Gardening Shorts

On By durhammastergardenersIn Garden events, PSA

Here are some gardening activities for the dog days of summer. These are the kind that may keep us out of the garden (and out of our gardening shorts), yet still keep gardening on our minds.

EXTENSION PROGRAMS

Extension’s Food and Consumer Sciences program offers free, 30-minute webinars on Wednesdays at 2 p.m. titled Gardening & Grub: A Weekly Chat About All Things Food. Extension Agent Cheralyn Berry discusses a new fruit or vegetable each week and talks about its cultivation, nutrition and cultural uses. Each topic is a delightful surprise – one week it was the banana tree, another week the lychee nut. Cheralyn also shares recipes and answers viewer questions. Connect: https://go.ncsu.edu/allthingsfood . If you miss it live, you can tune in at your convenience by visiting the Durham Cooperative Extension Facebook page; and clicking on “Videos.” 

Things are hot at the Briggs Avenue Community Garden! Hot as in growing chili peppers from around the world. “Everything from the original progenitor chili to the common sweet pepper to the spiciest pepper in the world is growing at Briggs right now,” says Cheralyn Berry. Stop by between 8 and 11 a.m. any Friday or Saturday for the next few weeks and receive a mini educational tour. The garden’s address is 1314 S. Briggs Avenue in Durham. For more information call 919-406-4606.

To help produce fun and food this summer, Extension’s 4H program offered Victory Garden Kits – priced at $20, but free to families in need of financial assistance, no questions asked. The summer kits were so popular that a fall kit is in the works. Learn more at: https://durham.ces.ncsu.edu/4-h-victory-gardens/

PHOTO CONTESTS

Do you take photos of your garden – LOL — Who doesn’t, right?! Well, two local organizations are interested in your photos: 

1) WPTF Weekend Gardener magazine is looking for a photo to grace the cover of their Fall issue (circulation 10,000). Act soon, deadline for submission is August 31. To participate and/or learn more: https://wptf.com/contests/weekend-gardener-magazine-cover-photo/ .  The photographer will receive credit in the magazine.

2) NC Botanical Garden in Chapel Hill is collecting submissions for a Community Photo Exhibit. You can submit up to five photos of native wildflowers. The photos could have been taken anywhere in the state of North Carolina. Deadline for submissions is October 1. They’ll share the photos in a digital gallery, and at the end of the year, they’ll display selected images in an exhibit in the DeBerry Gallery. To participate and/or learn more: https://ncbg.unc.edu/visit/exhibits/community-photo-exhibit/

DURHAM GARDEN FORUM – Monthly Lectures
Durham Garden Forum (DGF), a valuable resource for Durham residents and others in the Triangle area. Now entering its 11th year, the DGF holds lectures from 7 to 8:30 p.m. on the third Tuesday of each month. At present the lectures are presented online via Zoom. To receive a meeting invitation, send your request to durhamgardenforum@gmail.com. 

Here’s a peek at topics of upcoming lectures: 
– August 25, Beyond Daffodils and Tulips — a review of all geophytes, including bulbs, corms, tubers, rhizomes, and tuberous roots.
– September 15,  TreesDurham – a review of historical policies that have created today’s inequitable tree distribution in Durham.
– October 20, Hosta! Gardening with hosta, with a look at some of the newest varieties.

— A. Laine

August: To Do in the Garden

On By durhammastergardenersIn Gardening calendar

by Gary Crispell EMGV

Already it’s August! We must be having fun ‘cause the time sure is flying. It’s a good thing we’re supposed to be staying home mostly. I surely don’t have time to go anywhere. Nature abhors a vacuum and so, like most folks, I’ve found plenty to do without going anywhere.

I don’t know about your yard, but ours didn’t get a drop of rain from the first week in July until the 29th.  The Accidental Cottage Garden looks like an accident happened. It is sad. There are a few black-eyed susans (Rudbeckia fulgida) hanging on along with some coreopsis (C. lanceolata and C. verticilata). The butterfly weed (Asclepeis tuberosa) and a late blooming daylily (Hemerocalis x August Flame) are making an orange show and some blanket flowers (Galardia pulchella) are thumbing their noses at the droughty-ness.

We stuck some tomatoes in Earth Boxes in front of the kitchen window and they are very happy. Then there’s the basil … Last year we had three plants. (I like basil.) This year we have 10,378 – more or less.  Basil as a weed species is a novelty to me!

Anyway, here are a few things you can do in your garden when the heat index is not in the stratosphere.

Lawn Care
– Check the lawn for grubs.  If you find some, treat with an appropriate insecticide. If you do not find any be grateful and put the sprayer away.
– Late in the month prepare any areas that need to be seeded with cool season grass (tall fescue, bluegrass).

Fertilizing
– Give your strawberries a shot of nitrogen fertilizer.
– DO NOT fertilize trees or shrubbery until December.

Planting
– Sow pansy seeds this month in flats, indoors, to transplant to the landscape in September.
– Perennial seeds, such as hollyhock (Alcea rosea), larkspur (Delphinium) and Stokes aster (Stokesia Laevis) can be sown now, outdoors, for healthy plants in the spring.
– Repot more house plants.
– Plant a fall garden with beets, Chinese cabbage, cucumbers, kale, kohlrabi, lettuce, mustard, radish, rutabaga, squash & turnips.

Pruning
Nada! Nope. Don’t. No pruning of trees or shrubs until November. In case of hurricane damage disregard the above admonition.

Spraying
– Same stuff as last month. Look for spider mites on coniferous evergreens (juniper, arborvitae, etc.) and lace bugs on azaleas and pyracantha.
– Continue rose spray program and weekly spraying of fruit trees and bunch grapes.
– Watch for worms on cruciferous vegetables (broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower) and borers on squash.  Spray only if necessary. Follow the label instructions.

Propagation
You may still take cuttings of shrubs.

More things to do if you just can’t get enough of the August heat:

  • Read our Tomato Grafting Project page and up your game for next year’s tomato crop.
  • Make sure your Landscape Plan is up to date especially if you plan to modify the landscape this fall.
  • Keep running up the water bill when the August thunderstorms skip your house.
  • Build a compost bin.
  • Dig Irish potatoes.
  • Stay cool and hydrated.
  • Wear your mask and wash your hands.

September and October will soon be at hand and we can do all those things in relative comfort.

Additional Extension Resources

How to make a meadow:
https://extension.umd.edu/hgic/topics/how-make-meadow

Maintaining quality turf:
https://content.ces.ncsu.edu/carolina-lawns

Plant a fall vegetable garden:
https://chatham.ces.ncsu.edu/2015/08/plant-a-fall-garden/

Propagation by stem cuttings
https://content.ces.ncsu.edu/plant-propagation-by-stem-cuttings-instructions-for-the-home-gardener

Landscape planning and design:
https://content.ces.ncsu.edu/extension-gardener-handbook/19-landscape-design#section_heading_6143

How to build a compost bin
https://extension2.missouri.edu/g6957