Time to reap the rewards of gardening. Lie back, suitable refreshment at hand – and plan for another year. Whatever chores are taken in hand, the best time is early in the day. Not too early, however. Allow the foliage to dry from overnight dew, irrigation or precipitation. Brushing past and through wet foliage is an excellent way to spread fungal diseases.
Weeding and watering are the main preoccupations for the gardener this month. Pay special attention to containers. They can dry out amazingly fast under warm, windy conditions. A 10-inch-diameter hanging basket might have been soaked earlier but by late afternoon will be showing signs of distress.
Yet another continuing occupation is deadheading or removing spent blooms to encourage further flowering. This is especially important in perennials such as phlox. Left to their own devices, they will happily reseed themselves but in doing so revert to the old, mildew-prone muddy pink forms. When the entire flower stalk has finished flowering, cut back to ground level.
August is also a good month to cut flowers and grasses for drying. A simple way is to bundle the stalks tight with elastic bands and hang in the garage or other low-light area for a few days. Grasses are best preserved following drying with a few spritzes of hair spray.
Diversion No. 1
While organic agriculture is big in China, concerns about food safety and quality are starting to arise, reveals Sarah Elton in Maclean’s magazine. China has a rapidly grown organic export industry, she reports. Today, Canadians eat a wide range of organic produce from China. The country provides one-third of all green peas we eat, both conventional and organic, and much of our apple juice and garlic. But “people are getting more educated about food in general,” says one contractor who this summer turned back to Ontario to source organic vegetables.
Lawn seed is invariably peddled at the wrong time of year for assured success. Grass grows best in cool weather. Young, recently emerged grass is particularly prone to burning under a strong sun. Hence, as we progress into the warm days but cooler nights of August and September, this is the preferred time to sow grass seed.
Prepare properly by rigorously raking the bare soil. Sow quality seed lightly – you get what you pay for in the world of turf. Press down with the foot but do not add any additional soil since this will likely introduce yet more weeds. Lightly water at least daily for the following four weeks.
But do you really need to reseed bare patches? If less than a foot (30-centimetres) in diameter, with proper maintenance the surrounding grass will spread in of its own accord. Water well every three days if there have been no heavy rains and adjust the mower so it leaves the grass at least two inches (five centimetres) long. Those that insist on cutting to golf green levels are known amongst the professional turf fraternity as “scalpers.” It is not a term of endearment.
Diversion No. 2
Mosquitoes are 15 per cent more likely to fly towards humans after they have consumed beer, says researchers at IRD Research Centre in Montpelier, France. The team of scientists tested their theory on 2,500 Anopheles gambiae mosquitoes in Burkina Faso, West Africa and published their findings recently in the online journal PLoS ONE.
Down on the home farm it is harvest time. But don’t be too quick to bring it to an end. For some strange reason, many feel the urge to rip out those tomatoes, peppers and other plants that have sustained them so well over the past few weeks. Truth is, the season is far from ended and will likely continue over most parts of the vegetable culturing country until close to Thanksgiving, perhaps even later should the gardening gods will it.
The secret, if such there exists, is to continue to water generously. By the end of the month, there is little point to applying yet more fertilizer however, even to those gluttons of the Solanaceae tribe, tomatoes. Weeding though is required – when isn’t it? As well keep an eye out for late would-be sharers in the feast and not just insects. Squirrels, raccoons, even deer in urban areas just love to indulge free handouts. Check out our item below, ‘Nothing Runs Like a Raccoon.’
Diversion No. 3
Susan Doukas used to have a garden on top of her 14th Street loft in New York City; when the landlord built two stories above her, he gave her the use of the studio roof behind her building, reports the perhaps aptly named Penelope Green for The New York Times.
Will the brown marmorated stinkbug (Halyomorpha halys) turn up in Ontario? Another Asian invader, first detected in Pennsylvania in the late 1990s it is now found in 26 states and is expected to continue to colonize new territory, warned experts Jennifer Llewellyn and Hannah Fraser earlier this year in Horticulture Review. The brown marmorated stinkbug is bad news, report the duo. These stinkbugs have an extremely wide host range, they say. Indeed it almost seems safer to inquire what is does not attack. Ornamentals, vegetables, fruit – all are on the menu of this obnoxious little pest. Worst yet, for the commercial growers there is no satisfactory chemical control; also at present there seems nothing the home gardener can resort to. And yes, they live up to their name, emitting one powerful pong.
Diversion No. 4
It’s not an apple a day after all: it’s strawberries. Flavonoids could represent two-fisted assault on diabetes and nervous system disorders, writes Science Daily. A recent study from scientists at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies suggests that a strawberry a day (or more accurately 37 of them) could keep not just one doctor away but a whole fleet of them, including the neurologist, the endocrinologist, and maybe even the oncologist.
Fungi, as with other lower forms of life – bacteria, protozoans, politicians – are to be found everywhere. Even in your dishwasher we now learn, thanks to a study appearing in the journal Fungal Biology. And like much microbial life it is far from benign. So horrified was Lewis Page of The Register that he was inspired to warn “that the deadly toadstool-esque kitchen triffid yeast creature has already become almost unkillable and may soon mutate into frightful blobominations able to launch out their deadly spore to ‘colonize’ unwary humans with horrific consequences.” A trifle overly exaggerated perhaps but even one researcher has noted that she now washes her dishes by hand.
And finally, just how hot and dry has it been across much of the country? From Toronto comes the story of a tree pulling up its roots and chasing after a dog . . .
