I know we're in the heat of summer, but it's time to get the fall garden going. It's the time to plant a new crop of lettuce, carrots, beets, broccoli, cabbage. Use the spot where you had your spring crops. Pull out that old lettuce, it's way too bitter now in this heat.
It can be tough to get seeds to germinate and survive in this heat. So cover the rows with something to keep in the moisture until the seedlings emerge. Burlap works great. You can water right through it and easily lift it off when the time is right. Or assign your kids to water it continuously. By this time of summer, they are complaining about being bored. So tell them, "go watch the lettuce grow."
Okay, truth be told: July is when you're actually supposed to plant the fall garden, and here I am at the end of it. But the first week of July is an insane time of life for me. I think I'll never be able to get the fall garden done until the end of July so there's no sense in letting it hang over my head with a timely (thymely) reminder when I know I can't do it. So we're all in this together. This Saturday. Let's get it done (and spray the Birch and stone fruit trees with a second application of borer spray).
