The Summer Gardening Season Is off to a Fast Start

The summer gardening season is off to a fast start. The weeds are plentiful, the insects abundant but not yet overwhelming, and the garden, well, lush. And while the Chinese zodiac calls this the year of the dragon (I only wish) it’s more like the year of the rodent. So, with much to cover, this is my July ramble.

Mice have never been a problem for me in the garden, and I suspect that a neighborhood black cat is taking care of them. But the larger rodents are simply out of control this year. As always, the chipmunks are everywhere, and that’s not helped by a neighbor who insists on feeding them all summer. While they do some garden damage, they are just too cute to kill so they’re on my relocation list.

The rabbits and groundhogs are a very different story. I’ve never, ever seen so many rabbits, and they’ve been so numerous that my dog will only chase them to the property line then she looks for others. The truth is that they seem much more interested in Kentucky bluegrass blades and white clover than most of my garden plants, and Rabbit Scram does seem to keep them out of certain areas. They do love the Hosta beds though as they know they can disappear into them and hunker down.

The groundhogs, on the other hand, are very destructive. They seem to be much more interested in the juicy stems of Phlox, Echinacea and lily foliage, and a few other plants that just get mowed down, though I have seen them browsing on the bluegrass as well. They’re also much more wary of us than the rabbits. Seems the rabbits will lie in the grass until you nearly step on them, but the groundhogs will freeze when sighted then scurry into the brush.

Two things to remember: The first is that you can legally kill groundhogs but you cannot trap and relocate them. Out here where the use of firearms isn’t legal in most of the villages and hamlets, that causes an issue. An exterminator can trap them and euthanize them — but you can’t. Then there’s habitat amendments that can work for both groundhogs and rabbits.

Both animals live in underground dens though rabbits will also spend the warmer months within brush and wood piles, and groundhogs will live under brush and wood piles as well. I have neighbors with both on three sides. Not much I can do about that. Also keep in mind that on their hind legs adult rabbits can reach a foot or more above the ground while groundhogs can get up to two feet high when standing on their hind legs. Scent repellents like Rabbit Scram seem to work on the cottontails, and taste repellents may work to a degree on the groundhogs.

Usually when we get population spikes like this the following year there’s a spike in the red fox populations, and they get things back under control. Off Long Island the coyotes will also have a population boom in the next year or so, and they love groundhogs.

The one rodent I’ve seen little of this summer is the vole. What may be helping is my use of a vole bait called VoleX. This is a pellet that has a proprietary attractant in it, but it’s mostly composed of compressed corn gluten and cellulose. The voles are attracted to the pellets, which they seem to eagerly ingest. The pellets expand when eaten, and you can imagine what this does to the vole’s digestive system.

The bait is placed at or in the small holes that the voles use to access their dens or along mole trails where the voles make small holes to enter and use the tunnels. You’ll find both at the edge of lawns, gardens and wood lines. Wearing latex or other gloves, you drop a bunch of pellets in the hole and at the hole. Feeding takes place, and, so far, it seems to be working. Ask for VoleX at your local garden center, or you can get it on Amazon.

Then there are the slugs and snails. You can handpick these, but you may be at it for days and days. The slugs are more likely to be feeding on lower foliage, flowers and buds, while the snails can work their way up the stems and stalks of many taller plants. Slug and snail baits are very, very effective, especially when used early in the season to knock down the populations. Most of these baits are nontoxic to other creatures but need to be applied repeatedly as they dissolve quickly in the rain. Apply them to the ground surface around the plants, and in Hosta beds push the foliage aside, apply the pellets, then the slimies will feed on them. Ducks and chickens also do a good job but don’t get into spots where you can put the pellets, like in the Hosta beds.

I’m still impressed with the cold-pressed neem oil that I’ve been urging you to use for the past year. With the Japanese beetle season now underway, they will be my next target. Remember the JBs start showing up around the Fourth of July, and for another eight weeks. But as I write this column on July Fourth, no sign of JBs yet, which is strange.

You have to add a surfactant, or sticker, to the neem oil, and since you’re mixing 1 ounce of the neem to every gallon of water you need to add dish soap or a spreader sticker to make things mix (oil and water alone won’t) and keep it mixed while in use. Never apply the material in the heat of the sun or when it’s supposed to get very hot. Neem oil seems to work very well on most insects, but on spider mites on Phlox and other plants, alternate it with Spinosad, also an organic material.

If you want to keep your roses in top shape all summer they need to be fed. As much as I like the ease of use of products like Miracle-Gro I’ve pretty much switched to Rose-tone at the rate of 1 cup per plant every three weeks, depending on rainfall. I only use chemical fertilizers on my roses early in the season when organics don’t quite work yet. You still need to prune your roses as required by the variety, and the neem oil noted above can also be an effective insect repellent, insecticide and disease control.

For years and years I’ve downplayed attempts to establish wildflower meadows as I’ve rarely seen one that’s worked. But up the street from me a couple cleared an area of about 300 square feet three years ago and applied three boxes of one of Hudson Valley’s wildflower mixes. This one is their bee-friendly mix. You can find it here: hudsonvalleyseed.com/products/bee-friendly-meadow-seed-shaker.

It took a few years to really establish, and the mix of self-seeding annuals and hardy perennials makes for a very colorful and exciting wildflower garden that requires virtually no care once it’s established. The example down the street is semi-shaded and seems to have great color from mid-June into late summer. Be patient, follow the directions and enjoy.

If you’re into natives and native perennials consider finding some seed of Lathyrus latifolius. This is our native wild sweet pea. The flowers are white, pink and lavender and appear on pea stems that will cover the ground or grow up a trellis, stakes or tree trunks. I have two masses at the beginning of my driveway, and people always stop to ask what they are. Slightly scented and great for cuts, they are in flower from June to September. You can harvest the seeds or let them drop to reestablish. They are not edible, but they are totally perennial and winter hardy.

This variety will not grow at the beach in the sand, but for those who want a similar but shorter pea there’s the beach pea, or Lathyrus japonicus. This is also a native plant that grows in and at the edge of the sand dunes, and it not only is a beach pollinator but also acts as a minor dune stabilizer. If you see them this summer watch the plant until the pods appear and turn brown. Don’t remove all the pods, but you can snip off one or two and that will yield five to 10 seeds. Never dig the plants or remove them from the dunes. Plant the brown, wrinkled seeds in your sandy soil a half inch deep or back into the dune and next year one or more will sprout.

I’m always asked what changes I see in my wetland work and in my gardens because of climate change. For the most part these changes have been very subtle, but I think we’re all aware that climate change has resulted in our gardening season starting a week earlier and adding another week at the tail end.

This year, however, there has been a stark reminder of the effects of both weather and climate change. Most of my plants, but not all, are blooming five to seven days earlier than in the past 20 years that I have data on. We did have a heat wave though, and the early blooming is a result. Is this just the weather and a phenomenon of the year we’re in or, more scary, is it the climate and an indication of things to come, very, very soon?

Don’t forget your fall veggie garden. You should be doing the prep work now for your second veggie garden so make sure you get the soil ready, have the seeds on hand and maybe start some seedlings. If you plan on leaving some areas fallow, how about a cover crop? More on this soon. Keep growing.