Our consultant Dmitry Lukyanov, agronomist and vegetable grower, candidate of agricultural sciences, tells what to do in the garden and vegetable garden in the last month of summer.
August 5 2016
Closed-root plants grown in containers can be planted throughout the season, from spring to fall. When transferring a seedling from a container to the ground, we do not tear its roots or break up a clod. This means we don’t stress. The main thing is to provide the new settler with good land in the planting hole and abundant and timely watering. Trees and shrubs growing in nursery beds are dug up and planted in the Moscow region no earlier than mid-August. The air temperature during planting should not exceed 18-22 degrees during the hottest part of the day.
August is the time of rampant fungal diseases: powdery mildew, rust, stone fruit coccomycosis, scab, monoliosis. After harvesting the fruits, you can spray the plants with copper-containing preparations – “Skor”, “Horus”. Be careful that the solutions do not get on other plants with fruits that have not yet been harvested. It is advisable to cut and burn the tips of the shoots of currants, gooseberries and viburnum that are severely damaged by disease or pests, as well as remove and burn mummified fruits and yellowed leaves.
If you have raspberries growing on your site, giving one harvest per year, then in August, after the fruit is completely harvested, it is worth cutting off and burning the fruit-bearing shoots as soon as possible, as well as all diseased or damaged branches. The soil under the bushes should be dug up as early as possible and birch ash or autumn fertilizers should be added to it.
First of all, this must be done so that pests and diseases do not accumulate and multiply in the fallen fruits. It is necessary to collect volunteers of apples, pears and plums every day, especially if lawn grass is planted under the trees. When decomposing, the fruits cover the lawn from light and air, and release ethylene, which destroys the plants.
The end of the third month of summer is the time for the introduction of autumn, phosphorus-potassium fertilizers. This will help the shoots of plants to mature and therefore tolerate even severe frosts well. Take packages marked “autumn”, with a consumption rate of 200 g per adult fruit bush and up to 1 kg over the entire area of the trunk circle of an adult fruit tree. Apply granules with shallow digging and abundant watering, 50 liters per fruit bush and 150 liters per tree. It rains heavily – the watering rate after top dressing can be halved. In addition to phosphorus-potassium fertilizers, you can add ash at the rate of 0,5-1 cup per bush and 3-4 cups in the tree trunk circle.