HUTCHINSON, Kan. — The recent flooding has caused damage to many things, including lawns and gardens. If you’re looking at damage to plants and grass, there are some steps you can take to either recover now or this fall.

As far as your garden goes, or grows, there is still time to restart your plantings, according to Jason French with Stutzman’s Greenhouse. “There are some options that you can still plant in vegetable gardens, squashes things like that, that can still go in,” French said. “Probably be a little hard pressed to find some of the tomatoes and peppers to go in.” French says you also want to make sure to loosen the soil again to avoid compactions. “You may want to lightly cultivate or kind of go between the rows and loosen that soil so that it can kind of breath,” French added.

As far as your lawn goes, the flooding may have killed off the lawn. If that’s the case, not much can be done until the fall when it’s time to seed or resod your lawn. French says the only thing you can do then is keep the weeds away until it’s time to plant again. If the grass survived, he says you do have some options. “What we really need to do this time of year to help is to keep the weeds down,” French said. “That water is going to want to sprout a lot of weeds.”

French adds that most warm-season grasses can still be fertilized, but any cool season grass will have to wait until cooler weather returns. He adds it is also a good idea to aerate your lawn to avoid soil compaction from excess water.