PLANT • Plant the following vegetables no later than July 20 to allow time to mature before frost: tomatoes, peppers, okra, com, cucumbers, squash, snap beans, pole beans and lima beans. • Divide and reset Oriental poppies after flowering as the foliage dies. • Plant seed of marigolds, sunflowers and cosmos now for fall blooms. • Plant zinnia seed by July 4 for late blooms in annual border. • Later in the month, plant more basil for combining with those September tomatoes and dill for late pickles. • Replace dead annuals with hardy annual or perennial newcomers.
FERTILIZE • Apply no fertilizers to trees and shrubs after July 4. Fertilizing late may cause lush growth susceptible to winter kill. • Fertilize all container plants frequently because daily watering leaches out nutrients pretty quickly. • Give all tomato and pepper plants and potted flowers a drink of fish emulsion, according to label instruction. • Spread a couple of inches of compost over asparagus beds. Remember to keep the soil moist. • Fertilize zoysia lawns now with a 26-4-12 lawn fertilizer. • Check azaleas and camellias for iron chlorosis (pale green leaves, darker green veins). If necessary, use copper or iron chelate to correct iron deficiency.
PRUNE • Clip the flower stalks off garlic. Once the leaves have turned brown, garlic can be harvested. • Cut back about three quarters of the new growth on thyme plants regularly throughout the summer. • Perennials that have finished blooming should be deadheaded. Keep deadheading spent annual flowers for continued blooms. • Don't pinch mums and asters after mid-July or you may delay flowering. • Prune climbing roses and rambler roses after bloom. • Always be on the lookout for dead, damaged, diseased wood in trees and shrubs and prune as discovered. Summer pruning of shade trees can be done now.
July 2020 56
Cooperative Farming News
