Your grass wants to go dormant in the heat of summer; don’t fight Mother Nature. Trying to keep it lush and green by excessive watering or fertilizing serves only to create a cycle of chemical (and water) dependency that is both expensive and, ultimately, not all that successful.
We still have more than 60 days of growing season remaining, and the soil is at its warmest this month. From seed, you can plant beans, corn, lettuce, spinach, and beets, and have an excellent harvest from mid-August to (absent an early frost) October. If you can find tomato and pepper plants that are not ‘leggy’ (tall and spindly), you can also enjoy those vegetables this summer.
They do! Your plants will be competing with weeds for water, sunlight and nutrients in July, and the weeds are, too often, better at grabbing available resources. Your flowers and vegetables win the fight only when the weeds lie, gasping for breath, in the aisles or in a bucket.
