Tips for Gardening After Heavy Rains

The long, moist and relatively cool spring has been good for gardens, but there are some disadvantages to a wet year.

-- You may see increased foliar diseases on plants. Preventive fungicidal sprays will help against black spot on roses or septoria leaf spot on black-eyed Susans. It's not practical to spray large shade trees with leaf spots; just make sure to remove and bag leaves when they drop. Look for anthracnose disease on dogwoods and prune out affected leaves and branches. Remove all suckers or water sprouts on trunks and branches.

-- Frank Gouin, a retired professor of horticulture at the University of Maryland, points out that heavy rain on bare soil will pulverize the top quarter-inch of earth and destroy its desirable structure. The resulting crust will prevent some nutrients and moisture from reaching into the ground. If your soil has crusted, break it up a bit and add a one- or two-inch layer of organic mulch.

-- In the vegetable garden, seeds that have failed to sprout have probably rotted. Cultivate the soil and try again with beans, cucumbers and winter and summer squash.

From : http://www.washingtonpost.com