At this point in summer, our potted “gardens” of flowers are developing marvelous color. In a couple of my pots, I have a plant or two that are becoming a bit aggressive about how much space they want, so I get my pruning shears and give them some needed discipline. That must be done to keep everything in balance and I will probably have to do the same a couple more times during the season.
In these planters, the plant roots have pretty much filled the pot searching out nutrients in the growing medium so let me remind you of the importance of feeding to keep the plants energy level as high as possible to promote that color we appreciate coming. Summer heat requires a lot of watering and if you don’t fertilize, nutrients leech out with water that drains from the pot and the plants quickly loose stamina and begin to look ragged. I fertilize about every third watering when I use the full recommended concentration of water soluble fertilizer.
My spinach has gone to seed and the plants are either dead or very close to that. I’ll just rake through the stems, thrashing out the seed and remove the old plants. The seed stays on the soil and will start growing in August if we have rain; if not, I’ll start watering to get it growing to get a great crop of spinach for fall.
To prevent slugs from eating holes in your hostas, keep applying slug bait. The bait pellets dissolve readily when it rains and the slugs just seem to keep coming. I have the same problem in my everbearing strawberries. That is not a problem until the fruit begins to ripen and then they become a major problem so I try to keep minimizing their population all through the growing season.
I’ve had people question me on how to train tomatoes … you can let them sprawl, you can stake them, or you can grow them in a tomato tower. Letting them sprawl will produce the most fruit, but I loose more fruit to insects and my big feet. Staked tomatoes are pruned to just one stem that is tied to a stake. This method will produce the largest and earliest tomatoes, but also the least quantity of fruit. If you choose to use tomato towers, you keep the branches confined to the rings of the tower.
This is my preferred method growing, but I find that as the plants get really large, they get really heavy so I tie the tower to a fence post so the wind doesn’t blow it over. If you have a problem with tomato blight, those sprawling plants are really hard to spray but staked or caged plants are much easier to work with and the tomato fruits are much easier to find and pick.