I’m more into drinking ice tea and reading a good book on my Kindle than I am motivated to remove errant blackberry vines or control the hypericum creep. And certainly it’s more fun to plant a new addition in my garden than deal with the spider mites. Guess the Dog Days of summer are upon me and there’s still a lot of August left to go. You know the old adage: Do as I say, not as I do. Well, listen up.

Here’s some advice for those of you growing fruit trees. August is the best time to do summer pruning. If you haven’t already done so, thin out shoots and crossing branches. This allows more air and light into the tree, reduces disease and promotes earlier ripening of the fruit. Remove most water sprouts. These are the soft, fast growing shoots usually growing straight up. Cut them back to a main branch. If you need to fill in a spot in the tree and there’s a water sprout growing there, cut that one back to about 2 inches to promote a fruiting spur.

Pruning fruit trees this month controls the size of the tree and can also prevent rampant sprout growth next spring. That’s because pruning removes many of the little food factories (leaves) that supply energy to the plant and store it, to be used for growth in the spring.

Prune to maintain a vase shape. By promoting upright limbs high in the tree and pruning hardest in upper and outer portions, fruiting wood is maintained throughout the tree. Also eliminate limbs growing inward. Remember never to prune more that 1/4 of the total mass of your tree at any one time and no more than 1/3 per year. Better to space out corrective pruning over 4 years if your tree has gone too long since the last pruning.

One last thing, fertilize your trees one more time. Most established fruit trees need their first application when the tree begins to emerge from dormancy in the spring, another after fruit set and the third immediately after harvest. For young trees in the first, second or third growing season, apply at half the rate. Feed your trees and they’ll feed you.

The other day at a garden center I was admiring the huge selection of marigolds. So many kinds and colors are available these days. All marigold are native to subtropical America and have been cultivated in Mexico for over 2000 years. But do they really help with pest control?

Like other members of the daisy family, marigolds provide nectar to beneficial insects, such as syrphid flies, who prey on aphids and other insects that attack garden plants. Parsley and dill flowers are even better but daisy family flowers keep the nectar flowing longer.

The USDA lists a total of 15 pests that attack marigolds. Included on their list are aphids, Japanese beetles, snails and spider mites. So they are effective in luring these pests away from your other ornamental plants.

Marigold have been shown to have some slight effect in repelling cabbage worms and bean beetle larvae. A variety called Stinking Roger repels flies that bother cows and other domestic animals but I’ve never seen this marigold available around here.

The common French marigold that has been shown to control nematodes. You need to plant them thickly as a cover crop and allow them to grow for many weeks to be truly effective.

So now you have the rest of the story. The bottom line, plant marigolds as they do have some beneficial effects but mostly because they’re pretty.