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Garden In Summer: Ideas And Tips For Your Green Paradise

The long winter is over, and the sun’s rays are appearing more and more frequently – the gardening season is beginning. With these tips, your garden will really blossom in the summer. Don’t have a garden? Then we have great ideas for summery balcony plants and a beautiful herb bed in the kitchen.

Garden design and care in summer: The two sides of the sun

Warming sun, fragrant flowers, the delicate rustling of leaves, and a colorful sight: the garden in summer is the ideal retreat to really relax outdoors and pamper all your senses. In order for you to really feel comfortable on your green island, a few things have to be considered – because summer also has its downsides: heat and drought not only cause problems for people, but many plants are also under a lot of stress during the summer months.

It is all the more important to water the roots of the garden plants regularly. But when should you water the garden in summer? The best time for a cool refreshment is in the morning hours – then it is relatively cool outside and very little irrigation water has already evaporated on the surface. However, you should not water when the blazing midday sun is shining mercilessly on perennials, roses, and the like. Why? The light radiation is intensified by water droplets and, in the worst case, can even burn the leaves if they get water when watering.

However, watering is not the only way to get the most out of your garden in summer. Here are the most important tips for gardening and garden design as well as blooming ideas for the balcony and kitchen.

What blooms in the garden in summer, what can I harvest?

Fertilize, cut, sow, harvest: Garden enthusiasts will have their hands full from July. Here are the most important tips for your garden plants in summer:

If you want to reap, you have to sow

Lamb’s lettuce loves the sun. For the upcoming autumn harvest, you should therefore sow the delicate-leaved varieties such as “Gala” or “Favor” at the beginning of summer. With parsley, you can start sowing in July. This is done almost a centimeter deep and best in rows 10 to 15 centimeters apart. Water the bed well and keep it evenly moist until germination.
You should sow bush beans by mid-July at the latest – ideally in three to five-centimeter deep grooves that you cover with a little soil. For a high yield, the shallow-rooted plants should be watered regularly from the very first flowering. The deadline for harvesting carrots is even two weeks earlier than for beans. Important: until the end of August you should cover the bed with a protective net to protect the vegetables from carrot flies that are looking for places to lay their eggs.

Harvest well, all well

The summer heat is particularly hard on kohlrabi, radishes, radishes, and celeriac. The result of severe dryness: cottony and woody cells. They should therefore be harvested and used as early as June. Tip: The small celery bulbs are very flavorful and are particularly good for a delicious vegetable soup. Herbs are also ready to be harvested in summer. With oregano and thyme, you should wait until the light purple umbels have blossomed. Then the herbs unfold their full aroma.
With early potatoes, on the other hand, you can wait to harvest as long as the leaves are still green in June – that’s how long the tubers will continue to grow in the ground and the German’s favorite food will retain its fresh taste. To dig up the potatoes, it is best to use a digging fork, which you stick into the ground next to the plant and use like a lever. The potato plant itself is pulled up by the stalk and then freed from the tubers.

Botanical visit to the hairdresser: pruning

At the beginning of summer, fresh growth from the previous year should be gently pruned back to bring hedges and individual shrubs into shape. The condition for the care and shape pruning is that no birds build nests or breed in the plants to be pruned. In the rock garden, early flowering cushion perennials and flat subshrubs can be easily cut back with hedge trimmers. Rule of thumb: Only remove a third of the shoot length.
The ideal time for pruning roses is actually in spring – then the probability that shoots that have already been cut will freeze is very low. But also in the following summer you should reach for the hedge trimmers again if the roses bloom more often, in order to stimulate the formation of new blossoms and to rejuvenate the garden flowers. To do this, cut back all shoots immediately after flowering. Tip for optimal rose care in the summer garden: Work in special rose fertilizer so that the roses get enough nutrients for the exhausting bloom formation.

Maintaining a green carpet: mowing and fertilizing the lawn

Of course, a well-kept lawn is part of a beautiful garden in summer. Anyone who has sown this in late spring should mow it for the first time when the grass is eight to ten centimeters high at the beginning of summer. During the first mowing, the green is shortened to five centimeters. For the next mowing appointments, always lower the lawn mower by one level until you have reached the ideal mowing height of a maximum of 3.5 centimeters. For a healthy lawn, however, it is not enough just to mow it regularly. You should also provide your green vegetation cover with sufficient long-term fertilizer after shortening.

Ideas for the herb bed in the kitchen

Even if the kitchen is primarily used to prepare food, it is more than just a workplace. With a herb bed, you create a Mediterranean ambience, and soothing scents that whet your appetite for great recipes. And all this without much effort, because the herbs for the kitchen are all very easy to care for.

  • Basil loves moisture and warmth. Goes wonderfully with antipasti, tomatoes, strawberries, and raspberries.
  • Dill prefers a sunny spot, a deep pot, and should be sown every year. Goes wonderfully with quark, cucumber, and fish.
  • Parsley likes to be in the light but does not tolerate too much sun. She feels most comfortable in nutrient-rich soil without waterlogging. Goes wonderfully with boiled potatoes, carrots, and salads.
  • Rosemary will want to be pruned regularly to reduce woody growth. Goes wonderfully with poultry, aubergines, courgettes, and potatoes.
  • Chives need a sunny to partially shaded location and sufficient space in the pot. Goes wonderfully with quark, smoked fish, or salads.
  • Thyme does not like waterlogging, the shoot tips and branches should be harvested regularly. Goes wonderfully with beef, lamb, and stews.
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Written by John Myers

Professional Chef with 25 years of industry experience at the highest levels. Restaurant owner. Beverage Director with experience creating world-class nationally recognized cocktail programs. Food writer with a distinctive Chef-driven voice and point of view.

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