July in the Garden

 On “July in the Garden” Master Gardeners Teena Spindler and Katrina Kirkeby are at it again to tell our listening public about what to do this month.  The heat is expected for the next two months so, control of the water is the key.  Manage your sprinkler system.  Make sure the water soaks deep enough into the soil.  If changing from a hose or an overhead sprinkler watering system to a drip system method, you will be surprised how much longer a drip system needs to run in comparison!  Consider planting a second round of summer crops.   The episode discusses gardening in shade as well as care of turf during the summer months. Have fun gardening in July. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:13

The opinions and views expressed in this program do not reflect those of KECI, its management, or the UC Board of Regents.

SPEAKER_02 0:22

This is In the Garden with the University of California, Master Gardeners. I'm Tina Spindler, and I'm here with my partner in crime, Katrina Kirkabee, and we're here to get you all wrapped up and ready for July, the middle of summer. You ready, Katrina? I am ready. This is going to be a fun show. And one of the reasons it's going to be fun is because we're going to be talking about vacations and how to vacation proof your garden, because often we're traveling in July. And if you're not traveling, you still need to have some tips in order to survive the heat, both you and your garden. Yeah, it's a hot month. Generally a very hot month. Here in Southern California, we had a little bit of June gloom, as we always do. And so that's that's kind of nice for us because we can still play in the garden and not get too overheated. But in July, not so much.

SPEAKER_01 1:20

Yeah, July, you know, I tend to garden early in the morning and late in the afternoon. Same with August.

SPEAKER_02 1:27

And put on your hat and your sunscreen, of course, and uh sunshirt because you want to, you know, keep that sun off of your skin if you can. And so I think let's talk about watering first, because that's probably the most critical thing.

SPEAKER_01 1:41

Yeah, watering's everything's around watering in July. Yeah, you've got a garden.

SPEAKER_02 1:46

And one of the things we always say is control your controller because most of us have automatic sprinkler systems that are operated with a controller. And it it can be, and I know at first years ago I was intimidated by that controller because it has all these buttons and cycles and you know, ah, don't want to deal with that. But um, it could be your friend. It could be your friend. My controller's my friend. And it's it's critical um to do. And it and if you don't do it or you don't have time, just be sure that you communicate with your gardener if you have a gardener and make sure that they have adjusted your controller to deal with the hot weather. Um, because if you don't, if you're you leave it set the way it was set for you know March, that's not gonna keep your garden happy.

SPEAKER_01 2:35

It it could be a really difficult time if you don't water your plants in this month because it just things will dry out so quickly.

SPEAKER_02 2:44

And before you know it, I it it happened to me uh four and a half years ago when my one of my grandkids was born, uh, who was a preemie, and I was just gone. And he was born in July, and I was just gone, you know, helping take care of him. And didn't realize that the uh station that watered my citrus trees that was broken. And so my citrus trees got no water for two months, and I lost half of them. So lesson to be learned is you do need to check and make sure that everything's working.

SPEAKER_01 3:17

You know, this would be a good time just to go out, and because the su heat's coming into July and August and just make sure everything's working. You know, just take 15 minutes out or whatever it is and make sure everything is working because it's not as forgiving as it was earlier in the year. You could live off a little bit of rain, a little bit of moisture, but when this heat comes, it really makes a sense. My husband and I are doing that this weekend. We're just gonna make sure all the drip systems, the sprinklers, everything is functioning correctly because sometimes they just aren't. And it's just what it is. We always find a sprinkler that's not working or a drip is not dripping. You know, just so it's a good time, now is a good time to just go out and however your yard is organized and your systems are working, just to make sure they're working.

SPEAKER_02 4:05

For sure. In fact, I actually um spent the money this year, about a month ago, to have uh professional irrigation people come out. All they do is irrigation systems. They're not like maintenance kind of gardeners, they're just irrigation people. And they had a program where you could have them come out and you paid a flat fee based on how many stations you had on your, and I have a lot on mine. And so they went around the whole garden and checked out every single station and every single sprinkler head, and then they put flags on the sprinkler heads that were messed up, and it turned out they had to replace two valves, you know, that controlled two different stations, and I don't even remember how many sprinkler heads they replaced, 12, 20, something like that. So even though I thought, because I would turn the sprinkler on and I would see water coming out, and I did because I didn't walk the whole length of uh any particular station, uh that it really wasn't coming out. You know, there was maybe a sprinkler head at the far end that wasn't working at all. And unless you actually walk every single sprinkler head, you don't know that. So I thought it was money well spent.

SPEAKER_01 5:17

And you know what else I did a couple years ago is our water district. So we all have you know, there's quite a few water districts here in Orange County. You might check with your water district. I had a phenomenal deal with the water district. It pretty much paid for the entire thing for them to come out, or a good large part of it. And same thing with you. I thought everything was perfect. And they found valves that needed to be replaced, sprinkler heads needed to replace, some drip systems that needed some help. So you might look, you know, go on the web, find out what you know, know what water district you have, go on and see if they have any programs where they could subsidize to some point of getting your sprinklers checked out. That's a great idea.

