wild violets have emerged and spread throughout the garden at an alarming rate. Beware!
Now I spend my evenings digging it out and plan to spray any
new shoots with Round-up. This is what it has come to.

I think this weed got past me by being so nice looking and I was further seduced by my Mothers exclamation of "oh look, violets!". She loves them but now I know the reason they call them "wild" violets.

So just a warning- don't let them go crazy in your garden or they will squeeze out all the nice plants that you have actually planted!