No doubt about it, summer's heat multiplies the weeds and the home gardener's workload. In addition to pulling and hoeing weeds, gardeners find themselves faced with extra challenges to keep their gardens beautiful and productive.

Fighting plant disease is one of those challenges. After pulling weeds and disposing of them well away from your garden, check your plants' overall condition. Are they a healthy shade of green? Or are there brown or white spots, circles or edges on the leaves?

If so, your plants could have a nutrient deficiency or disease. Careful observation can catch many serious diseases or insect problems before the plant is overcome. If leaves show signs of disease, remove the leaves and dispose of them promptly — not in a compost heap.

You can find plant disease fact sheets, plant nutrition information and other gardening tips at the Penn State Extension Web site. Go to www.butler.extension.psu.edu/ and click on horticulture/gardening. Or contact a Butler County Master Gardener at the Green Line at 724-287-4761.

Take extra precaution against plant disease by keeping your garden tools and the areas surrounding your plants clean and clear of anything that could promote plant problems.

Regular cleaning and disinfecting of all garden tools helps keep your plants healthy by minimizing the spread of problems. At least once a month, disinfect your tools by dipping them in a weak chlorine bleach and water solution. Fill a five-gallon bucket with water and a capful of chlorine bleach. Dip the tools and then let them dry in the sun. This also applies to baskets, buckets, sacks or trays used to collect fruits or vegetables. Don't forget to scrub gardening gloves, wheelbarrows and carts.

Look around the garden area for debris that invites unwanted bugs. Clean up and remove old tarps, black plastic or landscaping fabric. These can harbor moisture in the ground underneath and provide a cozy place for bugs to hide and reproduce. Burn off rotten wood lying on the ground.

Garden plants get hungry, too. Nutrient deficiencies can turn leaves yellow, brown or white. One way to help your plants is to feed them down the sides of the rows or nearby — a practice called side dressing.

One treat for your plants may already be in your medicine cabinet — Epsom salts or magnesium sulfate. Commonly used to treat sprains or bruises, magnesium sulfate is useful for starting gardens and feeding plants and shrubs. Magnesium keeps plant veins strong and improves seed production.

For plants such as tomatoes, evergreens, azaleas and rhododendrons and houseplants, use one teaspoon of Epsom salts per gallon of water applied over the root zone, twice per year. Use a weaker solution of this mix and apply to the plant leaves more often.

Regularly adding manure, compost and other organic materials to garden soil can raise the soils nutrient levels and quality, thus reducing the need for synthetic fertilizers. As plants grow, they leach mineral and nutrients from the soil. Putting nutrients back into the soil keeps your plants healthy.

Perhaps a neighboring farm has piles of old manure. Help the farmer get rid of the manure and help your plants at the same time by digging down the side rows and turning the manure into the ground around the plants. Manure should be aged at least six months before using it in your garden.

Have a compost pile? Add a few shovels full of the rotted material up and down the plant rows to condition the soil. As the soil improves, nutrients will move through more quickly and reach the plants.

Pulling weeds is a necessary evil, or to some a lost cause. But weeds steal nutrients from your plants and harbor insects waiting to devour your garden plants and crops. If you take the extra time to perform these "clean and feed" chores, you'll be rewarded with healthier plants, better blooms and tastier crops.

Master Gardeners are volunteers of Penn State Extension. After training, volunteers dedicate time to educating other home gardeners through community projects. For more information about the program, call the extension office at 724-287-4761.

Jennifer Frohnapfel is a member of the Penn State Master Gardener Association of Butler County.