SPEAKER_02 6:00

Yeah, check with your water districts. Another thing I wanted to mention, a couple other things about irrigation. Uh, some folks have switched to what's called Netifem, which is uh a drip type of system, drip irrigation type of system. It's it's basically a half-inch little flexible pipe that you lay across your planting area, and it has pre-drilled tiny holes every so many inches in the netifin. Une of the typical distances between the holes is 12 inches. And I know this because both my son and my daughter had some work done in their yards in the last few years, and the gardeners are using netifin because it is a drip system and therefore it saves you water in the long run. So the thought process is this is better than overhead spray because you're just not wasting water, it's just going right on the ground. But it does have some drawbacks, and so I want folks to know if they have netifin, they need to make sure that they are leaving it on long enough, uh, the irrigation cycle. Because for an overhead spray, you may put that on for 10 minutes and be done, right? There's a lot of water that comes out, it covers a big area, and you're done in 10 minutes. Well, with netifim, you have to remember that it's just water dripping out of tiny little holes. And so very slowly. Very slowly. And so if you have that set for 10 minutes, you are not going to be getting near the amount of water that you need. And I discovered that just this week because I uh was at my son's house and they're having a little party, and so I thought I would replace some color, you know, annuals and perennials along this strip in a planter that they had that was being irrigated with netifin. And when I tried to dig a shovel in that soil to plant these plants, it was, you know, very, very hard. It was not moist at all. So I had to pre-water it before I could plant the plants. So I had to uh text him and say, uh, you need to change the timing on what you're doing for your netophim to at least an hour. It's between one hour and three hours, depending upon how hot it is, how porous your soil is. So you'll have to fool around with it. But for sure, the 10-minute, five-minute cycle that you're normally doing with overhead spray is not appropriate for netifim.

SPEAKER_01 8:35

And we have it on a lot of our fruit trees. So it's really even an hour on a lot of our fruit trees, it's just it won't get deep. So you might dig, like you said, Tina, dig down a little bit and see. It might look wet on the surface, but if you're doing this with your fruit trees, kind of check it out to see if you're really getting enough deep watering. For sure, on trees.

SPEAKER_02 8:57

How it should be installed on trees and and double check that yours doesn't need to be adjusted. It should be installed in circles, concentric circles under your tree. And as your tree grows, you have to move the concentric circles out to the drip line, which is where the leaves, you know, stop on your tree. So if your tree is only three feet in diameter when it's young, but now it's six feet in diameter, and yet your netophym is back just in a circle at the three-foot diameter mark, that's not going to be appropriate for your tree. You're gonna have to put a new one out at the white.

SPEAKER_01 9:36

And you could buy different lengths of it too. So you could just if you start off with this little loop, and then as a tree grows, you could get a bigger loop and bigger and just attach it to it. Another thing, I don't know if you do this, it took me forever to find this out. Mine tends to move around. Yes. Okay, uh have you seen those big it almost looks like a giant hairpin. Yes. Okay, I didn't know about those giant hair pins forever. What I do you know what they're called? Uh I I call them staples because they look like big staples staples. Yeah, well they're big staples, they're huge. And I They're like four inches long. They're four inches long. And they're a godset. Because mine you I arrange it, and then you go back, and uh it's like somebody comes, it's like magic, somebody comes out and moves them. But with those big staples, oh my gosh, it'll save you so much time. And you just put those staples in, they're usually easy, they go like a hairpin, like right over the top of them, and it'll keep it in place. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 10:37

And and do that whether you're doing the concentric circles for fruit trees or if you're doing them in a long strip, you know, in a planting area. Because what I discovered when I was working at my son's garden is that there were two strips, but in some places the the pin hairpin things had come out. And so instead of the netafin being, it was probably meant to be eight inches apart, it the two of them were like, you know, two inches apart in places because, like you said, they had slipped around.

SPEAKER_01 11:08

They slipped around and yeah, like fruit trees. I've had the same thing when they go in the circles where the two have met. Yeah. So those big staples, like it's one thing getting it, but your life will be so much easier. Nobody told us about the staples when we first started. And you know, we went years going around and ranging these lines until we found out about the staples. So get those staples that make your life a lot easier. And they're really easy to put in. As long as the soil's moist. Yeah, soil's moist. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:37

The other thing to mention before we leave the netophym discussion is when you're planting new plants, small plants, uh, in a flower garden or a vegetable garden in particular, you do have to plant your new seedlings, you know, whether they're four inches or gallons or six packs, you have to plant that new plant directly in front of or adjacent to one of the holes that's in the nedifin. And so picture this: if you have a hole only every 12 inches, you can't put a plant in the middle between those two holes because it's a baby plant and its roots aren't going to be close to where the water's coming out. So be sure you plant the new plant right next to one of those openings. And then the other thing, the last thing, is uh if your netophim has been in for more than one season, when you replant, take a little skewer, a little bamboo skewer out with you. And as you see each of those holes, poke that bamboo skewer in the hole to make sure it's not plugged so that the water comes out. That is an excellent idea.

SPEAKER_01 12:45

Yeah, we just want you to not have dead plants in July, you know. You know, some of these little things that we talk about just make life so much easier. For sure. You know, and you don't think about it because that people have lives and they're not avid gardeners, and we're pretty avid gardeners and we're still learning this stuff. Uh every day. Yeah. That is a wonderful idea.

SPEAKER_02 13:06

And then a couple of other things about um irrigation. Uh, when you are controlling your controller and learning, you know, how to uh adjust it. Uh, one of the best things to do in the warm weather is to make sure that you are watering in cycles. And that means that you don't just water, say you have 10 stations. You don't water all 10 of your stations one time. You water it at least two times. And the reason for that is it allows the water to soak in to the ground, and then you come back and water a second time, and then you really get some additional deep soakage by doing it twice.

SPEAKER_01 13:45

You know, one of my biggest things that drives me nuts is when I dry places and I see water running down the street. You know, it's like water's expensive, it's precious. Especially in California. Yeah, it's really expensive, precious in California, and you can alleviate a lot of that because people do it because they're pr they're having problems, right? So they just keep turning up the water. More water, more water. More water, more water, but it you have to give it time to absorb. And by doing what Tina says, doing it two or three cycles, it gives it time to absorb the first time, and then it's able to take more in the second time, and it gives it time to absorb, and then you can get more in the third time. So you're actually getting water where you want it.

