School is closed this week for Spring Break, but I can’t help myself–I woke up thinking about you and your gardens. I want to make sure you’re prepared for the higher-than-normal heat ahead.
There are two main risks to our gardens during the heat wave:
Cool-season vegetables and herbs bolting
Temperature and water stress for all plants, especially anything newly-planted
Your focus should be on maintaining even soil moisture. Water your flower, vegetable and perennial gardens deeply in the morning. (Watering in the evening encourages diseases like powdery mildew and early blight.)
Make sure that everything is mulched deeply. Don’t mulch where you have any ungerminated seeds (keep those areas damp at all times, and wait to mulch around seedlings until they are 4-6 inches tall), but maintain a layer of mulch at least 3 inches deep throughout entire landscape.
If you are concerned about brassicas, lettuces, or cool-season herbs bolting, you can cover them with shade cloth or mist them in the middle of the day. I won’t be doing any of that. My focus is deep morning waterings. If anything of mine bolts, so be it.
Caring for turf:
I always follow sprinkler usage recommendations from waterisawesome.com. You can sign up for weekly emails that tell you how much to water your lawn. The website also provides instructions for how to “cycle and soak” (I will also teach you this in depth on April 8th). This is the only way to irrigate effectively.
So far this year, we haven’t had any reason to use sprinklers for grass or permanent landscape plantings. Most homeowners overuse sprinklers. Watching neighbors drown their lawns irritates me to no end.
Remember: There is no such thing as a “sprinkler schedule”.
You water in response to rainfall and temperature, NOT on a set cadence.
I’m waiting for the waterisawesome.com email to come out Monday with watering depth recommendations. Until then, my sprinklers will remain off, and I will hand water all vegetables, annual flowers, and newly-planted perennials.
Current drought conditions for our area are “D0: Abnormally Dry”, but grasses are still waking up and their water needs are lower than when fully filled out. I also delay watering turf in spring as long as possible to encourage deep root systems ahead of summer.
Native & Perennial Flower Gardens Sat, March 28, 10:00 am
Tomato babies have been patiently waiting to go in the ground. Behind, the Crossvine trellis in full bloom.
P.S. It's FINALLY time to plant tomatoes. You must get them in the ground before the end of April. They need as much time as possible to develop and fruit before high heat of summer arrives. If you started them indoors, they MUST be fully hardened off before planting. You can learn about the hardening off process in Trouble-Free Tomatoes, now available on-demand inside the class library.