Growing squash 101

Zucchini bush in center

Saturday, May 23, 2026

Bush type zucchini squash

Squash is amazing.  It spans from huge pumpkins to small petit pan squash.  From the summer kings like zucchini to the fall princes like pumpkins.  They have an amazing array of sizes, shapes, and tastes.

Squash originated in Mexico.  There are cave drawings from 8000 to 6500 BC depicting squash and the oldest remains found are from 8750 BC.  Squash was grown extensively by Native Americans as part of the “Three Sisters”-squash, corn and beans.  These three support each other's growth.  Beans provide nitrogen to the corn and squash.  The corn provides the stalks for the beans to grow up on.  

The sprawling squash vines crowd out any weeds.  

Squash love organic matter.  If you throw a few seeds in your compost pile, you will be rewarded with exuberant vines.

Zucchini is a favorite summer squash and full of nutrition.  It contains antioxidants, carotenes, lutein, folates, potassium, vitamin A, vitamin C, and B vitamins.  

Plant squash when nighttime temps are 55F or warmer consistently.  Add a fertilizer rich in phosphorous a week after transplanting, when flowers first appear and again when fruits begin to form.  They love water, too.  If growing in a pot, keep well watered and don’t let dry out.

I like to plant in mid May.  The vine borer looks for large vines to lay their eggs in.  This typically kills that plant when they hatch and eat the vine from the inside out.  The vine borer is usually gone by the second week in June.

Don’t panic when the first blooms fall off without producing any fruits.  There are male and female flowers.  If yours falls off, it was likely a poor guy that withered without the love a gal.  There can also be some false starts with malformed fruits.  Don’t worry, the plant will put on more blooms and you will be on your way to zucchini overload before you know it!

Baby acorn squash, blooms still attached

There are two basic categories of squash-winter and summer.  

Winter squash are those that take until late fall to ripen and can be stored inside for months.  Butternut squash will last until June in my pantry.  Winter squash includes butternut squash, acorn squash, spaghetti squash, Hubbards, turbans and pumpkins.  Each vine does not produce many fruits. It is typical to get 2-3 winter squash off a single vine.

Winter squash you typically leave on the vine until the vine dies and the fruit loses its sheen in the fall.   Then bring inside and store in a cool, not cold, dark place.

Turban squash

There are some amazingly diverse and cool winter squashes/pumpkins, from the bumpy and blue hubbards, to traditional pear shaped butternut to the exotic "turban" squash, so named because of the hat it appears to be wearing............  

From left to right-Hubbard and Butternut squash

Baby zucchini squash, blooms still attached

Summer squash can be harvested all summer long.  I have grown them successfully in a pot or garden bed.  This year I am planting in the flower bed.  Summer squash include the ever popular zucchini, cushaw, pattypan, and yellow crookneck.

If growing summer squash in a pot, look for the bush varieties.  These are much more manageable.  I would recommend putting in a pot with a water reservoir as well as zucchini's love moisture.  Decorative and Edible Container Gardening

Zucchini is notorious for getting huge overnight.  It is important to pick summer squash when smaller.  As they grow large, they become very seedy and just don’t taste nearly as good!  Check them daily.  If left to grow too large, you can always use them for zucchini bread which is delicious.

I have switched to Trombetta squash.  It is a sprawler so I grow in the garden bed or our large potato boxes.  I prefer it because it seems impervious to disease and pests, produces less at one time and over a longer period, and you can harvest the fruits young for use as a summer squash or if you wait too long, you can harvest and keep as winter squash.

Since summer squash produces so many fruits, it needs to be fertilized and watered regularly in dry conditions.  I fertilize with an organic, granular fertilizer at least once a month.  I'll use tomato fertilizer on all my fruiting vegetables when I fertilize my tomatoes as it is good for all fruiting vegetables as well.  You can also make your own.  Make your own all natural, complete fertilizer

The two biggest pest problems are squash bugs (left) and squash vine borer (below left are eggs and right is the adult).  Inspect the plant for squash bugs.  You can wear gloves, pick them off and throw them in a bowl of soapy water.

Natural, organic pest strategies and how to make your own bug sprays

The squash vine borer is best thwarted by planting early or late.  They fly in mid-June.  If planting early, be sure to inspect regularly the stems for any eggs.  Scrap off any that you find.  When the eggs hatch, the catepillar will dig into the vine and eat its way through its length.  You will have a strong plant one day and a wilted on the next.  You can wrap the stem base as a preventative.  The good news is that your plant does get infested, you can replace with another one.  They grow quickly in warm temperatures and soils of summer.

The cucumber beetle can infect the plant with a bacterial disease called wilt or cucumber mosaic virus.  The cucumber beetles we get here look like yellow/green lady bugs (left).  There are also striped varieties (below).

Again, the gloves, pick and throw in soapy water technique works.  Or if you are not squeamish, you can just squish them.

In late summer in areas with high humidity, you can get powdery mildew.  This can be treated by spraying with baking soda, copper, fresh whey and other organic fungal sprays and soil drenches.  When watering be sure to not get the foliage wet and water in the morning so any extra is quickly evaporated.  I have found that planting a second plant around the first of July is the best approach.  This plant will be kicking in as the second starts slowing down.  How to care for the summer edible garden

With zucchini, you are begging people to take them come mid-summer.  I found some great ways to use all that extra  What to do with all that zucchini?!   I make into spaghetti noodles as a low carb, healthy substitute for spaghetti.  Sliced zucchini can be used as a substitute for lasagna noodles.  Both can be frozen to use throughout the year.  You can also pickle or high pressure can.  There are many ways to creatively use and to preserve your zucchini harvest!  