SPEAKER_02 14:23

And I generally just do two cycles, and that seems to be sufficient, but you know, check your uh garden and the soil. You can get a soil auger that is a little tool that pokes down and takes a core of soil out, and you can see how wet it is and how deep the water is going. And then the last um irrigation system I'll talk about, because it's one I use, is in my raised vegetable beds, I just use soaker hoses. And when I go on vacation, I put them on a portable timer that just attaches to the hose bib. I generally don't have a timer, I just keep an eye on it and you know turn it on manually when I'm home. But when I go on vacation, you can buy little timers that will attach to your hose bib, and then your soaker hose, you know, can attach from there. And that way, while you're gone on vacation, the manual stuff that you do will be done automatically. And the reason that I use soaker hoses is because the netifin, as I mentioned, has those specific little drip holes, whereas the soaker hose just oozes water all along the whole hose. And I find in my vegetable garden that that's uh a better way to get uh coverage for for the vegetables. And I do just wind it around the plants. It's easy to wind around the plants, and I use the same staples to hold it down where I want it in in the veggie bed. So I think that's it. Talked about your controller, the netafem, the soaker hoses, cycling. Anything else that we should mention?

SPEAKER_01 16:05

Oh, check with your water district to see if they have somebody that can come out and if there's any discounts or if they have a discount for of coming out and checking your system. Yeah. Um another one is uh last but not least, I have something where we put it on my phone. Oh, your system is phone controlled? Uh yeah, my system is phone controlled, and uh it it I just love it because I could be anywhere in the world and I hear there's a heat wave, and I can give my plants a little extra, and I don't have to worry about house sitters or anything else. So that might be something to look at. And it the price point was very good. It was part also part of the water district. Um, gave us a great discount on it, and it's just great. I could be, you know, I could be here at your house and just, oh my goodness, the Santa Ana's coming. I need a little bit more water on my plants, and just give it a little bit more water. So that's something to think about. Wow, yeah. Next time my controller breaks, I for sure have to get one of those. It's it's my favorite thing.

SPEAKER_02 17:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:06

You know, because I'm not always thinking about the water when I'm at home. And well, especially in the summertime if you're traveling, that's that's genius. I have changed my water, added water from numerous continents. How hot is it at home? I'm halfway around the world. Let's take care of that. It's hard for you know, house sitters and people who don't understand. And you know, it just so it just makes it makes life a lot easier, and the price point on it is just for me was phenomenal, especially with the water district thing. So just think about that.

SPEAKER_02 17:41

Wait, oh, I'm glad you mentioned that. Okay, let's move on. Um, we've got our water under control. So, what what should we be doing in the garden in July? Well, I personally want to keep my veggie garden going because I do love having the fresh veggies, and when I'm traveling, I don't want them to be, you know, mistreated. So one of the things I do is I uh get a volunteer, either one of my adult kids or neighbors, to come in and continue to harvest. Because those tomatoes and cucumbers and squash, you know, if you're gone for a week, you know what you come back to, those baseball bat-sized zucchinis.

SPEAKER_01 18:20

So much less two weeks.

SPEAKER_02 18:23

And they hide. So recruit someone to come pick if you can. And usually they're super happy to have homegrown tomatoes and things.

SPEAKER_01 18:33

You know, people don't get it, you know, and it's just so nice and it tastes so good. So you get volunteers. I have a house sitter that actually requests when we go away for a long time while we plant, because they'll they're more than happy to take care of it because they don't have the room to have it. Yeah, it's a treat for them.

SPEAKER_02 18:49

So uh, and then also before you leave, uh, it's a good idea if you haven't fertilized recently to give your veggie garden a dose of either a liquid fertilizer or a granular fertilizer just to keep it going while you're gone. And of course, that needs to be watered in well when you apply it and you follow the directions because all fertilizers have different concentrations, so you need to know how much to put on by reading. And uh if if you are home and you have some plants that are pooping out, like I'm probably gonna replant a couple of tomatoes in July because I like to have tomatoes on into December, and so what I find is if I plant uh a second batch, even just a couple plants in July, that the plants that poop out, I can pull those out and uh the new ones will take me through a lot longer season. I think you do that too, don't you?

SPEAKER_01 19:47

Absolutely. Because I can get if depending on where I plant them, I can get you know, that's not so great, but I can get them into January, February, March. I mean, it's just it's not as uh it's not as abundant, but I could still get them, but it's all I really never forget my second planting of tomatoes. What ones do you have the best success with? Do you do you remember or do you try to do it? I tend you know, I kind of think of it as always always the smaller ones. Just tend to work out. I don't do the the larger ones, they just don't seem to get enough sun. The beef steaks. Yeah, the beef steaks. So I've never do them, but like I'll even plant an early girl or a you know, a celebrity or whatever. So it's some of the things that's tried and true. It's not in the most optimal conditions. So a tried and true tomato, one of those with a lot of butters behind it.

SPEAKER_02 20:41

The hybrids that are disease resistant is what she's referring to, because they'll have, you know, it's resistant to verticillium wilt and and other things.

SPEAKER_01 20:51

So I pr yes, so I pretty much fail on the big beefsteak tomatoes. Cherry tomatoes overwinter much better too. Right. I love my sun golds, they've been so puliferous, and you know, I'll get those all winter long. And granted, they will not be as wonderful as they are in the summertime, but you could really push them out.

