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Mystery of the month
Noticed shredded leaves on your plant?
You haven’t had any hail, the chickens haven’t jumped into your vegetable garden, and you cannot find any caterpillars feeding on the leaves.
What else could have caused this issue?
Find the solution to our mystery at the end of this article.
Pests and diseases
Do not immediately kill the Japanese beetles that emerge!
Before you flick any into a bucket of soapy water, check for signs of Winsome flies that may have parasitized the beetles. The Winsome flies lay their eggs on the beetles, which show up as large white spots on the beetles’ bodies.
There are great photos of Winsome fly on the Japanese beetles in yards and gardens webpage.
Trees and shrubs
Call an arborist if you see extensive damage on your trees from the summer storms.
When trees have ragged wounds, they will not heal as well as a smooth cut. If there are smaller branches that have snapped, use clean, sharp pruners or a pruning saw to make a smooth cut on the plant. Depending on where the damaged area is, you may need to remove an entire limb.
Storm damage to landscape trees can have lasting impacts on your garden, so make sure you give the trees proper care to help them through the stress.
Flowers and other garden plants
Tidy-up your perennial and annual flowers by removing the faded flowers, a process called deadheading. Use pruners to snip down the stem to slightly above the first set of leaves.
Some plants will rebloom after being deadheaded. Deadheading can also slow the spread of plants by removing the flowers before seeds are mature.
Houseplants
Make sure you are regularly checking your houseplants that you placed outside earlier this summer, particularly on hot and windy days. You will need to fertilize them more often while they are in active growth and taking-up more water.
It is easier to clean dust or debris off the leaves using a hose and soft rag when the plants are outside for the summer.
Do not forget to give your indoors plants attention as well! You can bring them outside for a short while to clean them, preferably in a shady location, and then promptly bring them back inside.
Lawn
Hold off on spraying herbicides in the lawn until this fall, when temperatures are cooler and the perennial weeds start pulling energy into their crowns. You can manually pull weeds during this time without doing too much damage to the lawn.
If you are not sure if a plant is a weed in your lawn or want to identify the specific weed, look at our list of common weeds in lawns and gardens.
Other tasks
Start direct-sowing fall vegetables where you had early-season vegetables that may have bolted (flowered). Cabbage, carrots, beets, and broccoli work well as fall crops.
If you grew radishes but they never produced swollen roots, you can still eat the plants! The flowers and fruit (pod) of radishes taste similar to the root, and the flowers attract some pollinators.
If you want to improve your soil and take a break from vegetable growing, try growing a late summer/fall cover crop. You can apply the information from cover crop selection for vegetable growers to your home garden.
Solution to the mystery of the month
Wild turkeys have jumped into the raised bed to eat the leaves off of this broccoli.
One sign is the erratic damage, with leaves torn from the edges. Another sign is the turkey scat found in and around the plants, as well as the footprints left in the dust in the area.
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