How to Maintain Your Garden in Summer

Maintaining a garden is hard enough. Here will be a few tips on how to help your plants survive through the hot summer months. These techniques are also meant to require little work from you.

Things You'll Need
Sprinkler hoses
Mulch
Rake

Instructions

1. For plants that are in larger garden beds, notable trees and bushes, surround the plants with a good amount of mulch. Mulch can carrie extra nutrients and holds water very well. Along the surface of the mulch, lay hose that has holes in it. Wrap this around each bush and tree. Hook up to a hose twice a week for thirty minutes a day. This will disperse water fairly evenly around each tree. The hoses can eb bought at any home and garden store.

2. For your smaller plants and flowers, place them in a flower bed. Again, use mulch to hold extra nutrients and water. It is best to place flower beds either around trees or along a wall, so that they get shade during one part of the day. Water them on the same schedule as your bushes. Use a hose directly on the area with hose head that "showers" the flower bed.

3. Another option for osme flowers, is hanging pots or standing pots. These are good because the plants are not sharing necessary and limited nutrients with othe plants. Be sure to place them where the get equal sun and shade. Water as seen fit.

4. Protect your plants! If you are in a rural environment it is important to protect your plants from wildlife. One way to do this is to put fencing around anything that cannot survive a grazing by a deer or other animal. Make it about four feet high. This is best for any fruti bearing plants, for instance, tomato and strawberry plants. Another option, is to leave food available away from your gardens for animals to find. Sprays are also available that are of no harm to plants, but keep animals at bay.

Tips & Warnings

Have a watering can or bucket for smaller pots and hanging pots

If it rains, that's just less work for you!

Enjoy your wonderful garden and the nice weather!

Watch out for pests, insects.

Source: http://www.ehow.com/how_5026303_maintain-garden-summer.html

Summer Garden Tips

After the spring flurry of gardening chores and tasks is over, the maintenance part of gardening begins. Taking care of the garden all through the summer means the difference between a weedy, neglected space and a productive, bountiful garden. With a little luck, a little knowledge and a little work, your weed patrol, harmful insect management, gardening shortcuts and healthy garden practices will pay off. A few gardening tips and tricks save time and work in the summer garden.

Seedling Strips
Start seeds on long strips to plant into borders without buying costly bedding plants or planting individual plants in the garden. Prepare seedling strips six to eight weeks before the last hard frost date for your area by cutting 2-by-1-foot sections of newspaper, two to three pages thick. Measure the border you want to fill and cut as many strips as you'll need for it. Lay the strips flat in plastic seedling trays without drainage holes or on plastic garbage bags on a utility shelf either near a window or with a plant light setup. Sprinkle seeds on the strips, cover with a single layer of paper towel and spray with a water bottle to moisten the paper towels, the seeds and the newspaper. Keep the paper towels and seeds consistently moist by spraying at least twice a day until the seeds sprout, then remove the paper towels and ensure the seedlings receive adequate light and moisture every day. After all danger of frost in the spring, place the seedling strips in the garden, sprinkle soil on them and tamp the soil down gently around the new seedlings. Use this method for borders, or for rows in vegetable and herb gardens.

Pest Patrol
Pest patrol can mean the difference between a few leaves with bite marks or losing an entire plant to a hungry insect infestation. Make it a habit to walk through the garden once a day with a bucket and a little soapy water. If you see tomato horn worms, cucumber beetles or cutworms, pick them off your plants and dispatch them in the soapy water. Other harmful insects such as scale and aphids require a spray bottle with soapy water or insecticidal soap for treatment. Finding and treating harmful bugs before they become a horde enables you to rid your garden of them quickly and prevent serious damage.

Weed Control
Use mulch, either chopped hay, black plastic garden sheeting or shredded newspapers, to control weeds. Keep an extra large black plastic bag full of mulch on hand to smother any emerging weeds you find. Don't let weeds flower and go to seed. Pull or smother them before they mature and have a chance to become invasive. Mulch also helps conserve water, allowing you to water less often.

Use a Chipper/Shredder
Invest in a chipper/shredder or mulching lawn mower and chop up everything you can before putting it in your compost pile or bin. Toss all garden refuse into the compost except weed flowers or seedheads and diseased plant materials. It speeds up decomposition, mixes compost materials quickly and creates compost much faster than larger pieces.

Source: http://www.ehow.com/info_8247612_summer-garden-tips.html