SPEAKER_02 21:11

Still better than what you get in the markets.

SPEAKER_01 21:13

We're we're huge on planting in July.

SPEAKER_02 21:15

Yeah. Um, and that works for us in Southern Califor Southern California, but if you are uh, you know, towards the mountains or out in the desert or in another part of the country, you have to look at your frost dates because we don't generally get much frost in Southern California. So our tomatoes will overwinter. But if you live somewhere that does get frost, you know, starting in October or November, then there's no way you're going to get tomatoes to last beyond that.

SPEAKER_01 21:45

And here's another thing to look at if you're planting in July, the sun will be changing this location. So I'm always trying to figure out where will the sunniest point be in the wintertime. You know, of if I have a few places I could. put them and I kind of move them around to my where my winter sun's gonna be because you won't get as much, it won't be as intense, it won't be as long. So I try to do everything I can to give it as much as it can. And there are places in the summer that I don't get sun there in the winter.

SPEAKER_02 22:16

Yeah, no, good point. So location location. The sun's lower in the sky. So you have to take that into consideration. So you can also plant other plants if you want to have a second crop of green beans, a second crop of squash. The peppers for me, I don't usually plant a second crop of peppers because they only do well when it's really hot. Yeah. So uh I don't plant a second crop. But the pepper plants often will, if you keep them harvested, will keep making new peppers. So I don't often need I think last year I was making stuff bell peppers in October and November because I still had peppers on those plants.

SPEAKER_01 22:58

And here's another thing I think we both do this. I don't buy plant seeds. No, I always get the starts the either the six packs or the four inch this time of year because you just don't have enough time. So if you're going to be doing a second crop just pick up a six pack or a you know a four inch one and it it you'll have more success.

SPEAKER_02 23:19

Yeah I I am usually too cheap to buy four inches except when I'm doing a second planting and then I I buy the four inches for the tomatoes because they just need to have that extra growth in order to move on into the next part of the year.

SPEAKER_01 23:35

It just gives you that much more time so it's like you get them in and you're ahead of the game. Right.

SPEAKER_02 23:41

And do in your in your veggie garden keep paying attention to it picking up any leaf litter I think Katrina grows kale year round like I do and the kale drops its leaves so it's a good idea to you know once a week kind of rake up the leaves that any of your plants have dropped. The same with tomatoes as the those lower leaves get kind of diseased and fall off. I actually try and clip them off as they start to yellow because that removes whatever it is that's causing them to yellow which could be a pest or could be a fungus so the cleaner that you can keep your plants and the ground the better.

SPEAKER_01 24:21

I find that is such a big deal because when we haven't done that it is just so disease uh prone. It it's just it's not that big of a deal just keep it clean. And tomatoes I tend to I like to as they yellowing as they grow up just clip clip them off and your life will be easier. It seems like it takes oh just don't pay attention to them but no pay attention to them because you really will it will pay for itself that little bit of extra attention.

SPEAKER_02 24:49

And the same with the squash plants they are notorious for getting powdery mildew and so as soon as you see uh a leaf that has powdery mildew just clip it off and throw it in the trash you you can try and spray with a an a product but I find it's more effective to just cut those leaves off and throw them away as quickly as you see it.

SPEAKER_01 25:12

As quickly as possible it's some of those things some things you could wait on at least I feel you could wait on but when you get start getting yellowy leaves or powdery mildew because it will carry to the rest of the plant so fast it's like stop it's almost stop in my tracks and take care of it. It's one of the most important things to do for in the garden.

SPEAKER_02 25:32

And it is why I grow a lot of squash plants on trellises because I find that if you trellis them rather than let them spread out on the ground there's better air circulation and you can see the leaves that are getting powdery mildew and cut them off faster because you're able to get to them easier. So consider that too if you you know grow things normally on the ground consider growing them on a trellis.

SPEAKER_01 25:58

I mean you can't do the big things like pumpkins you know that's the if you're growing the big pumpkins you can't trellis those they're a little too heavy but um you can you can grow the the small pumpkins on a trellis if if you want and some squashes and some squashes lots of squashes a lot of room too cucumber yeah uh so so yeah keep keep your veggie garden going during the summer you'll love it if you able to keep eating throughout throughout the season uh and uh have fun in there make sure you have fun because it's harvest and make sure your water and everything is going to be hot in that vegetable garden so make sure those little roots are covered you might put some mulch in there uh oh good idea mulch with with uh weed free straw before you go to make straw yeah straw is I love straw it looks it makes it look neat too oh it does and it's so pretty it makes it look clean it helps with the weeds it's um it keeps the moisture in it's just it and it it looks sharp.

SPEAKER_02 27:00

It does I I really like mulching veggie gardens with that. So if if you prep your veggie garden you know before you leave on vacation you'll come back and have plenty of veggies to move on with the season. And even if you don't go on vacation.

SPEAKER_01 27:16

Yes you know even if you don't go on vacation it makes your life here so much better. And if you go on vacation it gives you a better chance to have a garden when you come back. So it's just a win win just go do it.

SPEAKER_02 27:28

Yeah for sure uh and so I think that's all we need to say about veggie gardens. Can you think of anything else? Yeah got some herbs planted yeah or herbs we yeah we treat the herbs pretty much like the veggie gardens and uh yeah make pesto out of your basil and use those fresh herbs constantly on the barbecue they taste so good a little rosemary sprig.

