If your basil plant suddenly looks like it’s trying to become a different species entirely — tall, sparse, with weird…
Walk out to the garden this week and your zucchini or yellow squash leaves might look like someone came through…
If your bearded irises bloomed less enthusiastically this spring than they did a couple years ago, or if the clump…
If your crepe myrtle looks like someone dumped a bucket of dark syrup over it, you’re not imagining things, and…
If your kale looks like lace and your dahlias have gone from lush to lacy overnight, you’re probably not dealing with beetles or caterpillars. Late July is peak grasshopper season, and in dry, hot summers like this one, they show up in numbers that can strip a garden bed in a couple of days. They’re…
You water it, you harvest it, and somehow by mid-July your basil plant looks like it’s trying to become a Christmas tree — tall, woody, and topped with little white flower spikes instead of the tender leaves you actually wanted. That’s bolting, and it’s basil’s way of saying “I’m done growing leaves, I’m making seeds…
You watered it Tuesday. It looked fine Tuesday. Wednesday morning it’s a heap of yellow, wilted leaves lying flat on the ground like it gave up on life sometime overnight. If your squash or zucchini plant went from thriving to collapsed in the span of about twelve hours, put the fungicide down. This isn’t powdery…
You planted those hydrangeas for the blue or pink or white blooms, and now, right in the thick of July, they’re going… green? Not sickly green. Not \”something is wrong\” green. More like an antique, dusty, watercolor green that’s honestly kind of gorgeous once you stop panicking about it. This is usually just the flower…
You walk out to check on your zucchini and the leaves look like someone dusted them with flour. That’s powdery mildew, and if you’re growing squash, cucumbers, melons, or pumpkins in July, you’re going to meet it eventually. The good news: it’s rarely a death sentence for the whole plant right away. The bad news:…
If you planted garlic last fall, mid-July is probably when you’re standing in the garden holding a fistful of bulbs, feeling pretty proud of yourself. Good. You should. But here’s the part nobody warns you about: pulling the garlic is the easy 20% of the job. The other 80% happens over the next several weeks,…
