Ask Chris
by CHRIS WINSLOW
1. Mulch and water. Your vegetable garden, landscape, flowerbeds and trees need some help to make it through this torrid month. Mulch, and water deeply.
2. Care for your lawn. Your grass also needs deep, infrequent watering (5 day schedule) and keep the cutting height for your lawnmower as high as possible. This will help shade the roots and conserve water.
3. Start your vegetables. This is the month to start your sweet corn, okra, snap beans, cream peas and black-eyed peas from seed. Because the first frost is likely to occur within 100 days, use transplants for your peppers and tomatoes. During the second half of this month, plant your broccoli, cabbage and Brussels sprouts.
4. Plant your tomatoes. The window for planting fall tomatoes closes at the end of August. Some growers feel that this is the best season for tomatoes. Tomatoes planted in August reach production maturity toward the end of September, when the temperatures (hopefully!) are cooling down, creating optimum conditions for fruit set.
5. Survive! While it is nice of you to nurse your plants through this brutal month, it is even more important that you look after yourself. Here are three gardening rules that you must follow:
• Garden early in the morning.
• Wear effective sunscreen and a large brimmed hat.
• Drink gallons of water!
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Wheat grass is the young grass shoot of the common wheat plant Triticum aestivum.
You can harvest the seedlings after just a week of growth, and then juice them, and you will be holding in your hands an incredibly rich source of chlorophyll, vitamins, amino acids, minerals and enzymes.
For the home gardener, growing a crop of wheat grass couldn’t be easier.
My recipe:
Fill a 4” pot to about ¾ full with straight vermiculite or 50-50 with compost.
Cover the surface with wheat grass seed (I use ‘hard red spring wheat berries’) .
Cover the seed and water in gently with a fan-type sprayer.
Be sure to water two or three times for the first two days, and then just daily after germination.
The wheat grass seedlings should be ready to harvest after 5 to 7 days of growth.
Then just throw your crop in the juicer, and drink the liquid from a shot glass.
Besides the health benefits for humans, some folks buy and grow wheat grass for their indoor pets. Your cats will thank you for providing fresh grass to their diet. Dogs love it too!
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If you have a question for Chris Winslow, send it to him via email: [email protected]. Or mail your question to Chris at: It’s About Thyme: 11726 Manchaca Road, Austin, TX 78748
