Inside bugs are coming this fall to your home. It will be getting time for the outside bugs like spiders, ants, boxelder bugs, and others in being inside bugs. Many will be on your lawn to start with. So, keep the grass mowed, remove any debris around the house and garage that they love to hide under, and trim up your shrubbery (lightly). Also, caulk around the foundation and windows to keep them out which will also keep the cold out when the time comes.
Flies have been bad this year. Keeping your garbage bins away from the house is the main thing. Fly baits and sticky tubes will get some of the flies indoors but be careful, so your pets do not get to them.
I use a residual insecticide called Permectrin II, sprayed around where the foundation meets the ground. Spray up to around 3 feet on the side of the home and out 3 feet on the ground. Also do not forget around the windows and doors. If you do not want to do this yourself, there are home pest control businesses in our area.
The hot weather is slowing down fruit production in the garden dramatically. My summer squash (which I planted a dozen hills) usually produces more than I certainly can use. The plants now produce maybe one fruit every few days, which is good. It is bad concerning other vine crops like cucumbers and melons. Below-ground vegetables like carrots and beets are doing well. My winter squash is setting on a lot of fruit, mainly because they are growing between shady fruit trees. Peppers have not set and the ones that have are small.
You notice it with the tomatoes, fewer are setting and not ripening. Green tomatoes are full of chlorophyll and when maturing tomatoes produce lycopene and carotene from ethylene gas breaking the chlorophyll down. This turns the fruit red or yellowish depending on the variety. When the temps are above 85 the ripening slows down and when above 95 the ripening can stop. When they do ripen, they can have tough skins. If that is not enough, you may notice the tops (collars) of the fruit will stay green because the temps are hotter at the top of the tomato preventing the top from ripening.
Fruit cracking due to inconsistent watering
The best thing to do with this heat is to mulch your plants to keep the ground cooler. Also, do not be stingy on the water since the tomato is mainly water. Inconsistent watering will crack the fruit depending on the variety. Keep in mind that cooler weather is on the way.
Sunburn (sunscald) on tomatoes
Some say to remove the growth in between the main leaf and stem. This is good when you want to force ripening in the fall. In the summer, if you remove too much green growth, you may cause more delay in ripening and cause sunburning of the fruit.
Leaf diseases are more prevalent in hot weather especially if you overhead water. Remove any diseased leaves and try a garden fungicide.
Blossom end rot
Also, blossom end rot is a problem again depending on the variety. This is caused by inconsistent watering and hot weather tying up the calcium in the soil.
All of us know what field bindweed is and this is the time of year it shows its white to pinkish flowers all over. I planted the garden on a field bindweed & thistle patch ten years ago and with mulch, carpet, and hoeing it out when I see it, I am slowly starving the weeds out. WINNING!
The problem this time of year is the dry lawns. You noticed the spring green lawns have given way to the white-flowered weeds. This shows especially this year being dry and hot, and the water costs are high so many have let the lawn go dormant.
What to do now? Seeds of bindweed are viable in the soil for 30 years and their roots go down over 20 feet so digging is not an option. In the garden and flowerbed, keep hoeing them out, do not let them flower. On the lawn, spot spray on a cool, windless day to prevent flowers from setting seed. In the fall hit the lawn with a liquid lawn weed killer with a 2,4-D based herbicide sometime in October for the best kill.
We all know the other common name of bindweed is creeping jenny. This gets confused with the trailing greenhouse annual plant called creeping jenny. Bindweed is in the morning glory family.
