Summer Gardening

How To Prune Grapes - Summer Care Summer pruning helps control vigorous growth, improve fruit quality, and keep your grapevines healthy and productive throughout the growing season.

When Grapes Are Ready to Harvest: A Guide to Determining Ripeness Harvesting grapes at the right time is crucial for achieving optimal flavor, sugar content, and overall quality. Grapes can be used for fresh eating, winemaking, or cooking, and each purpose may have slightly different ripeness criteria. Here’s a comprehensive guide on when grapes are ready to be harvested.

Summer Pruning for Everbearing Berry Plants: A Guide Pruning is an essential practice for maintaining healthy and productive everbearing berry plants, such as raspberries and strawberries. Summer pruning, in particular, helps to manage plant growth, encourages more fruit production, and improves air circulation, which reduces the risk of disease. Here's how to properly prune your everbearing berry plants during the summer months.

Summer Black Berry Pruning Pruning blackberries in the summer is an essential task for maintaining healthy, productive plants. Summer pruning helps manage the growth of the canes, encourages better fruit production, and reduces disease. Here’s a comprehensive guide on why, when, and how to prune blackberries in the summer.

How to Thin Apple Trees Thinning an apple tree involves selectively removing some of the developing fruits to promote better growth, improve fruit quality, and prevent overbearing. Here's a step-by-step guide on how to thin an apple tree:

Garlic Harvesting thumbnail with garlic scapes

How to Know When to Harvest Hardneck Garlic How do you get two harvests out of your garlic? Plant a hardneck variety! Well-loved for their scapes, hardneck garlic bulbs put off a tasty garlic "shoot" in the early summer that can be harvested and used to add flavor to many dishes.

Mowing Strawberry Plants When it's time to prune your strawberry patch, there are several options to consider for cutting back your strawberry plants. Andrew at the Howard Homestead utilized a push mower and bagger to prune his strawberry patch of 400 plants in less than 30 minutes!

Planting in Summer – Tips for Success Planting is not limited to the Spring! With a watchful eye, you can continue to fill out your garden with lush perennial plants and trees throughout the Summer and into Fall!

Chill Hours for Fruit and Nut Trees There are two important factors in determining if a particular tree or plant will grow well in your part of the country. First, you must live within the recommended USDA Hardiness Zone and if you are planting a fruit or nut tree, you must determine if your area receives enough annual Chill Hours.

Close up of Cedar Apple Rust disease on Fruit Tree leaf

Cedar Apple Rust - Identification & Control Cedar Apple Rust becomes a serious threat anytime when apples and Eastern red cedar coexist. Take precautions and treat your trees to further prevent the spread before your harvest suffers!