Gardening: Keep garden happy with fertilizer, water and weeding

It’s been a long , cool spring. Perfect weather for our gardens to come in lush and green. In my garden, many of the plants grew bigger than I’d ever seen. Maybe it was the fertilizer, maybe it was the strategic showers we got or a combination of the two. Regardless, there is beauty everywhere.

Spring hasn’t been without its challenges, though. Vegetable gardeners were challenged getting seeds to germinate and warm season crops to grow. While the weather said plant, in many cases, the soil was still too cold for root growth. Many gardeners have had to replant beans, corn, cukes and squash a couple of times.

With spring over and the weather warming up, it’s time to plan for the rest of the summer.

Now is a good time to fertilize vegetable crops, deck pots, hanging baskets and annuals. They need the nutrients to support their now vigorous growth. Whatever fertilizer you use, be sure to read the directions as to how much to apply in the different settings. If you use slow-release fertilizers like Osmacote, remember they only start releasing their elements when the soil reaches 70 degrees.

If you had seed crop failure, there is still a short window to replant beans, corn, squash, cukes and basil so they will ripen before the end of September. Interestingly, now is really the best time to plant basil seeds or plants as they are very sensitive to cold weather and soil. If it’s too cold, the plants will turn yellow and just sit there sulking. Recovery from this condition is iffy.

As to the rest of the garden, weather prognosticators are all over the map as to what is going to happen the rest of the summer. El Nino hot and dry conditions have officially set in. We’ve been in drought conditions for several years and we have already experienced the consequences of that with the Upriver fire.

Check your sprinkler systems for leaks, broken or misaligned heads. Check your system’s run time settings. It is better to run a system for a longer period and less often than short daily applications. This allows water to soak deeper into the ground where the roots are. Check drip systems for plugged heads and broken lines. Some critters have a penchant for chewing through the small tubes to get at the water.

Hold off fertilizing lawns until early September. Once it gets hot, bluegrass lawns go dormant and won’t use the nutrients. Fescue lawns don’t need the nutrients at all.

Most weeds are starting to flower, so now is a good time to do a major weeding to catch them before they go to seed. Lay down mulch over the areas you weed to keep them from coming back. If you use herbicides, either conventional or organic, read the label carefully about the preferred application temperature. In most cases, don’t apply them if the daytime temperature is going to get into the high 80s and 90s. At those temperatures, chemicals can vaporize and drift into nontarget plants.