8. The 10 minute gardener: quick gardening jobs for late Summer

Garden jobs this month

Only got 10 minutes to spare for gardening? You need the 10 minute gardener: lots of iedas for quick gardening jobs to tackle in late summer.

Welcome to the 10 minute gardener for late summer, looking at quick gardening jobs you can fit into a busy schedule.

We’re at that stage of summer where all the hard work in the garden should be really paying off, in the form of healthy plants and lots of flowers to enjoy.  I think this part of the year is actually quite lazy, with an emphasis on sitting back and enjoying the view, but there are still a few jobs that are worth ticking off the list.  Here are some ideas for quick gardening jobs you can tackle in late summer.

keeping garden plants in containers well fed and watered is a quick gardening job for late summer

Keep containers and baskets happy

You can prolong the life of your summer containers and hanging baskets by taking a few minutes to look after them.  Remove old flowers to prevent seed pods forming, this is called deadheading and will make the plants produce new flowers.  And remember that plants in containers and baskets exhaust the nutrients in their compost quickly; feed them every 2-4 weeks with a balanced liquid fertiliser.

garden trug with toolsWeed little and often

Weeds grow really fast at this time of year, and they also compete with your plants for nutrients, light and water.  Spend ten minutes here and there keeping on top of them and you can save yourself a lot of time later on; your plants will perform better too.

sunflower in the sunshineOrganise holiday plant care

With the school holidays upon us, lots of us will be heading off on holiday.  If you don’t want to return home to sorry-looking plants you’ll need to arrange some care while you’re away.  If a friend or neighbour can’t pop in and do some watering, you might want to consider setting up an automatic watering system, these usually work by connecting them to a tap or water butt so they can drip-water your plants.  Alternatively, put all pots and containers in your shadiest area, put trays under them, and fill with water on the day you leave.  Give the whole garden a really good soak on this day too.  And don’t forget your houseplants too; I’ve got lots of tips for keeping them alive while you’re away in this post.

making new strawberry plants is a quick gardening job for late summerMake new strawberry plants

If you’ve been growing strawberries this summer, your plants will probably have sent out ‘runners’ by now – these are long shoots with the odd leaf on them.  If you peg these runners down into soil or a pot of compost they will take root; once this has happened you can cut them away from the parent plant.  Free plants and more strawberries next year – what’s not to love?!

Are you managing to fit in some quick gardening jobs this month?  Let me know in the comments.

Pin this for later:

Only got 10 minutes to spare for gardening? You need the 10 minute gardener: lots of iedas for quick gardening jobs to tackle in late summer.

Tweet
Share
Share
Pin
7 Shares

Catherine is a gardener, plant lover, writer, and award winning author of children’s nature books. Her blog is a Vuelio Top 5 gardening blog and her work has been featured in many online and print publications including Grow Your Own Magazine, House Beautiful, Daily Mail, Tesco Magazine, Suttons, Thompson & Morgan, and many more. She is also a member of the Garden Media Guild.

9 Comments

  1. I’ve found that having the right tools really helps me use the bits and pieces of free time I have. A cordless hedge trimmer means I can nip out and trim a small section of hedge without all the hassle of running the cable.

    1. Ah yes it really does help doesn’t it – I think it takes longer to get the extension leads sorted for the lawnmower than it does to mow our lawn!

      1. I know the feeling – that’s why I swapped our Flymo for a push mower. Now it’s quicker and I get a mint more exercise!

  2. I frequently absent and I used automatic watering system. It is very effective. It helps me save time :)

  3. I am useless with gardening, so great tips, I vow next year to have lovely planter with beautiful flowers. We turfed this year after sinking the kids trampolines and my husband made two big planters. We bought some flower plants some have survived, but some died a sorry death :( #homeetc

    1. It’s hard getting it right first time isn’t it – at least some of your plants survived! I love the idea of sunken trampolines, my kids use our trampoline all the time but it really isn’t a lovely thing to look at!

  4. You’re not wrong about how fast everything grows at this time of year!! I’m sure I can actually see it all growing in front of my eyes :) Thank you as always for such helpful gardening tips X #HomeEtc

    1. It’s crazy isn’t it, all that rain we’ve had in the last couple of weeks has just made everything grow even faster too!

  5. Hi Catherine, definitely time of year to start this sort of thing. I agree with Lins that it is great to see our labour starting to really pay off!

Comments are closed.