Hi! I am Susan Harris and I am talking about sustainable gardening. In this course, I am going to cover the kinds of task that the gardener undertakes during the growing seasons, that means during spring, summer and fall. The most important job during that time of year is to keep your plants from dying and drought and the heat.

People think that winter is more dangerous to plants but it's really the summer. And the most important -- so the most important job is, definitely watering, and I encourage people to not use a spray like this, a fine spray would be okay for grass feed, but most plants need direct watering, right at the root zone of that plant. Here is the plant that I just moved, so I want to make sure that they get plenty of water right there in the root zone.

Especially plants that you have recently put in the ground or moved, they're going to be vulnerable all summer because their roots really aren't ready for the summer yet. So you have to keep an eye on them, in their first year. The second biggest job during the growing season is weeding. And it's really less work in the long run, if you stay on top of it, if you wait for a month and your garden will just be turned into a jungle. So, try to walk through your garden at least once a week and look at your plants, you will see if they are wilting, and need some watering, but also weed as you go along.

I might see that this plant, this weed actually is ready to come out and I take a container with me too. So that way you stay on top of that weeding job. Another job that people ask about is fertilizing, and I say as long as you use this yearly mulching that I have talked about and I also use compost, that is -- that gives the plants the nutrients that they need, and so I don't have to feed anything, no extra fertilizing, with a couple of exceptions.

There would be annual -- any plants in pots because pots are watered so frequently that the nutrients are leached out, and new roses need fertilizing to get started. Other than that, no fertilizing, and the last thing is to, I spray for insects and disease. And my philosophy is that, if I have to spray a plant to keep it alive or to keep it from looking really horrible, I just get rid of it. It's not the right plant for my garden. What I am going cover in the next clip is where you can go for more information about this kind of gardening.