It is July and our Home Depot #VamosAHacerlo Project has come to an end. If you followed us on social media you saw the evolution of our front yard project from beginning to end, if you don’t, you can read our Home Depot halfway point recap and our tips on using recycle materials in your garden here. Our Home Depot #VamosAHacerlo project was both fun and informative, our local Home Depot store staff was amazing at providing us with knowledgeable information on updating our garden look, as well as selecting the plants we wanted to include as our final garden touches.
As you can see from the images above our garden went from an abandon & forgotten area to a cleaned, simple & peaceful area. We decided to add a sitting area to our garden to provide us a place to sit and read during the cool afternoons. We also added a few potted plans to infuse green into our garden, one of my favorite additions to our garden is our three cacti, representing our three little ones. I want to thank the Home Depot and my local Home Depot staff for helping us revive our forgotten front yard, based on everything we learned during our garden project, I written a few tips on maintaining your garden during the summer months.
Tips on Maintaining Your Garden During Summer!
Despite most of the plants and vegetables thrive in full sun; searing temperatures can cause scorching in many gardens. As a result, many plants can be set back during a sweltering summer months and heat waves. Damages caused due to these waves are burnt leaves, soil-moisture evaporation and many others. However, the simple way to combat the effect of heat is to protect your garden against it.
Try these tips to help them beat the dog days of summer:
Use Row Cover or Shade Cloth: Draping row covers or shade cloth over plants will help protecting garden from high temperatures. Not only from the sun, they do protect crops from pests, wind, frost and other unfavorable conditions.
Grow Tall Grass: Keep your garden grass at least 3” to as high as 6” tall during summers. This is because their long leaf blades will help shielding soil from sun thus retaining its moisture content. Having tall grasses also cast longer shadows and will keep the garden space cooler.
Water Early: Adequate water is required to maintain normal growth of plants during hot months and to keep plant roots hydrated. Water early in the morning to prevent heat scald and for this, use drip irrigation or soaker hoses instead of sprinklers. You can also pour water directly near the root area through bottles or cans to provide them just the right amount. Watering early also discourages slugs and many fungal diseases. Also remember to water deeply once in a day and not to overdo it.
Don’t Prune or Prune Less: Despite pruning helps in stimulating growth, avoid or do it less during a hot summer months or during a heat wave. Limit it only to dead, rotted or decayed parts of the plant as they are the perfect candidates of the pruning process. To carry out this technique, use a disinfected blade as new cuts are most sensitive to pests. Moreover, prune your crops before sweltering temperature sets in.
Do Mulching: Mulch not only acts as a natural substitute of fertilizers and herbicides but also helps to retain soil moisture by reducing rate of evaporation from the soil. Not only this, it provides the crops, essential nutrients and suppress weed growth. So, add at least 3″ of mulch around the plant soil to help it from drying out.
Don’t Mess up with Soil: Don’t disturb your soil during a heat wave as it will worsen the situation by releasing the trapped water. So, don’t stick to any activity such as planting, digging and weeding as they may disturb the soil. If you think there are some weeds are hindering the growth of your crop, don’t pull them out; just prune them.
Don’t fertilize: Avoid treating your crops with fertilizer at that time as plants become incapable of absorbing nutrients leaving the fertilizer on the surface level. Moreover, fertilization can cause a plant to enter a temporary dormant state thus slowing the growth rate. Wait for the weather to get normal and then start fertilizing the garden.
Increase the Windbreaks: Wind is an important factor that causes soil and plants to dry out. So, windbreak such as fence or a hedge should be constructed around the garden space to block the wind passage. If you are using a fence, make sure it allows some air movement, as without proper air circulation, your garden may turn into a heat trap.
Disclosure: A Home Depot gift card was supplied to help in the @HomeDepot #VamosAHacerlo Project. All opinions are 100% mine and not influenced by anything or anyone.