by Mark Levisay
Activity heats up even further in the July vegetable garden, as you may be planting seeds, doing plant maintenance and harvesting some of your crops. I’ll share some of the things I’m doing in my garden this month and hopefully help you with some of your garden chores. If I’ve missed a crop that you are growing, e-mail me and we can discuss their specific needs.
Tomatoes
Tomatoes are probably the #1 home garden crop and of course come in many varieties. Most should start to provide some ripe fruit by the end of July, but there are some things you can do to increase your harvest. I just came in from tying up my tomato plants and if you’re growing indeterminate types (which continue to grow until frost) I strongly recommend tying yours up on strong poles. I also will continue to “sucker” my plants to train them to have 2 or 3 main leaders. The suckers are the shoots that grow at each node-the point where a leaf joins the main stem.
This is a good time to look for leaf damage, as I found 3 tomato hornworms while tying up the plants today. Use a pocket knife or scissors to push them off the plant stem and onto the ground where you can easily dispatch them. It’s also a good time to look for diseased leaves, any with yellowing and/or brown or black spots. Remove those branches and dispose in the trash-DON’T compost!
Fertilize the tomatoes after they’ve started to set green fruit and continue to fertilize at monthly intervals. I’m using Espoma’s Tomato-Tone for this. Water deeply but not daily, avoiding getting water on the plant’s leaves. Soaker hoses are perfect for this. Proper watering can prevent blossom-end rot, which is actually a calcium deficiency caused by insufficient watering.
Row of staked and tied Supersweet 100, Juliet and Verona tomato plants.
Peppers
Peppers are a little different from tomatoes when it comes to their care despite being related. I use 3 ring cages to support them, and later on, if they fall over I can stake the entire cage to keep the plants upright. Peppers don’t require as much water as tomatoes—several deep waterings each week should be enough even without rain. Hot peppers may even benefit (if you like heat!) with less water. Soaker hoses are ideal for peppers too.
If the plants are growing well you don’t need to fertilize. If they seem “puny” add a small amount of all purpose fertilizer around the plants and water in. Too much fertilizer can encourage excessive leaf growth at the expense of fruit production. Your first ripe fruit should be ready by mid to late July. Remember, most peppers will turn some color, red, yellow or orange when ripe. Green peppers may be used in a lot of recipes but are not actually ripe yet.
Beds of pepper plants all on the same soaker hose circuit.
Potatoes
Potatoes should be diggable now. I’ve had to water mine a few times this year due to the dry weather but they still have green stems and leaves. You can harvest potatoes any time after they begin to bloom and you should certainly dig them all after the vines die back. What I do is dig just enough for a meal or two and let the rest of the patch grow. When I dig the bulk of the crop I let them dry between layers of newspaper and try to keep them out of the light. Light exposure causes the green skin condition you’ve probably seen. The green is not good to eat and should be peeled off when cooking. Watch for tomato hornworms (tomatoes are related to potatoes) and also Colorado potato beetles, which can be squashed on sight, or the larvae squashed when you see their leaf predation.
Cucurbits
Squash, melons, cucumbers and pumpkins are all subject to a number of pests. Squash bugs, which look like elongated stink bugs, are pretty easy to catch and squish. I get them to come out of hiding by watering the entire plant with a watering wand. This usually gets them out of hiding as they try to escape the water. Catch them and squash those squash bugs! Vine borers are a big problem, and caused by a moth active at night laying eggs on the exposed lower stem of the cucurbit family plants. Try covering the lower stems with soil, mulch or even aluminum foil. Another trick (which I haven’t yet tried) would be to put some row cover material over the plants at night to deter the moths. You must remove it in the day time, as the cucurbit family flowers have to be insect pollinated to produce fruit.
Squash and cucumbers don’t have a long growing season, so it’s a good idea to do several succession plantings of these. I’m going to plant several types of squash, and cucumbers into the newly cleared bed that was home to my brassicas. Cucumbers like to climb and will thrive on fences, which helps with space in the garden. Deer will eat the leaves, so consider putting up a small section of low fencing within the borders of your garden just for the cucumbers.
Brassicas to beans
Speaking of brassicas, they should be done now, especially with the recent hot weather. The crops, especially cabbage, will last a while in the fridge so It’s probably best to harvest them if there’s any question of their maturity. If you haven’t used a row cover, your plants are probably infested with cabbage worms. Consider disposing of these infested plants rather than composting, just to make sure to break their life cycle. Now that you have some empty space, try planting a second (or third) crop of squash or beans. It’s too early to plant more brassicas as they enjoy cooler weather. We’ll discuss fall crops in August.
“Thunderhead” cabbage.
In addition to watering your existing beans it may soon be time to harvest from your earliest planting. Watch for leaf predation, as Mexican bean beetles are pretty common, especially if you’ve grown beans before. The adults look like tan Ladybug beetles, but the larvae, which you’ll find under the leaves are bright yellow and kind of fuzzy. You can hand pick them if you find them in time. You may want to dispose of the spent plants in the trash as opposed to composting them to break the bean beetle life cycle. Beans have a relatively short life cycle (bush beans are 60-70 days) so do a number of plantings 10 days to two weeks apart if you have space.
Root crops
Beets are ready to be harvested, and you may have been enjoying them for a while now. Harvest the largest ones as you need them which will give the smaller ones room to grow. This year I’m again growing “Red Ace” beets which do well in our climate and have few pests. As with brassicas, these can be grown successfully in the fall but it’s too early and hot right now to do a second planting.
Rows of beans, carrots and beets grown in raised beds.
I’m growing carrots for the first time in a number of years at the urging of my grandson. I’m growing them in my deepest bed enriched with lots of “Panorama Paydirt”, a commercially produced compost product. I tried “Danvers Half Long”, a variety suited for heavier soils and not too long as the name implies. Carrots are in the parsley family and the tops are edible, though sometimes bitter. If you have carrot tops, taste them. If they’re not bitter, consider them in salads or as a substitute for parsley in recipes. If you planted carrots in early April, check out the largest ones to see it they’re ready. As with beets, pulling the largest ones in the row will allow the smaller ones more room to grow.
“Danvers Half Long” carrots.
Asparagus
If you have an asparagus bed there’s not too much work to do now that harvest time is over. Asparagus does prefer moist conditions, so it’s important to keep them well watered during dry spells. I also find Japanese beetles in the foliage from time to time. I try to keep them under control by hand picking them early in the morning and putting them in a jug of soapy water which kills them. I also use this method to help control the Japanese beetles on my raspberry plants.
Onions
Onions should be about ready. As with beets or potatoes pick the largest onions as you need them. They’ll be growing as long as the tops are green. If the tops die back, pull the onions, clean them off and store in a cool dark place.
Basil
Basil is not strictly a vegetable but if you have any you’ll see that it is really growing in the hot weather. In addition to using it in cooking you can make pesto from it and then freeze the pesto. I make the pesto in the food processor and then fill standard sized muffin cups in a muffin pan. I find that a “batch”, which consists of 4 cups of basil leaves, 1 cup of walnuts (cheaper than pine nuts), 1 cup of parmesan cheese, 1 ¼ cups of olive oil, 3 cloves of garlic and 1 tsp. of salt will fill 6 standard size muffin cups. Cover with cling wrap and freeze. After freezing I set the pan in warm water to release the cups and then put the “pucks” in a freezer bag and back into the freezer where they’ll last for a long time.
Sorry for going on so long! If I missed anything that you’re growing, e-mail me at marklevisay@gmail.com with any questions that you may have. Good luck!