This site is an archive of ChiotsRun.com. For the latest information about Susy and her adventrures, visit the Cultivate Simple site.
Thank you for all your support over the years!

Deadheading

August 23rd, 2017

I’ve never been great at deadheading, it just slips my mind. Annuals aren’t very common in my garden, I find myself mostly focusing on perennials, hardy annuals, and things that reseed easily but don’t become invasive. There are still deadheading chores with this kind of gardening, but it’s generally shearing off the entire plant rather than cutting off spent blossoms. This year I have more annual cutting flowers that I have ever had and I find that the deadheading part is something I haven’t quite figured out how to work into my schedule. The good thing is that when I don’t get around to deadheading I can save seed for some of my favorite varieties.

Deadheading is a great way to build the compost piles. Since I’m currently using them to build up one side of my main edible garden, I’m always looking for sources to make them grow larger and produce more compost. Earlier this week, I deadheaded my cosmos, dahlias, and a few others plants and ended up with a very large tubtrug filled with flowers. It also makes for a pretty compost pile, at least for a day or so.

The other evening, while I was in the garden cutting spent blossoms off the cosmos, I was thinking it might be a good idea to set a schedule. Maybe Sunday evenings are a good time to spend deadheading and cutting things back. This is how I work my fertilization into my system without having to keep track. Generally, I give the plants that need it a liquid kelp feed on the first and the fifteenth of each month. That way I know when it happens and don’t have to try to remember or keep track.

How do you manage your time gardening to keep up with the weekly chores? 

One Comment to “Deadheading”
  1. Nebraska Dave on August 23, 2017 at 8:59 am

    Susy, unfortunately my gardening depends on when I can fit it into the domestic Schedule so it suffers from time to time but still produces quite well in spite of the neglect. Gardening for me is a quiet time thing and is soothing to my soul even if I can’t keep up with the weeds and harvesting.

    Have a great day with seed saving.

    Reply to Nebraska Dave's comment

About

This is a daily journal of my efforts to cultivate a more simple life, through local eating, gardening and so many other things. We used to live in a small suburban neighborhood Ohio but moved to 153 acres in Liberty, Maine in 2012.

Admin
Read previous post:
Seed Saving

Sometimes I save seed for my favorite plants, this year I'm saving in earnest. So far I have a nice...

Close