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Part 2: Let’s Get Gardening in July

By Jennifer Fairfield, owner Garden Mill

(Publisher’s Note: This is part two of this column. Part 1 published yesterday.)

There are lots of different pests out there, and it’s impossible for me to try to cover them all here. If you’re not sure what’s eating your plants, send me pictures, or come in. I can often (though not always) identify the culprit from the plant that is being eaten and/or the damage that is being done. From there, we can come up with a potential solution.

Photo by Jennifer Fairfield. Spurge.

Weeds:

Weeds are also a big problem in gardens at this time of year, and keeping up with them can be a real chore. The best thing to do is to try to get them while they’re small, mostly because they are easier to pull out before their roots are too established.

Since weeds compete for water and nutrition with the plants you want, don’t let them get out of control. At this time of year, crabgrass, knotweed, plantain, spurge, and thistle are the most prominent of the weeds. Of them thistle can be the hardest to deal with, but all pose their own special challenges.

Not sure what you’re seeing in your garden? There are some good apps for smartphones that can help in identification – just snap a picture and upload it for identification. Among them, I have found Google Lens, Picture This, PlantSnap, and PlantNet to be very helpful, though some of them only allow you to ID up to a certain number for free.

The University of Missouri has an app, ID Weeds, that lets you search for weeds by name or by the plant’s characteristics, and gives you some information about the weed. None of these apps tells you how to get rid of them, unfortunately. Some options that don’t include pulling include using a pre-emergent in the early spring and spraying for existing weeds.

Corn gluten, an organic pre-emergent, won’t do anything for weeds you already have. What it will do is help to cut down on weeds over time, by keeping weed seeds from germinating. An organic weed spray that I have found to be very effective in my own yard is Bonide’s Burn Out Formula II. It is a non-specific weed killer, which means it kills pretty much everything in comes in contact with – even things you don’t want it to – so use it very carefully, and don’t spray when there is any kind of wind that might carry it to plants you aren’t trying to get rid of.

Early in the month is a good time to side dress your summer crops – especially because of all the rain we’ve been getting lately, which can wash away fertilizers you put down earlier and can make it hard for your plants to take up the nutrients they need.

Side dressing is just the simple act of giving your plants a mid-season boost of fertilizer. It provides the plants with a little extra food when they need it most – as they are doing the most growing and as they are producing flowers and fruit. By the time they are ready to start putting out flowers, the plants have used up most of the available nutrition in your garden.

Providing a little more fertilizer at this point will make a big difference in whether your garden produces in abundance or just so-so.  The term side-dressing really just means to apply fertilizer around the plant, in the root zone. Don’t just sprinkle it on top, though – carefully work it into the top inch or so of soil. Fertilizer left on top of the soil often will just wash away before it can break down and be useful to the plant. Don’t get any closer than about four inches from the stem of the plant, as you want the food to be available to the new root growth as the plant is growing and putting out more roots.

One very common issue with tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, and squash that occurs when we are getting the kind of rain that we have been seeing is blossom end rot. People are often led to believe that the problem is solved by adding calcium to their soil, but a lack of calcium is not always the problem.

The problem is often that too much water (or even too little water, though that is not as common) makes it difficult for the plant to take up what calcium is in the soil. When we are getting a lot of rain, there’s not a whole lot you can do to fix the problem, unless you can somehow provide better drainage for your plants. If you have had your soil tested and it shows a lack of calcium, bonemeal, lime, and even crushed eggshells are good ways to add some back into the soil. There are other issues that can cause blossom end rot. For more details, check out this article from the Old Farmer’s Almanac.

Keep up with your program of fungicide spraying (or start one, if you haven’t yet). There are a lot of diseases that really get going as summer progresses, especially on tomatoes, cucumbers, and squash. Treating your plants with an organic fungicide on a regular basis can help keep them from succumbing to disease, which means that you might actually get to eat a lot of what you planted! If you’re not sure how to tell what’s ailing your plants, Cornell University’s Vegetable MD Online is a great resource. But don’t wait until you see disease to treat it – most of the diseases can’t really be treated, but need to be prevented. So treat your plants regularly – generally weekly, but more often when we’re getting a lot of rain.

July should be harvest time for many crops. Spring crops, such as lettuce, spinach, and peas will mostly finish producing this month, if they didn’t already bolt and go to see in the high heat we had early in June. Summer crops, such as zucchini, cucumbers, and early tomatoes will generally just be getting started by the end of the month, though we may see some coming in earlier than usual, due to the heat and rain.

Garlic is generally ready for harvest between the middle of July and early August, depending on the variety and when it was planted (fall vs. spring). If possible, stop watering your garlic about three weeks before you expect to be harvesting (I say “if possible” because none of us can control Mother Nature.). You can tell that garlic is ready to be harvested by the foliage. When about one-third of the leaves have yellowed and withered, it’s time to check on your bulbs. Gently wipe some of the soil away from a bulb, and check the size and form of your garlic.

If it looks like a good size, it’s ready to come out. If not, leave it for another few days to a week, and check again. Don’t leave garlic in the ground too long past peak harvest time though, as this could lead to rotting, and you may want to pull it earlier than usual if your garden is having flooding issues, for the same reason. Better some smaller heads of garlic than rotted garlic.

When it’s time to harvest, don’t pull the bulbs out by the foliage, as you will likely just tear the foliage off and damage the bulbs. Instead, carefully loosen the soil around the bulb with a garden fork, and then get up under the bulb with a trowel or shovel.

July is also a time for planting and starting new seedlings for fall harvest. If you want to have broccoli and cabbage for fall, start your own inside no later than July 10, transplanting the seedlings into your garden when they are about six weeks old (don’t forget to slowly introduce them to the sun over the course of about a week before putting them into the garden, to avoid sun scorch).

They should be ready for harvest by early October. These can be good “succession crops” to be put into the garden in place of things like onions and garlic, once those have been harvested.

You can plant late season successions of lettuce, spinach, peas, beets, carrots, and Swiss chard at the end of the month, to be ready for picking before it gets too cold. But wait to plant late-season radishes until early or mid- August, as it will generally still be too hot at this point for these cool-weather lovers (they mature very quickly and will bolt in the heat of August before they can get big enough for eating).

I know that it sounds crazy right now, but don’t forget to water your veggie garden regularly as summer goes on. This rainy weather won’t go on forever (even though it might seem like it), and your plants generally need about an inch of water every week. A good soaking once a week is better than a little bit every day or two, but when the temps are really high, and especially when accompanied by wind, a little more water is even better. Don’t overdo it, but definitely make sure that your soil doesn’t totally dry out between watering. That’s a great way to stress your plants.

(Part three will publish tomorrow.)

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