Dayton "Dirt" - June 4, 2010

While Memorial Day signals the commencement of summer, there are still 3 weeks left until the summer solstice.

With the long warm days, our gardens seem to grow wildly as compared with the slow start from the somewhat cold early May.

As I have said before, Memorial Day need not be the end of the vegetable garden planting as successive crops can be planted to keep the harvest going later in the summer and into fall.

An interesting book to read is American Intensive Gardening by the Poisson family as it describes the family’s trials and errors to create the most productive garden in the cooler New England climate of New Hampshire.

Be sure to keep an eye on trees and shrubs you planted early in spring.
Two simple rules are as follows:

1. Container grown plants – water twice weekly by soaking thoroughly. A good rule of thumb is that for every “gallon” of the container in which the plant was grown, give it at least that amount in gallons in any one watering.
2. Balled and burlapped trees and shrubs – soak thoroughly once weekly unless the plant is a Rhododendron or Azalea on of the family I which case the watering frequency is twice each week.

Remember that rainfall counts as watering only if you are sure that the rainy period resulted in one inch of rain or more in a 24 hour period.

Most importantly do bypass a softener when watering your plants if you have a well because most softeners use a sodium exchange type system which is not good for plants.

Although I don’t like hot weather, I still remember shoveling snow in February and I can tell you I don’t miss the snow shovel as this past winter was just a little tiring with the seemingly endless snow storms.

Happy Growing,
Tom