SPEAKER_01 27:52

Okay so you know what I'm doing a little different this year is I've always had our house is kind of like on a hill and the vegetable garden is down below and I've forgotten to get like herbs down below and it's like oh I don't want to go down below. I just stuck some herbs in my upstairs flower garden. Sure. And then I have an area between two fruit trees and we just bought a bunch of you know soil and wouldn't planted like a little oh maybe six by six herb garden. Nice. And it's just out the door. Yeah and it's not where it's not in the vegetable garden and it's not in the flower garden. It's just by some fruit trees where we had space between two fruit trees and it's been like why is it taking me all of these years to figure this out so funny. And I I just have to walk out the door and I have this little nice patch of herbs all over the place and it's it's nice. It's like seriously why did it take me so long to do this? I think you know sometimes we get thinking that things should belong in a certain spot. Right. Yeah it doesn't necessarily have to be the vegetables herbs don't have to be with the vegetables or they don't have to be with the flowers and they they could be between two fruit trees if it you know it gets enough sun and it's in the right spot. So be creative on where you stick these things and it's um it's wonderful. It's fun and it's easy and then you use them more.

SPEAKER_02 29:17

Exactly and one of my favorite uh talks to give as a master gardener is a hands-on talk which is planting herbs in pots you can plant herbs my favorite pot to use is a strawberry pot because you know uh you get one of those two foot tall strawberry pots and they have about a dozen holes between all around and then the opening on the top you can plant a dozen different herbs in one pot and it's ideal if you live in a patio home or an apartment or as you said a house that has a vegetable garden but you don't want to walk to it but if it's right outside your door on your patio you can go out and get those herbs as you're cooking without making a trek to the veggie garden.

SPEAKER_01 30:03

And it's it's beautiful looking at them and they smell wonderful too. So you could put you just be creative you could put them as you come into your front door or your back door or on your apartment house deck.

SPEAKER_02 30:14

It doesn't have to be a strawberry pot but if you don't have a strawberry pot get a pot that's that's pretty wide I would say at least 14 inches wide so that you can get half a dozen different herbs in it and oh you'll be so happy. You can also give that I like to give them as uh hostess gifts too or housewarming presents. If you're gonna go impose on someone and stay at their house right during summer vacation bring them a pot full of herbs.

SPEAKER_01 30:41

Or you know it's I love you. There's all different reasons why you could bring it you just find it as you and I find our friends because we tend to bring fruits and vegetables in lieu of wine and chocolates you know oh yeah and people love these handmade things or handgrown things and a little bit of this and a little bit of that. We had a get together at our house about a week or two ago and I had bowls of what was it lemon and zucchini and onions and different things from the garden so when everybody left they could just pick up a little bit of something. What a good thing they all had their little to go bags. That is so cute. And it was just it made them happy you know and it's like we had a plethora we just harvest all our um all our onions and I had braided some and I had some loose and some people just had stuff to take away and it just it's a nice party favor. It's different you know and they know the Kirkabies you know they bring in these we do different things and so bring a little pot of herbs would be nice as a gift.

SPEAKER_02 31:42

Yeah no that or something always always lots of good uses for this stuff that we're growing in the garden. And if you have fruit uh in your garden that in July a lot of the stone fruits are are ripening. Some some do in June uh a few in May but July is often a real big month for stone fruits like plums and peaches apricots are usually earlier uh so if you have fruit oh my goodness always take a bag of that with you I take fruit and flowers and vegetables and you know like guy that cuts my hair gets a little bit of this and somebody else gets a little bit of that and they all enjoy it. One of you know my sad things about the fruit is that the critters often get more of it it seems like than I do. So I'll just mention a couple of techniques to try and keep the critters at bay. One of the things that you can buy and it's it's it's intensive in terms of time but you can actually get little mesh bags that you can tie over your fruit twist they have twist ties at the end if you're really having trouble with squirrels and I did that one year because I was so mad that I was not getting any of the fruit so that's pretty labor intensive to cover up you know that's really labor intensive uh fruits but if you're if you're desperate there are those kinds of products you can also use scares uh things that are scares are you remember old CDs I don't know if people still have some of those stuck in their closet one year I had so many CDs in the trees I we're not using CDs anymore and they went in hanging in our trees. If you can still find some old CDs somewhere uh tie them with um some twine and tie it to a few branches of your trees the wind blows them around and they're silver and that that can have CDs you can just go on the internet and they have these little reflecting things they're not quite as big as CDs and they dangle and you could hang them from your trees too and you could get pretend bur hawks and the you know all different kinds of stuff you can hang from your tree.

SPEAKER_01 33:53

They also have that tape that you can put in your tape. That's good I've used that before. Okay but here's the trick with the tape don't do what I did. I left it in the tree and if you leave it in the tree it breaks down. And then now instead of having one long strip of tape you have all these little pieces of tape that you now have to get out of your yard. That doesn't sound fun. No yes learn from me don't do that. But the strips are really kind of nice because you get so fast you could put them in. Yes but I think we went traveling or something and didn't take it down and didn't take it down and then it decomposes and it's a mess.

SPEAKER_02 34:32

I took mine down because my husband did not like the look of it it was so tacky and so I had to take it down as soon as the fruit was done ripening. Yeah it was too particular because you saw the fruit tree right out of our main sliding glass door and he's like oh my gosh how long does that have to be there?

SPEAKER_01 34:50

Well we don't really see it so you have to kind of go look for it but that was our mistake so that was just like okay well don't do that again because it ends up being a bigger job and we have enough jobs as it is. Right.

SPEAKER_02 35:01

And I have used bird netting and and people have mixed feelings about bird netting but only on small trees on your big trees it's too hard to you know get the bird netting over the canopy of the tree. But on small trees on dwarf trees I've used bird netting and that's quite effective. But you have to be really careful.

