Gardening Advice & Tips for Irish Gardeners

Really and truly mid summer’s day should be a day for resting and relaxing in the garden. It should be a day where we can all sit back and enjoy the fruits of our labour. Because, of course, by now you have sown your summer vegetables, you have weeded your herbaceous  borders and edged your lawns, you have mulched up around your roses and feed your hungry hedge,  you’ve installed your irrigation system and been diligently weeding around your herbs and salads. So, now is truly the time to sit back and watch it all grow!

That of course would be the ideal situation but unfortunately mid summer’s day, like any other day is a busy day in the garden. Here on the Gardenshop.ie we will always be here to help you with any of your gardening queries and offer advice on all manner of gardening tasks throughout the year.

Summer is of course a time of maximum growth, not only of your grass, vegetables and flowers but also of unwanted weeds. Summer is also (generally) a time of warmer / drier weather and further strains and stresses on your plants. This time of year brings a number of tasks from weeding to pruning, and below is a simple guide that should see you through until autumn.

Lawn care:

Continue regular cuttings, ideally cut grass every ten days, keeping it about 1 ½ to 2 inches tall. Always cut grass in dry conditions and use lawnmower with sharpened blades. Alternate cuttings between collecting and mulching grass to improve fertility and always remember the one third rule: Never cut more than one third of the grass at any one time.

If your lawn is full of weeds and moss you can treat your lawn with a weed and feed. This will need to be done every 6 weeks, between cuttings. After the full effects of the lawn weed killer have taken hold re-seed your lawn and rake in some fine sand.

Vegetable plots:

Over the summer months continue to stagger sowing time of crops such as lettuce, spring onion, dwarf beans and salads. Remember to water seed in well after sowing

The main areas to focus on in the summer are both pests and weeds. Weeding on your plot should be done every two weeks. The best way is to use a garden hoe and run it up between vegetable rows, then hand weed around each plant. The more weeding you do the less weeding you will need to do in the future.  Remember to never let your weeds develop flowers

Now is a good time to mulch up around crops such as onions, leeks, carrots and parsnips to reduce weed growth and maintain soil moisture.

Continue to monitor crops for signs of pests and also stay alert for potato blight warnings which can be found on Met.ie and many gardening forums. Major pests and disease this time of year include: slugs (as its still quite damp), rabbits, pigeons, greenfly and powdery mildew and blight

In drier and warmer weather watch out for lettuce and onions blotting and pick off developing flower heads and stalks before they get a chance to mature

Continue to earth up around potatoes, once potatoes reach 10cm above soil draw up soil around its stems. Continue this 3 times over the summer. Other crops to earth up include: Broccoli, Cabbage, celery and sweet corn, this is done to prevent these crops from becoming leggy and top-heavy.

Plant out greenhouse grown crops such as tomatoes, cauliflower, cucumber and courgettes if you haven’t already done so.

Continue to harvest crops such as broad beans, beetroot, salads, summer cabbage spring onion and tomatoes

Tree and shrubs:

Now is the ideal time to make softwood cuttings, see our how to make softwood root cuttings article in the how to grow section of this website

Continue to deadhead flowering plants such as roses, peonies and geraniums. This will save the plants energy and encourage more flowering

Water hanging baskets; this task, after grass cutting is my most time consuming job in the garden, water baskets every second day throughout the summer. There are a number of products available on the gardenshop.ie that makes water hanging baskets easier and less time consuming

Continue to monitor recently planted trees and shrubs. Any plants planted in the past two years should be watered if we experience one week of no rain.

Prune back early flowering shrubs such as Ceanothus, Caryopteris, Potentilla. For more information on how to prune, see our how to prune section on this website. Some hedging can be cut back this time of year including: box, privet, leylandia and laurel

Feeding hungry plants, hanging baskets and herbaceous bedding can continue throughout the growing season. A liquid feed high in potassium such as a Tomato feed is ideal for hanging baskets. To feed small shrubs and herbaceous plants use a generally feed such as grow more or a organic Poultry manure which is high in fertility.