One of the more mundane but necessary garden chores is taking the time to "deadhead" spent flowers in the garden. Deadheading is the tedious process of picking or snipping off the dead blooms from plants in your flower garden or those that border your vegetable garden. Doing so tells the plant to produce more flowers, and it also gives the plant a neater, cleaner look. Dead or dying blooms should be snipped at the green stem, not just at the dead petals (see below). Also, remove yellow or brown leaves. I take a small bucket with me to do this. All the clippings go into the bucket and then to the compost heap which keeps the area neat and the plant material recycles. It's dull work, but keeps the plants fresh looking and productive.
If you had spring bulb plants, they are now probably turning yellow/brown like the ones below. Snip or pull these long leaves and compost them. Use "tulip food" or bone meal on these spots to give strength to the underground bulbs for next year. In the vegetable garden areas where I have spring bulbs, I plant over those spots with green beans or other annual vegetables.
The early spring plantings of lettuce are done for this year. They bolted during the two day heat wave last week. But it was time for that to happen, so it came as no surprise. A few weeks earlier, I had started some new lettuce seedlings. As the old lettuce went to seed, I placed the young plants in the courtyard window (see pic below). They get some morning sun and then are shaded until late afternoon when the sun reappears on the far side of the courtyard. Just recently, I've started some romaine lettuce. I want to try that in a shaded area of the main garden. The picture shows the late afternoon sun coming from the west.
It's busy keeping up with all that's going on in the garden - cukes, zukes, peas, beans, peppers, and much more! I'll back in a few days with updates. I hope to see you again then.
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