SPEAKER_01 35:20

You do because birds can get caught in it. Yeah so if you're gonna put it over your tree you need to cinch it together and tie it so a little bird can't get up inside of it.

SPEAKER_02 35:30

Yes you you're absolutely right you have to take it all the way down to the trunk and you have to wrap it around with duct tape or twine or something to keep it tight against the truck so that the birds cannot get in there and get trapped because it's very sad when that happens. But that but it is effective it keeps keeps the critters out.

SPEAKER_01 35:51

And we have tra I know you don't do it but we have traps. So we have we constantly have traps set out for critters.

SPEAKER_02 35:58

So I I do for rats and mice uh but the squirrels are just impossible. You know they just they're everywhere.

SPEAKER_01 36:06

We didn't used to have so many but it seems like we have a lot more these days. My husband says that we catch for the entire neighborhood because we have we live on a creek and it's like a highway for everything and you can just see the squirrels running back and forth and it's we we have about 30 fruit trees and if we didn't if we weren't diligent about it we wouldn't have any fruit.

SPEAKER_02 36:32

And you have dogs too and and dogs I think are really helpful for keeping squirrels a away if you can leave your dogs you know out in the yard uh some some people like we can't do that where I live because there's too many coyotes. Do you do you have coyote issues?

SPEAKER_01 36:48

I've had coyotes in my front yard I have coyotes in my side yard I've had coyotes poop like like four feet from my bedroom door. Oh my goodness I I've had coyotes in the garage. Oh my gosh we sit there and we watch we call it the freeway down below we watch the coyotes so yes but we we only have big dogs and we always have two and still we have to be very mindful of the coyotes. There are no cats in our outdoor cats in our neighborhood not for long anyway. Yeah so there's plenty of coyotes so we we we are and I wish I could train my dog more with squirrels. He likes to chase the lizards and I love the lizards. Yeah don't chase the lizards don't eat bugs. We love lizards but this boy's got a he's fixated on those lizards but it's sad because we really like the lizards.

SPEAKER_02 37:38

One last thing that I got that has been really effective that I love and I love the way it looks so I got uh a windmill actually that was made out of trowels were the uh you know slats on the windmill and it was a garden decoration but it actually the wind actually makes it turn and it's probably five feet tall because it's on a wooden you know pole it's adorable looking and I'm sure you could get just a windmill that didn't wasn't made that way but the point is I stuck the windmill I can move it and so depending on which fruit tree is ripening I pick up that windmill and I stick it next to that fruit tree because the spinning of the wheel I think keeps the birds away because they don't want to fly into that windmill. And so it seems to be effective not for the squirrels but for the birds.

SPEAKER_01 38:37

That's great. We bought one time this is changes the subject a little bit we bought this fake giant heron because we have a pond and we have fish in the pond and like the birds come and eat the fish. Well this other heron came and like was trying to court it oh how funny so I'd wake up in the morning look out the window and be the fake heron and the real heron. I'm like well that didn't work. Kind of a dud date they still come back and visit it.

SPEAKER_02 39:08

It's like well that didn't work but see you know try different things see what works and then the last thing I'll mention about um fruit trees uh is regarding citrus and avocado in the summertime they can have fruit drop if you're not watering consistently so just check your citrus and avocado trees make sure they're being watered consistently because if they're not if they're starting to dry out then they'll they'll drop fruit and you might not be happy about that.

SPEAKER_01 39:37

Oh yeah you love those avocados and citrus and that's another part with when we talk about um drip systems you know what we were talking about earlier make sure it's deep enough water and enough water because it gets hot. It does and for the avocados in particular all citrus does well with mulch as well but avocados if you've ever been to an avocado orchard you may notice that they don't clean up the leaf litter they just leave that leaf litter because it the avocados love having mulched ground and they love having their own leaves as same with oak trees not that you can eat the fruit from oak trees but oak trees like their own litter as well so if you have avocados or uh the California oaks uh just leave the leaf litter they they love it and I know a lot of gardeners are you know all about raking uh up stuff every week when they come so you might have to have a word with your gardeners if you have oaks and citrus and I mean uh avocados and say no please please leave that we've we've had to have a talk with most gardeners just don't bow don't blow that one and even when we trim it we always make sure we throw any like one we can if it's not big pieces of wood like throw it underneath the litter yeah yeah it's just it's great okay let's move on to our flower gardens and even though that's my favorite part of the garden I don't do much in July in the flower garden it's too hot but what I do do is I do go out in the early morning and I still deadhead the roses and other flowers that are blooming and I do try and fertilize once a month out there to just keep everything going.

SPEAKER_02 41:24

But it's it's pretty hot to plant anything new. The only time I do it is as I said I did it well last month in June for my son was having a party in his backyard. But in in July you might add a little bit of color you know if you've got some bare spots but in general I don't do a lot of planting in the flower garden in July. I don't either yeah it's it's mostly you know keeping things alive keeping them wet um and deadheading and fertilizing and enjoying enjoying yeah enjoying pick the flowers that are blooming gosh I love having bouquets the you know right now I've still got um the last of the hydrangeas I love having hydrangea bouquets shasta daisies but now the hot stuff is starting to produce so I've got zinnias and uh the Rudeckia uh and ah gosh I just love having those summer bouquets in the house super fun. And Tina when do you tend to pick your flowers? Oh early in the morning always yeah and and vegetables too in the morning. Exactly because they're full of moisture from the cool cooler weather overnight and the s the sun once the sun comes out it's gonna the moisture's gonna evaporate and the plants will get stressed. So if you plant if you pick things later in the day they um you know the the bouquets sometimes wilt when you bring them in the house because they are have already been stressed by the sun. So always early in the morning and I always uh carry either a bucket or I have one of those canisters those uh galvanized canisters that are specific for cutting flowers and and putting water in it and you carry it around with you in the garden and as soon as you pick it you just plunge it in that either a bucket or that canister thing and that way as you're picking because I usually am out there picking for you know 15 minutes or so so you don't want the stuff that you pick early to not have any water for 15 20 minutes. So just shove it in that water thing then I bring it inside and then if you're busy and you got to go somewhere and you can't don't have time to arrange your flowers at least they're sitting in that water from the get-go.

