Here are some reminders of things to do in your garden in August.
Cut back berry vines that have produced fruit. Canes of the current season should be trained in place.
Spider mites are especially prolific during hot, dry weather. Sometimes you don’t even know how bad the infestation is until all your leaves are pale with stippling. Periodically rinse dust and dirt off leaves with water. Spray the undersides of infected leaves with insecticidal soap, switching to neem oil if they build up a resistance to one of the pesticides.
Start cool season veggies seeds now so they are ready to put in the ground in 6-8 weeks when the weather is cooler. You can start broccoli, brussels sprouts, cauliflower, cabbage, chard, lettuce and spinach seeds in containers. Carrots, onions, peas, beets and radishes can be sown directly in the ground.
One last to do: Make a journal entry celebrating the best things about your garden this year
Geranium, penstemons and petunias sometimes become infested by budworms. Foliage may be chewed, flowers may open tattered and full of holes or appear dried up and not open at all. Tiny black droppings on the foliage are left behind. The striped caterpillar larval form of a native moth is a close relative of the corn ear worm, the tobacco or geranium budworm. Moths lay eggs singly on host plants. After hatching, the caterpillars chew fully opened flowers and occasionally dine on the leaves. Spraying early on with organic BT is effective if done before the worms burrow inside the flower buds. Remove dried up buds and flowers that may harbor the caterpillars and pull up and destroy ragged, end-of-season petunias that my have eggs sticking to the plant remains. There may be two generations per year so preventative spraying with BT may protect established plants of geraniums or penstemon.
If your fuchsias aren’t blooming and the leaf tips look curled up and deformed, your plants are infested with fuchsia gall mite. First discovered on the West Coast in 1980, it is often mistaken for a disease because of the way it distorts and twists fuchsia leaves and flower buds. The damage caused can be debilitating. The leaves curl and distort so much that normal photosynthesis is disrupted and weakened plants fail to bloom Infested plants usually recover if further mite damage is controlled. Prune off all distorted foliage and buds. This may be the best method of control as petroleum oil or insecticidal sprays need to be made every 4-7 days to disrupt the mite life cycle. Neem oil is not recommended for use on fuchsia flowers.
There are several gall mite-resistant fuchsias, both hanging and upright, that are very bit as showy as the traditional fuchsia varieties. if you have been plagued by fuchsia mites, try growing one of these instead.
