Planning a final family trip before school starts, or just needing to get away for a few days?
You might be asking yourself: What do I do about my vegetable garden while I’m away? After all, you’re leaving right when your garden is at its peak of production.
“The best thing to do is to get a friend or neighbor to pick produce from your garden,” said Linda Billingslea, Hamilton County Master Gardener. It’s a win-win situation for both gardener and friend. Your friend get the fruits of your labor, and you come home to a clean garden.
But if you can’t make arrangements for your garden care, here are five tips Mrs. Billingslea offers that will help protect it.
1 Watering while you’re gone is probably not necessary because we usually get a shower every week. Just water well before you go. Plastic watering bulbs, which are inserted into the soil, offer time-release irrigation.
2 Remove all produce that you have, even if it’s small, because in a week or two it will be extra large and too big to eat. Also, tomatoes will become too heavy, fall from the vines and rot on the ground.
3 Prune anything that needs pruning to keep the garden from growing wild.
4 Check your mulch, adding extra volume to help keep water in and the ground around the plants cooler.
5 Sprinkle with Sevin dust since you’ll be gone in August, which is the worst time of the year for pests.