SPEAKER_01 43:40

Great point.

SPEAKER_02 43:41

And then as you arrange them of course you always recut them so that there's a fresh cut on the stem which draws up water better than an old cut. And oh I love that it's my it's what got me into flower gardening. I just love to have fresh flowers in the house.

SPEAKER_01 43:57

And I love coming over here because there's always fresh flowers I don't know how you do it. It's just a little and it doesn't have to be huge. It's a little here and a little there, and some of them are bigger and smaller. But yeah, it just it's lovely. Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 44:10

I I enjoy it and I'm passing it on. The the grandkids when they come get safety scissors and they go out and pick whatever they want and oh boy. Yeah. Or the two-year-olds just grab a flower head and yank it off, you know. The important thing is to enjoy. It is a remember, a full shade versus a part shade kind of thing. So you probably need to identify, you know, what type of shade you have. If you've got full shade, you know, you can do ferns, you can do some philodendrons, uh I can never say this, dracania, um, mondo grass will do okay. In part shade, you can do your camellias, your begonias, your uh coleus, pansies, violas, although it's too hot for pansies and violas in the summer. But do be careful what it when you're planting those because when we say part shade, it could be full sun for a short time, right? So oh, that's a part shady area. Oh yeah, but by three o'clock in the afternoon, it's gonna get an hour or two of full sun.

SPEAKER_01 45:41

We have a fern garden and it's mostly to the north and it's under a deck outside our bedroom, and we love our fern garden, but one end of the fern garden is on the west side, and it cooks, and it's like even though it's underneath the awning, the sun is at an angle, and it's really hard to grow something there. So even though it's part of a bed, like it's it's this beautiful bed, but one end of the bed gets that angle of the sun and cooks it. So when you're planting stuff that says shade, be like how much shade is it? Because we have you would look at it and think, oh, it's under a deck, it's under a 12-foot deck. You're not going to get, but the sun comes in at the angle and hits the west side of it in the afternoon and cooks. So be a pay pay attention of that shade area. If it's sometimes it's kind of sneaky where you think the whole thing is shade, but it's not. And I have about oh, maybe 18 inches of that that just cooks in the afternoon sun.

SPEAKER_02 46:51

Yeah, you have those microclimates, you know, in your or micro exposures in your garden beds, and so you just have to be aware of them and choose something, for instance, like you could probably put sun patients there, right? Because there are a variety of impatients that tolerate more sun. So you could probably put the sun patients there and it would do fine. Uh, or some azaleas, you know, can take more sun than other azaleas, some uh gardenias can take more sun than other gardenias. So you can still have that effect of that tropical, you know, garden, shade garden, but just be sure if you've got those weird spaces that are gonna get socked with the sun.

SPEAKER_01 47:34

And I have a main hair fern growing right next to it. You know, it's just it just it hits that one spot. So you pay attention.

SPEAKER_02 47:43

Yeah, yeah. And and uh you'll be glad you did. And it just it's I think it's fun to figure out these little puzzles in the garden and try different plants to to fix your little problems and be excited when you end up with this gorgeous little spot. Okay, what else should we talk about? Uh okay, well, while we're on on flowers, let's talk about hydrangeas. You and I love hydrangeas.

SPEAKER_01 48:10

Oh, we love hydrangeas.

SPEAKER_02 48:11

And even though we're in Southern California and they take a lot of water, uh Katrina and I still grow just a couple because we love them. And so we don't grow them all over the yard, but in other places, you know, that are wetter, you could could grow more of them. But this is a kind of a uh critical month for hydrangeas because they usually bloom in uh May or June, where where we are. And once the flowers turn brown, you do want to deadhead those because hydrangeas only bloom on new wood. So when you cut off that old head, it will stimulate the plant to produce new little branches. And next season that will be where your flowers are. So you you do want to uh deadhead those. Um and you cut them back to uh hard to describe, but two.

SPEAKER_01 49:04

Okay, so there's a there's a brown. Yeah, you can I'll describe it in there's a brown part, which is the older wood, and this year there this year there's a green coming out of the brown, and then there's leaves coming out of the green. So where do you cut it back to, Tina?

SPEAKER_02 49:19

So on the green part, you want to cut it back to a two-node spot. Could you have a better way of explaining that?

SPEAKER_01 49:28

Or there's two leaves coming out. Two leaves coming back. Okay, they're kind of on opposite sides, but you'll see if it's a node or a leaf, but there's a leaf coming out on each side, and it's right past where the darkness is. So dark turns into green, and right after it turns into green, there should be a couple leaves coming out to each side, and you snip it right above that. Yes. Hard to explain. You should see us. We're using hand motions here. We got scissors going, we got two little leaves showing the leaves going. That it's not uh a video, but hopefully, hopefully people got got the uh got the gist of that. And that if you do have eye trainers and you do that, it's just it it makes it so nice and it cleans it up and it'll be ready for next year.

SPEAKER_02 50:12

Absolutely. Another uh flowering shrub that we see a lot of where we are are hibiscus, which are gorgeous in July and August. They love the hot weather. And if you like those, um, it's a good time of year to plant them because any of the tropical type plants like hibiscus and bogumvia, you know, love the warm weather.

