Living > Home & Garden

  Home & Garden  

Cool spring challenging early gardeners

BY ANNIE CALOVICH

The Wichita Eagle

Temperatures Thursday topped 80. But subsequent 40-degree nights are just one example of how this spring continues to be long and cool -- and confounding for gardeners.

It's been a lesson in planting by the weather and not by the calendar, extension agent Bob Neier said this week. Hot-weather vegetables such as tomatoes that were planted early have been struggling because of bouts of continued cool weather.

To give them a boost, Neier recommends using floating row covers on the plants. The light, mesh-like material is available at garden centers. Take it off in two weeks and you'll really see a difference, he said.

If you haven't planted them yet, wait a while to plant tomatoes, and even a little longer to plant peppers, because they like the weather even warmer than tomatoes do.

Today is the annual Herb Day celebration at the Extension Education Center at 21st and Ridge Road, and it's usually seen as kicking off the growing season the first weekend in May. This year, Neier said, "It will be a great shopping day, but you might wait until temperatures are a little warmer to plant."

Delays in gardening chores extend to spraying Austrian pines for Sphaeropsis tip blight. While sprays usually start in April, Neier encourages people to do them in early May, followed by a second application in a couple of weeks. And this year for the first time, experts recommend a third treatment for maximum protection. Professional applicators normally do the spraying, as tip blight usually hits older pines that are quite large.

While Thursday night's rain took care of dry spots in lawns, another problem hearkens back to last year's late Eastertime freeze that nipped flowers and wiped out the peach and apple crops. It's showing its effects in dead tips on all kinds of shrubs this year, Neier said.

"We are still seeing some cankering as a result of last spring's hard freeze," he said. Cut the dead part out, below where the dead line is.

Not all is bad in a long cool spring, Neier said.

"We're seeing some of the best flowering in years," he said.

Reach Annie Calovich at 316-268-6596 or acalovich@wichitaeagle.com.