This week in the Master Gardeners’ Demonstration garden at Ida Lee Park in Leesburg, the Master Gardeners have been harvesting summer vegetables including tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, squash, beans, chard, and herbs. They also planted Brassica (cabbage, etc.) transplants (look for these at your local nursery) and kale seeds for fall harvest. These have been mulched and covered with “row cover” ( a light weight polyester material that can be ordered from gardening supply web sites and catalogues) to keep cabbage moths from laying their eggs in the plants (their larvae are small green worms that tunnel into the plants). Also lettuces, arugula, spinach and radish seeds are being planted for fall harvest.

The cucumber beds have been cleared of cucumber plants, as these have succumbed to diseases and the beds have been amended with compost and this has been turned in and watered. Fall vegetables will be planted in these in the near future.

The strawberry beds have been thinned of extra runners so the plants won’t be too crowded. If you don’t have strawberry plants in your garden and think you don’t have room for them this is one of the plants that does well in containers. You can plant them now or wait until spring. It is a lot of fun to go out and pick strawberries to put on your cereal in the mornings or just to eat out of hand.

If you get a chance to come by the garden, check out the watermelons that are growing vertically (on supports). Very fun way to grow them if you are short on space but love watermelons.

In the ornamental gardens our giant pampas grass (Cortaderia selloana) is “blooming” as is the Ruby grass. the Golden Rod (Solidago) is just beginning to show its color (although the wild Golden Rod has been blooming for a week or so).

Be sure and weed your garden beds and keep cutting back the spent flowers to keep the plants blooming and to keep your garden looking neat.

Happy Gardening and if you have any questions about this information, or any gardening questions, please contact the Master Gardeners at the Master Gardener “Help Desk” at 703-771-5150 or email us at ex107mg@vt.edu .

The Fall edition of the Trumpet Vine newsletter is in the works.  If you are interested in subscribing, send a note containing your email to the Help Desk email, and we’ll add you to the list!  Due to budget constraints, we only send out this publication via email.  You will also receive the above gardening advice as well.

This week in the Master Gardeners’ garden at Ida Lee Park in Leesburg the Master Gardeners have been dealing with this excessive heat wave by watering very generously. This watering, done deeply (thoroughly saturating the soil, but avoiding run-off, which is wasteful), helps plants cope with the very high temperatures we have experienced recently.

The Master Gardeners are also harvesting watermelons (which they are growing on a trellis) and tomatoes. The cucumbers and squash have slowed down in production, probably due to the excessive heat.

The bean beetles have destroyed a bed of bush beans and they have been removed and a new bed of bush beans has been planted (it is still not too late to plant bean seeds for a late summer/early fall harvest).

Be sure and keep your vegetable beds as weed free as possible during this time of year as weeds can steal moisture from your vegetable plants.

In the ornamental beds, now is the time to cut back your lavender plants. If you have not grown lavender before it is a very easy and delightful plant. If you prune it back after flowering right from the start you can keep it from getting woody and unsightly. Cut the plant back to about 4 inches from the stem and harvest the flowers and rubber band them together and hang them to dry.You can use them for in sachets or as dried flowers.

Cannas are getting ready to bloom.

Be sure to “dead head” (remove spent flowers) from your ornamentals if you want to keep them flowering.

Happy Gardening and if you have any questions about this information, or have any questions about gardening, please contact the Master Gardener “Help desk” at 703-771-5150 or email us at ex107mg@vt.edu .