With fall just around the corner, this is a good time to look around your garden and see what needs to be done.
Some annuals may be looking a bit tired or getting leggy. They can still get a light shearing and will produce more blooms - many like the cooler weather.
Petunias will bloom into frost, and pansies are revived by cooler temperatures. Petunias nowadays are self-cleaning and do not require deadheading, but many other annuals will bloom better if spent flowers are removed.
Perennials also benefit from deadheading. Many will self-seed if not deadheaded. That is fine if you need more delphiniums or daisies and recognize their seedlings, but otherwise you are just adding to your weeding chore in spring.
If you have a vegetable garden, you are still busy harvesting and dealing with the harvest. I have picked the last of my snow peas and sugar snap peas, eaten lots, and frozen the rest.
The plants were starting to yellow and get powdery mildew, so I removed them. This also allows more light to reach plants growing nearby.
I am picking beans and eating, freezing and pickling them. The beets are getting a boost with a light application of lime, and the tomato plants have been pinched and excess shoots and leaves removed to stop flowering and allow light to penetrate to ripen the tomatoes.
The cherry tomatoes are ripe, and the earlier large varieties are showing colour. I started my tomatoes from seed mid-April and a helpful friend planted them in the garden for me in June while I was away.
I start my own tomatoes because I like to try different varieties, and there is a much wider selection available in seeds as opposed to bedding plants.
Members of the cabbage family will grow well into the first frosts, so you can continue to harvest broccoli and the side shoots it forms, cabbage, cauliflower, kale, collards, etc.
It is worthwhile to continue to protect these crops from cabbage worms and to give them a fertilizer boost. Chinese vegetables such as Chinese cabbage, bok choi and others do well in our climate. My bok choi seeded in June is lovely with crisp white ribs and dark green leaves.
Raspberries are getting near the end, and my black currants and gooseberries have been picked and frozen for making jam later in the year. The apples are ripening, as are my beaked hazelnuts. I just need to protect my apples from a thieving fox and my hazelnuts from the squirrels.
With our continuing shortage of rain, it is important to keep watering the garden. Weeds compete for water and nutrients, so weeding will help your late crops to grow and mature.
With some care, you can enjoy your flowers and vegetable harvest for a few more weeks.
Horticulturalist Mary Wright has lived in Denare Beach for over 20 years. She shares her passion for gardening with Flin Flon readers in The Reminder.
