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Late Summer Landscape Tips

Thanks for these tips goes to the UMass Extension Garden Calendar!!

Lawn

A lawn is really thousands if not millions of individual plants.  Lawn imageWe say it agin here in our post “time to for lawn care”.

  • Spread thyme seed where grass struggles to survive due to coarse, dry soil.
  • Keep weeding, some annual weeds can produce over 200,000 seeds per plant.
  • Properly identify lawn weeds before selecting treatment. Ward’s provides books and can help you look things up!
  • By late August, prepare soil for seeding a new lawn. Test and amend soil with lime. Weed and rake soil surface to prevent plant competition and to ease seed germination. Prepare soil for sodding in the same manner. Reseed bare spots in lawns.
  • Use a blend of Kentucky bluegrass varieties for a high quality lawn and avoid seed mixes that contain annual ryegrass.
  • Test soil for acidity. Fall is a good time to incorporate limestone into soil.
  • Aerate and dethatch lawns if needed, then apply fertilizer.
  • Complete seeding of new lawns by the first day of Autumn—Sept. 22!

Flowers & Vegetables

  • Preserve plum tomatoes by roasting them on an oiled baking sheet for two hours at 275 degrees F. Try sautéing them with rosemary, basil, garlic and a pinch of salt & pepper for a spread/topping that keeps in the refrigerator for a month!
  • Continue to monitor the vegetable garden for corn borers, cabbage worms, and tomato hornworms. Visit Ward’s if you find them to discuss the best treatment.
  • Harvest onions, shallots and garlic when their leavers are at least 50% brown.
  • Keep weeding! See above.
  • Remove diseased plants or plant parts from the garden as fast as they appear!
  • Sow spinach and leaf lettuce for fall harvest. Cover with row covers to hasten their growth. Apply a water soluble fertilizer to fall crops about a week after sowing.
  • Leave some green peppers on plants, allowing them to turn red before harvesting.
  • Sow arugula. The leaves love the cool fall temperatures – you may even have a fresh arugula salad for Thanksgiving!
  • Bring in summering Amaryllis bulbs- if you want blooms for the holidays, begin the dormant period by mid-August. Withhold water and move plant to a cool basement (where it will be around 55 degrees F). Allow the leaves and soil to dry. Trim leaves and wash off soil. After 8-10 weeks of cool storage, you should notice the tip of a new flower stalk emerging from the bulb.

Trees & Shrubs

  • Rake up and bury scab-infected apples and crabapples.
  • Water new plantings thoroughly to a depth of one inch once a week or (twice a week if dry) through November!

Your Garden in the Fall

Still-warm soil and relatively cool air temperatures promote healthy root growth in plants that return each year. Check out our Fall gardening tips.

Fall Articles

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