SPEAKER_01 50:33

So I believe they have some new varieties out there, not so prone to the white flies. That's what I've heard. I I personally don't have any, but I've heard I I had the I tried so hard to grow that plant, and I just had horrible times with white flies. And years ago we get finally got rid of it, and um I have a wonderful camellia growing and other things growing, but now I understand they're beautiful plants, but it was just the white fly. So if you go want it, if you want one, uh talk to the nursery person about and maybe look it up and find out if it's resistant to white flies, because that's just such a pain to deal with.

SPEAKER_02 51:09

Yeah, you don't want to deal with that. So I I agree for sure. Do some research and also uh check the the mature heights because there are some that are really tall and some that are not as tall. So if you have a smaller space and you want a smaller plant, make sure you're getting a smaller plant.

SPEAKER_01 51:27

You're not getting an eight-foot plant for a two-foot space. Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 51:31

They can get big. If you've ever been to Hawaii, you you can you can remember how big they get. Um okay, a couple of last things. We're about almost out of time. Uh on our lawns. Oh, yes, when you have a cool season lawn, you need to keep the mower height high because the cool season lawn doesn't really like heat, and so you want to shade its roots by having the grass be taller. So raise your mower height if you didn't already do that.

SPEAKER_01 52:01

And if you have a gardener, make sure he does that. That's really important and be insistent on it too. Yes. You know, a lot of gardeners like it lower and just just tell them it has got to be as I tell them as high as you can make it.

SPEAKER_02 52:14

Well, and also they may be moving from property to property. And so if your their other customer has a warm season lawn, and the warm season lawns uh thrive this time of year, so they might want a lower mower height for that warm season lawn. But when they come to your house, you want them to have the higher mower height. And usually it's pretty easy, it's just a lever to move it up and down. So do talk to them about that. Uh, fertilize the warm season grasses lawns uh this time of year because they are growing like crazy, so they could use the food. But don't fertilize the cool season lawns like the fescues uh because uh they're not real happy with the heat. And so let's not put them any under pressure to grow a lot. Uh they'll stay green with a little bit of water.

SPEAKER_01 53:02

Uh so I think that's it for the make sure you water them. You've got to make sure you adjust the water every this month, this month, and next month. It's just watch your water everywhere.

SPEAKER_02 53:11

And in in Southern California, we're doing a lot of lawn conversions to other drought, more drought tolerant plants. So consider that, but but you're not going to want to do it in the summer. You're gonna wait and do that in October, November if you want to do that project. And we'll talk more about that. We will. But don't don't change your lawn out right now. No. Um, but you know, I'm keeping a piece of lawn in the backyard because I have young, you know, grandchildren, and every time they come over, we use that lawn for, you know, baseball or whatever, you know, soccer ball or whatever kind of things the kids are or shoot, just shooting nerf, nerf, you know, darts. Uh so keep the lawn if it's a functional lawn.

SPEAKER_01 53:56

Yeah, we've gotten rid of a lot of our lawn, a lot, but we still have certain areas that we have lawn in and it it's it's perfect. And we have dogs and exactly. They play on the lawn, and I don't want them playing in my flower beds.

SPEAKER_02 54:09

Exactly. I have no lawn in the front at all, but we have a strip of lawn in the back that's for playing on. And then the last thing we'll talk about, even though there's not uh much to do this month, is uh our native plants or drought tolerant plants. Now, the California natives a lot of them actually go dormant in the summertime, and that's because they don't get water in the natural habitat in the summer, so they go kind of dormant. So be aware of that. If you switched out some of your high water plants and put in natives or drought tolerant plants, they may not look as great as you would like them to during the super hot months, and that's because they're going dormant. It's their time to relax and wait for the winter and fall rains. Uh, and uh definitely if you've recently planted them, they need water. They're drought tolerant, but not for the first couple of years. We've had more uh questions at Master Gardeners about what am I doing wrong? My all my natives, all my drought tolerance stuff died. I'm like, well, are you watering it? Well, no, it's drought tolerant. Well, that's why.

SPEAKER_01 55:17

Yeah, so so they just don't have the root systems yet. So make sure you keep them watered and eventually they will be, but they're not the first couple years. So that's another great point, Tina.

SPEAKER_02 55:27

And they do not need to be watered like the rest of your yard. They, you know, you don't need to water every other day for the natives uh that are young. So make sure that when you do plant drought tolerant, it's on its own station, its own watering system, because it will get watered, should get watered less than than your high water plants. And I think that's about all the time we have.

SPEAKER_01 55:52

I think so too. And I think it's you know, even though it's gonna be hot out there, enjoy. You know, I find our garden in the late afternoon, early evening, or when it we've done lighting in our backyard, and uh, it's just beautiful. And you know, now if you don't have you don't have it lighting in your backyard, they have these wonderful solar lights that you could go and just place them in your yard, and after it gets you know, the heat of the day is gone. You can it's beautiful, it can be beautiful out in your yard in the evening, and we tend to spend if it's not like a hot Santa Ana, we'll spend evenings in the garden. And I've gotten a bunch of we've had lights in our trees and lights everywhere else. But I think oh, I love lights in the trees. Yeah, and uh we've also got some of those solar lights, they're not that expensive, and it perks up the evening, and you can go out and read your Kindle or have a glass of wine and sit out in your yard and it's dinner out there, you know. We eat it out there all the time. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 56:50

Well, everybody have a great summer. Enjoy your vacations or your barbecues or whatever you're gonna do, and we will talk to you again in August.