Gardening In LA
  • Home
  • About
  • Services
    • Garden Coaching
    • Speaking
    • Photography
    • Writing >
      • List of Articles
  • Blog
  • News
  • Monthly Tips
    • January
    • February
    • March
    • April
    • May
    • June
    • July
    • August
    • September
    • October
    • November
    • December
  • Events
    • Submit Your Garden Events
    • Botanical Gardens' and Other Organizations' Garden Events
  • Jobs
  • Web Links
  • Newsletter

Summer Gardening Slowdown

7/4/2020

2 Comments

 
Picture
Double Delight rose
Picture
Repotted succulents - about a quarter of my collection of differing colors, shapes, sizes and textures. If it's different that what I have, I want it!
Picture
Tomato planted in a basin between two 5-gallon nursery pots that release water a good foot down directly to the plant's root system - so it has no problem thriving during stretches of 95+ temperatures
Picture
Crookneck squash sown between 5-gallon nursery pots to supply water a good foot down directly to the root systems.
Picture
First figs from a rooted cutting from a friend's tree
Picture
Stella d'Oro mini daylily
Picture
August Pride peach
Picture
Hoya bloom
Picture
A different hoya's bloom
Picture
Parrot alstroemeria blooms now, much later than most other varieties in April and May
Picture
Brugsmania double white bloom - one inside the other
Picture
Iochroma coccinea
Picture
Rich burgundy color daylily
Picture
First amarcrinum bloom
Picture
Barbara Karnst bougainvillea continuously blooms
Picture
Praying Mantid just hanging out by the tomatoes
    With our 90+ degree days becoming more plentiful, paired with fewer inches of winter rains and more expensive water prices, I’ve reduced the amount of gardening I initiate during the summer.  
         Whereas I used to plant second or third batches of tomatoes and beans and cukes and squashes in late June, since our droughty weather for the last 6 or so years, I’ve given up adding anything new now that July is here.  
     The June-planted and sown veggies barely survived in the last several years, much less thrived.  And last year’s couple of 116-degree days wiped out several tomato plants and fruit trees, despite my heavy irrigating and mulching.      
     So what to do in the garden, especially now that I don’t thrive in the heat or bright sun anymore, so my gardening time is an hour or two after 6pm when the sun has crested the hill to my south, and my garden is in shade.  Very pleasant time to be outdoors! And this is just enough time to do any of a selection of activities before my arthritis decides that I’ve done enough for the evening.
 
     Here’re some of my projects.

Trimming Roses.
     The first flush of blooms has finished, so I've trimmed the long branches back to an out-facing leaf to encourage more new shoots and flowers to develop.
 
Repotting My Succulent Collection.  
     I’ve loved cleaning off root zones of old potting soil (saving it for the compost pile layers on top of the green stuff before layering the brown stuff), matching colors and textures and sizes with decorative pots that I’ve collected over the years, and placing them back on my sunny concrete growing area where I can enjoy them from my computer.
     As a side benefit, I’ve ended up with many babies that I’ve either included with the repotted mother plants or potted up separately for sharing later whenever we gardeners can gather again. 
     I must admit that this time around with repotting, I’ve gotten rid of almost all of the prickly ones – they’ve just grown too large to handle easily without getting stabbed, so I’ve passed them along to other gardeners.
     It’ll be another five years or so before the collection grows too much like a jungle again and so I’ll have to repot them.  In the meantime, the plants are enjoying their increased root space and new neighbors!  And I'm loving seeing them thrive and as each comes into bloom.
 
Watering Tomato Plants
     I water my tomatoes using two methods which keep plants happy even during a week or more of 95+ air temperatures before needing to be watered again:
1.  Directly into the sunken basin where they were planted so the water sinks directly down around the root system which grows straight down following the water.  I do have to pull out some of the soil mix that’s “melted” down next to the base of the plants every other time I water, to form a larger basin that will hold more water.  Even when this reveals some of the roots, the next watering will "melt" more of the soil to cover those roots.
​2.  Into the 5-gallon plastic nursery pots that are buried almost up to their rims, allowing the water to release out at the bottom into the soil a good foot down, directly to the root system.   
      While the hose is placed in the nursery pots, I use the couple of minutes that it takes to fill them with water to tuck tomato branches under the rungs of the tomato cages.  This is best done before watering, when the branches are somewhat limp and can be wrangled under the cage rungs.  If I attempt to do this the next day, when the plants are again turgid from the day-before’s watering, the branches tend to break more, especially when they're long and don't bend easily.
     And as of July 1, we’ve begun harvesting – 20 Sungold tomatoes and 3 Celebrity tomatoes.  Finally!
 
Watering and Sowing More Squash Plants
     We’ve been enjoying crookneck squashes for more than a month from the first batch of seeds that I’d sown back in March, with continued watering both at the soil level and in the buried 5-gallon nursery pots between plants that releases the water directly in the deep rootzone.  But, now the harvest from this first planting is slowing down.
     Coming into bearing just in time is the second batch of seeds that I’d sown when the first batch started bearing, so this seems to be good timing to have consecutive bearing without much overlap of too many squashes. 
     Now I’ll sow another batch of seeds.  We’ll see whether they germinate and then thrive and bear in another couple months of this hot summer weather.
 
Watering Fig Trees
     Following those extremely droughty years and loss of several stone-fruit trees, last year I concentrated on planting more varieties of fig trees.  We now have Celeste, Conadria, Kadota, Mission, Panache/Tiger Stripe, Peter’s Honey, Texas Everbearing, Violette de Bordeaux, and an unknown variety from a cutting from a friend’s tree.  
​     We love figs, they produce well even with minimal attention to watering, and each of the varieties bears at a slightly different time and with a distinct flavor, so we’re looking forward to a nice selection of yummies!

​For other July garden task possibilities, see July.   


2 Comments
FTN Tree link
7/9/2020 07:25:30 pm

Love how beautiful your garden looks, especially love the hoya!

Reply
Yvonne Savio
7/9/2020 09:16:02 pm

So glad to share!

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    Archives

    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

© 2015 Yvonne Savio. All Rights Reserved.                                                                                                                                                         Web Design by StudioMAH.