July
GENERAL MAINTENANCE OF GARDENS
- Fertilize container plants often, with a slow release or organic fertilizer like fish fertilizer, recommend 25-50% strength
- Divide or move spring-flowering bulbs after their foliage has died back
- Prune spring-flowering shrubs if needed
- Keep compost pile moist during warm weather; add weeds, grass clippings and kitchen wastes
- Early morning is best time to water, deeply and infrequently
- Mulch after soil has a chance to get warm, paper, sawdust, NOT PLASTIC
PLANT-SPECIFIC
- Ground covers, once bloom is gone clip and feed with complete organic fertilizer (kelp, alfalfa meal, canola meal)
- Prune long stems and shape azaleas and rhododendrons
- In hot weather, container plants require more water, give them special attention
- Fertilize June-bearing strawberries after harvest, remove dead leaves and other debris, pin runners for new plants
- Plant fall garden - seed directly into soil, radishes, lettuce, bush beans, onions, carrots, turnips, beets
- Plant seedlings of cabbage family
- Divide irises as they finish flowering
- Stake tomatoes, sunlight does not ripen tomatoes, the gaseous plant hormone, ethylene does, therefore leave leaves on
- Tomatoes, spray with compost tea to control early and late blight
- Control hollyhock rust by compost tea spray and sanitation, picking infected leaves
FRUIT TREE, GENERAL
- Scale insects: the best time to control is during the crawler stages, from late June, July, and into August, spray with horticulture oil
- Pull off water sprouts as you see them, they will not grow back, and will help with calcium deficiencies and less shading of fruit
- Water young trees if dry, at drip line and beyond
FRUIT TREE, SPECIFIC
- Apple: set traps for apple maggot
- Apple: set traps, pheromone or water/molasses for codling moth in apples and pears
- Apple: examine fruit for bitter pit (early varieties) - spray with calcium spray and remove larger of the water sprouts forming in July and first half of August
- Cherry fruit fly larvae drop from tree to soil, may be controlled with Nc nematodes [if soil temperature 60°F (16°C) or above], apply to soil beneath tree, keep top 2-3" soil moist, Nc feeds on pupa
- Place tarp under tree to prevent the cherry fruit fly larvae from entering the soil
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