Home > Gardening, Helpful Tips, Resources > Wondering what to do with your end-of-summer garden? Try these tips and resources

Wondering what to do with your end-of-summer garden? Try these tips and resources

by Jaculynn Peterson on September 12, 2009

The tomatoes are ripe and the carrots are sweet, but the gardening season is not nearly at its close. Those of you who are greedily harvesting your summer bounty are probably also staring at ever-growing bare patches in your beds. Or perhaps your lettuce is so bitter you are considering using it for lemonade.

If you are wondering what is left to do in the garden at the end of summer, follow these ten tips and then expand your knowledge with the resources below.

Clean out all the old plants and weeds in your garden and start a compost pile.
Revitalize your strawberry patch by thinning the plants down to one per foot, spreading a half inch of compost and mulching. If you have compost on hand, you can use it. Please bring any disease-free strawberry plant trimmings to 458 Blair (behind CALC building).
Give your heavy feeding vegetables a good dose of compost tea. This is a great solution for tired looking squash, tomatoes and broccoli.
Pick up the windfall from your fruit trees to reduce the spread of insects. Make apple butter, apple sauce or add to the compost mixing with leaves, of course.
Peer underneath overgrown plants to look for food you may have missed.
Seed your winter greens: hardy lettuce, spinach, Mache, (corn salad),sprouting broccoli, arugula, turnips, beets, overwintering carrots and onions. Check Territorial Seed catalogue or web site for good overwintering varieties.
Transplant winter kale, cabbages, pak choi, Swiss chard, sprouting broccoli and winter broccoli. Make sure new transplants are shaded from the sun and have moist soil.
Check bushes, shrubs and trees for signs of water stress and give them a good deep drink if they are thirsty.
Bring some of your best looking veggies over to your neighbors. Better yet, cook up a spread, invite the whole neighborhood, and tell them about Victory Gardens For All.