Late Summer Gardening

I love to garden. I love gardening more than many things in life. When I am in the garden, I am completely relaxed, even when doing the heaviest and most difficult of tasks.

I can never spend enough time in the garden, as there is always something to be done.

I also have seven children in the house, right now. As my wife and I are foster parents, we often have a full house. Currently, the ages of the children in our home range from days old to 15 years of age, and everything in between.

As my wife works full time in the summer, and I have much of it off as a teacher, the duties of child care fall on my shoulders during the day time. Diapers to change, babies to feed, laundry to do, children to read to, disputes to settle, and all that goes along with having children in the house.

So, my time in the garden of late has been much less than I would wish. Therefore, it is important that I prioritize my tasks according to the time I spend out there. To begin with, as we are in the Dog Days of Summer, I am waiting until the little ones are in bed. This is a win for me, as the temperatures are much cooler in late evening, thus I escape much of the brutal heat that is late summer in Georgia.

One of the major late summer chores a gardener can attend to is weeding. Your plants are in the ground and you have mulch surrounding the plants. The hard part is done. Weeds, though, can creep up slowly through the late Spring and early Summer, and before you know it, can overtake your flower bed, choking out even the strongest of your flowers.

A wise gardener is one who takes a walk through his garden each evening, and spends a few minutes here, a few minutes there, taking out weeds. If left unchecked until fall, the weeds very well may mature, and spread seeds throughout your garden, leaving you with a nightmare the following Spring.

Another major chore a gardener can attend to in late Summer is watering. With our dry and hot weather, plants are especially thirsty, crying out for a drink as their leaves wilt.

The best time to water is early in the morning, before the heat of the sun takes over. This will allow the plants to take in a deep drink of water with less evaporation from the sun. If your schedule does not allow early morning, than late evening is your second best time. I do a great deal of watering after 7 p.m. in the evening, after the little ones in my home have gone to bed for the night.

Finally, a great garden chore for this time of year is deadheading. Deadheading is simply cutting off the dead flower buds from those plants that have bloomed. This will not only allow your flowers to look nicer, it will also encourage new growth, and possibly give you new flowers before the season is out.

While walking through the garden in the evening, a wise gardener will not only weed, but will also spend a moment here and there, cutting off dead flower buds with a pair of garden scissors.

Even though we are in the hottest part of the year, there is still plenty of activities you can do in the garden, as long as you stay away from the heat. Enjoy!