Depending on where you live, changes are happening in the garden. It’s either winding down or offering up a final bounty of veggies like tomatoes and squash. Here are some end-of-summer tips for the garden.
Flowers and Plants – It’s time to stop fertilizing perennials so they can start storing starches, helpful for surviving the winter. Start planning the bulbs you want to plant in the fall. (See more ideas at apartmenttherapy.com.)
Vegetables – This time of year is all about preserving goodies from the vegetable garden, so get out the mason jars and pickle those cucumbers. If you have a bumper crop of zucchini, make and freeze zucchini bread.
Herbs – Hang dry resilient herbs like lavender and rosemary, freeze dry more tender herbs like basil, parsley and chives. You can rinse leaves and then place them in ice cube trays using this Herbal Ice Cubes recipe on Food.com. Check out this list of what you can harvest now.
Berries – Berries make great frozen treats to eat later whole or as icy refreshment, like these Triple-Berry Popsicles. Or, to simply freeze them whole try these instructions for How to Freeze Fresh Berries.
Clean-up and Storage – Empty all your pots, dumping the soil in the beds or your compost since soil nutrients won’t keep when stored for months. Store garden ornaments and clean your garden tools to avoid rusting while in storage. To kill any diseases or viruses that could be bad for future seeds and plants be sure to wash your pots and let them sun dry before storing them away (apartmenttherapy.com).