38June 10, 2015
The rain and cold weather we had early last week did have an effect on many plants in our gardens. If you look at your plants and you see white patches on the leaves of the plants, it was most likely caused by the combination of wind, rain and cold temperatures. Over the weekend, we had so many people come into the garden center with samples of leaves that had the white patches on the leaves. Any plants in the squash or cucumber family appear to be very hard hit. In some cases, the plants were actually killed by the combination of cold temperatures, windy conditions and excess rainfall. We have even seen the condition on tomato plants. The best thing you can do at this point is to replant the plants that died. If the plants have damaged leaves, make sure that you give your plants an application of fertilizer. This will help the plants to put out new leaves and to outgrow the damage caused by some extremely rare June weather conditions.
Even if your plants came through the cold and rain without any problems, you should give your plants an application of fertilizer. The rain will have leached much of the fertilizer out of the soil. Applying fertilizer now to your gardens and container plants will help the plants to get growing again.
Insects in all shapes and sizes hit the gardens pretty hard in the last week. As soon as you get a chance, check your plants for any signs of insect damage. It is much easier to control insects in the early stages of an infestation.
The rainy weather also saw an increase in the number of slugs feeding on plants. Slugs generally only feed at night. With the cloudy and rainy weather we had early last week, slugs were able to feed all day and all night. An application of slug bait applied now around your susceptible plants will knock back the slug population before the slugs get out of hand.
Many lawns benefited from all the rain that we received last week. The lawns have greened up and the sound of lawn mowers was pretty common this past weekend. Due to the prolonged drought we had, it would be a good idea to apply some lawn fertilizer to your lawn. The moisture in the soil will stimulate new growth but only some fertilizer can help to sustain that growth.
The question that came up a lot this past weekend was “ Is it too late to put in vegetable plants? “ The answer is no, it is not too late to plant your vegetables. If you are putting in plants, you should be fine. If you are starting seeds on long season vegetables, think watermelon, yes it may be on the edge of getting those long season crops to grow from seed. You should also remember that you could put in many crops from seed later into the season. In July, you would have time to put in more bean seed. In August, you can plant another crop of peas, lettuce, beets and other greens. If you have open space in your garden or if you pull up a crop that has finished its growth, don’t think that you can’t put in something to fill that space.
Well, that’s all for this week. I’ll talk to you again next week.