Your Summer Garden Checklist

Story by DEANNA KIZIS

PLANT

Plant seedlings for summer fruits and vegetables, including cucumber, eggplant, melons, and tomatoes.

Plant summer annuals from seed or seedling: Blanket flower (Gaillardia), calendula, marigold, Mexican hat (Ratibida columnifera), and zinnia are all good picks.

MAINTAIN

Irrigate fruit trees, citrus, and flowering trees deeply every other week (or weekly in hot climates).

Hoe weed seedlings on a dry, clear morning, and the sun will kill their tiny roots by evening.

Water deeply before you pull mature weeds, whose taproots come out of damp soil more easily than dry soil.

Weeding and watering are early summer’s main tasks. Monitor your drip systems, hand water, and allot around 20 minutes a day to weeding for a picture-perfect garden.

PROTECT

Too much water during high temperatures fosters fungal diseases. Check the soil with a screwdriver. If it goes into the soil easily and the blade feels damp and cool to the touch, there is no need to water yet.

Keep leaves of cucumber, melon, and squash dry to stave off powdery mildew.

HARVEST

Pick yellow summer squash and zucchini when they reach 5 to 6 inches long. For stuffing, salads, and stir fries, collect squash flowers in the morning when they are fully open.

Pick ripe fruits and vegetables daily. Doing so prevents rot, and keeps many crops flowering and producing.

“I’m a garden writer with dirty knees,” says Kier Holmes, a landscape designer and avid gardener. Her new book, The Garden Refresh: How to Give Your Yard Big Impact on a Small Budget, is filled with tips on how to do just that. “I’m money-conscious so I have trouble even spending my client’s money,” Holmes admits. “With this book, I want to help people save money and make

their garden more beautiful.”

Some takeaways? Holmes recommends starting plants from seed: “You can find more unique varieties, plus they are a fraction of the cost of nursery-grown plants.” She also advises getting free wood-chip mulch delivered by tree companies or your local electric company. (As long as it’s not from black walnut or eucalyptus trees, which contain a chemical that prevents other plants from growing.) And Holmes advocates for thrift store and flea market hunts to find used garden furniture, containers, and even tools and building materials. “Not only will this save you money, but one-of-a-kind items personalize your garden and make it unique,” she says.

Above all, she wants readers to “avoid the insta-garden.” Says Holmes, “Gardening is about the process and the journey, plus a garden is never really done.”

HOW TO INCREASE YOUR GARDEN’S YIELD, WITH TIPS FROM YOUTUBE STAR KEVIN ESPIRITU.

Kevin Espiritu’s YouTube channel, Epic Gardening, is a sensation with over 1.5 million followers who flock to him for his breezy style and easy-to-understand gardening tips. His mission, he says, is to “teach the world to grow.” To that end, we asked for his recommendations on how to coax more veggies out of the garden this summer. Here’s what he says:

Tip 1:Put the plants in the right place. “Most vegetables that grow in the summer want full sun, six to eight hours a day, so you want southern exposure because that will give you the most sun,” Espiritu says.

Tip 2:Make sure you’re watering the right amount. “If your plant isn’t doing well, you’re either under- or over-watering,” he says. If you want to know if your soil is too wet or too dry, he recommends the “finger test.” “Take a finger, dig about 6 inches down, and take a look at how wet that soil feels,” says Espiritu. “If it’s moist, you’re fine. If it’s soaking wet, your roots can drown and die. If it’s dry, you’re not watering enough.”

Tip 3:“Mulch is underrated,” Espiritu says. He prefers preventing evaporation with shredded straw, which is light in color so it reflects heat. He also recommends grass clippings or leaves.

Tip 4:Stagger your plantings. “If you love beans, and they’re a 45- to 60-day crop, don’t plant them all in May or you’ll get everything in July,” he says. Instead, succession-plant beans every two weeks so you get regular crops.

Tip 5:Go easy on yourself. “All I do is make mistakes,” Espiritu says. “It’s a great opportunity to say, ‘Why did that one die?’ Then you can learn from it.”

As summer continues apace, plants can wither and demand more water, so try this list of drought-tolerant plants from the Sunset Plant Collection. While there’s no official designation for what makes a lowwater plant, the team partnered with the University of California, Davis, to complete a two-year irrigation study. All the plants listed here survived their trials with flying colors. Gorgeous plants that save water, too? We say cheers to that.

1Supersemps ‘Hens and Chicks’: Sempervivum are typically 4 to 5 inches, but these will get to be dinnerplate size. They hold their color well and are very low-water. Perfect for succulent and container gardens. 2 Lagerstroemia ‘Delta Fuchsia’: These crepe myrtles attract pollinators, are purple-leaved, and hold their color in full sun. Classified as a small tree or large shrub, use Lagerstroemia as a focal point in a garden. 3 Dianella ‘Coolvista’: From Australia and climate-adapted for the Western United States, Dianella blooms with a blue flower and is popular with native bumblebees. Works well in a border and looks like a grass, but doesn’t go dormant, so expect a blue-gray spikey look all year round. 4 Lantana ‘Cosmic Firestorm’: Beloved by butterflies, this Lantana has a variegated leaf with a red, orange, and yellow flower. Growing in the 2- to 3-foot range, Lantana is good to use as a ground cover. 5 Tecoma ‘Bells of Fire’: Native to the Sonoran Desert and beloved by hummingbirds, Tecoma is compact and blooms in the hottest temperatures all summer long. Since it grows to 5- or 6-feet tall, use it in the back of a border or as a shorter screening plant.