August Garden Activities:

¨ Check your garden at least once per week for signs of pest activity and decide if you need to apply any controls.  If you don’t know what the pest is bring a sample of insect, diseased leaves or damaged leaves into the Extension Office for identification.  Many people have started emailing digital pictures of pest problems.  You can email digital pictures to me at amiles@umext.maine.edu.

¨ Pull our weeds before they get a chance to set seed.  If you only have a short period of time to be in your garden pull out the largest weeds first.  They are the ones that will shed the most weed seeds.

¨ Annual flowers will benefit from regular applications of fertilizer during the summer. Also, dead heading flowers will maintain their flowering habit longer.

¨ Remember to plant seeds for succession crops in your vegetable garden: Lettuce, radish, spinach turnips & beets for greens.

¨ Cut back bleeding heart since they have finished flowering.

¨ Many flowers are in full bloom now including coneflower and phlox. Bring in a boutique to enjoy.

¨ Daylilies can be divided once they stop blooming.

¨ Prune out the raspberry canes from your regular season raspberries that had fruit this past month.  These canes are the second year growth and will die soon. Leave the primo canes that grew this year for next year’s harvest.  Plan to do this early next spring.

¨ Blueberry and early apple harvest is here.  If you didn’t grow these fruits consider going to a pick your own farm to harvest your own fresh fruit.

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