Dog days of summer...

Why do they call it Dog Days Of Summer? My dogs are sitting on the sofa, in the A/C, taking a nap. I guess not all dogs have it this easy. It does'nt matter, it is very hot, and it is early June.


Your garden may be suffering right about now, but there are things that still need to be done. Watering is of course at the top of the list, along with weeding. I have been watering my container plants daily, and today had to mow around the garden. It is amazing how fast the grass will grow in just a few days. The sunflowers look great, towering above me to about 8 feet. My cherry tomatoes are still setting fruit and may continue with plenty of moisture. Zinnias are still blooming, but need to be deadheaded to keep new flowers going.


This week I had several people ask me about their squash and cucumber plants. The first question was that squash plants were rotting at ground level. Although he had harvested several squash, and the plants looked nice and green, now the plants were falling over and the stem was rotten. After further investigation, it appears that they have fallen prey to somre sort of root rot. The extra moisture from recent rains has enabled the disease to spread rapidly. It is time to pull all the plants and dispose of them in the trash, don't put them in the compost pile as this will spread the disease later. Practice crop rotation, which means don't plant the same vegetable in that location for 2 to 3 years. Buy disease resistant varieties, and keep your garden clean.


The other question was about cucumber plants not setting fruit. Cucumbers require pollinators to pollinate the flowers which will result in baby cucumbers. There also has to be male and female flowers for this to happen. In this case, no female flowers had appeared yet. Female flowers are identified by having a swollen bulb bellow the flower, while male flowers are just a flower on a long stem. Pollen is transfered from the male flower to the female flower by insects such as bee's and fly's. Female flowers appear several days after male flowers and need to be fertilized within one day. Many things can prevent this from happening, like no pollinators in your garden to incliment weather preventing pollinators from doing their job. You can intervene by hand pollinating flowers your self. Use a small brush or Q-tip and harvest pollen from a male flower and deposit it on a female flower. Swab the center of the female flower and then wait for the cucumber to start growing. If not successful, the female flower will wither and fall off. You may also remove a male flower and brush the center of a female flower, depositing pollen on two or three flowers with on male flower.


You may only have to do this a few days, once there are plenty of pollinators and, plenty of male, and female flowers, nature will take over. This technique will work on squash, and pumpkins as well.

Try to work in your garden early in the morning or late in th evening, it is much cooler then. Drink plenty of water and rest frequently. Happy gardening.