Last week I wrote about working on my bearded iris to address the iris borer issue. I lifted the entire clump of each variety and found borers in just one of the three, and that clump had just a few of the rhizomes affected. I found three of the critters, and they are ugly. Getting to that task as soon as I discovered the symptoms of spots on the leaves hopefully eliminated the other borers before they made it down through the leaves into the tuber. So now the leaves are cut back and they are replanted.
If you have the perennial nepta, commonly called cat mint, it is time for a haircut. Nepta is one of the first perennials to bloom, and its small blue flowers put on a long-lasting display. Those stems now are covered with gray expired flower heads that will mature to seed heads, and if you don’t shear them off, you have the potential for lots more neptas … maybe not such a good thing. Also, cutting off the old flowers gives the plant a fresh look and will encourage a great bloom season going into fall.
I’m harvesting a lot of tomatoes, and they are looking great and tasting wonderful. We have not had rain for a couple of weeks, and this hot, dry weather can be hard on tomatoes because they have a very shallow root system. That’s one of the reasons I stress the importance of mulching them. My plants get watered once a week in this weather, and that keeps them happy. Letting tomatoes get extremely dry encourages blossom end rot, and that’s one of the most frustrating dilemmas of ripening fruit. The tomato looks fine on top but the bottom of the fruit is black and rotten. Blossom end rot most frequently is caused by irregular soil moisture, but it can also be a symptom of calcium deficiency.
If this problem is ongoing in your garden, you can remedy the deficiency by putting a quarter cup of powdered milk in the hole when you initially plant the tomatoes. I also grind up eggshells in the blender, soak the powder in water for a few hours and then apply it around the base of the plants. I’m not a fan of using much fertilizer for tomatoes unless your soil is poor. Excess fertilization produces enormous, happy plants at the expense of fruit production.
I just finished planting my fall crop of kohlrabi, Chinese cabbage, and Romaine lettuce, so rain would be a great help to get those little plants growing happily. Again, I mulch with grass clippings immediately after planting to shade the ground and conserve moisture ... and then I still water every other day ... it gives me something to do.