If you bought a heirloom or open pollinated variety, you can easily save the seed to grow next year's plants.  From your best plant with no disease, let one get large, remove from the vine and leave it out in the garden bed.  The inner flesh will deteriorate leaving the seeds.  Just scoop out the seeds, put in a plastic baggie, date and keep in the frig for next year.  You can also scoop out the seeds from the fruit right off the vine and leave the seeds indoors to dry on a paper towel or plate.  Seed saving-fun, easy and a cost saver

If there is a variety that you love the looks and/or taste of from the store or farmers market, save the seeds and grow some of your own next year!  If it is an heirloom, it will come back "true" to the parent.  If it is a hybrid, it may be a surprise squash.  Either way, it is fun to try.

What do the terms GMO, natural, heirloom, organic, hybrid really mean?

Summer squash is a fun one to grow because it is so productive and easy to grow.  Just a few seeds will provide so much food!  

Growing peppers 101

Peppers are for every taste and garden

Sunday, May 17, 2026

No matter your taste buds, your style of cooking or the type of food you love, there is a pepper for you!  Besides that, peppers are pest free, come in beautiful colors, are easy to grow, and look great on the patio.

Peppers originated in South America.  Their use goes back to at least 7500 BCE and were domesticated at least 8000 years ago.  

Peppers have many great nutritional benefits.  They contain high amounts of vitamins C, A (carotene), K, potassium, manganese, B6 as well as a good source of fiber.  Its antioxidants help the body combat free radicals.  

There are hot peppers, there are sweet peppers, there are smokey peppers.  There are peppers of a multitude of colors-white, yellow, orange, red, purple, brown, black, green.  They come in all shapes from the size of a blueberry to 12”, straight, crooked, puckered.

The hotter the pepper, the more capsaicin it contains.  A tablespoon of ground chili pepper would contain between 0.8 to 480 mg of capsaicin.  In Ayurvedic medicine, capsaicin is used for digestive and circulatory health support.

Pepper’s heat is measured in Scoville heat units.  Some of the hottest peppers measured was a Trinidad Scorpion Butch T at 1,463,700 and a Naga Viper, at 1,382,118 SHU’s.  Now that is smokin’ hot!

Quick reference Scoville values:

*0 Sweet peppers like the classic bell and Italian sweet peppers.  

*100-900 Mild peppers such as pimento, banana and pepperoncini peppers

*1,000-2,500 Anaheim, Poblano, Peppadew peppers

*3,500-8,000 Jalapeño, Anaheim peppers

*10,000-23,000 Serrano, Peter peppers

*30,000-50,000 Tabasco, Cayenne peppers

*100,000-350,000 Habanero/Scotch bonnet peppers

One thing to keep in mind, peppers are natural plants and their heat can vary widely based on growing conditions and their pepper neighbor in the garden.  If you place a hot pepper and a sweet pepper next to each other, the sweet pepper can become a spicy pepper through cross pollination.

Once you get in the range of cayenne peppers, you should use gloves when handling.  Washing your hands with water after handling the pepper does not wash away the heat!  Transferring some of the pepper’s heat to the eyes can be extremely painful!  The best way to cool the heat is to use whole milk.  

The center of a pepper’s heat is in its seeds and ribs.  If you want a milder dish, clean the seeds and ribs from the pepper before using.

We typically grow our hot peppers in pots as they seem to do best in a container.  I try to grow enough peppers to last us all winter for chili, salsa, and pepper seasonings.  The hot peppers like Jalapeños and Cayenne are prolific in pots.  One plant of the hot, smaller varieties is all we need.  We have found that the smaller sweet pepper plants like banana peppers and Nikita do equally well in pots.  The large sweet peppers like California bell and Pimento seemed to do better in the garden bed.

For planting in the pots, just use a good organic potting soil purchased from our local garden center and place one plant per pot along with a petunia or nasturtium for additional color and to attract pollinators.  To help maintain moisture, you can mulch around the peppers after planted in the pot and use a large catch pan under each pot.  I water them once/week in the summer.  Converting your favorite pot to a self watering container can also cut down how often watering is required.  Decorative and Edible Container Gardening

If you want to give your pepper plants an extra boost, they favor phosphorous (bulb food or bone meal works well), sulfur (a book of matches in the hole does the trick), calcium to prevent blossom end rot (a half dozen crushed egg shells works well), and magnesium (which is contained in epson salts, a diluted spray when the flowers appear can be used).  Some say if the leaves pucker, this is a sign that phosphorous is needed.  Tomato fertilizer is also good for peppers as both are fruiting plants.  I just use an all purpose organic fertilizer or tomato fertilizer on my peppers.

You should put out pepper plants after it is nice and warm.  Peppers are in the nightshade family with tomatoes and eggplant.  They should be planted outside when night time temps are above 55 and daytime temps in the 70’s consistently.  If you buy pepper plants with peppers already on them, remove them before planting so the plant can focus its energy on developing a strong root system. 

If you are going to grow your peppers from seeds, start them indoors 6-8 weeks before you will transplant outside.  You can get unusual varieties not at your local nursery in seed catalogues.  Baker Creek Heirloom Seed company has some very unique varieties from around the world.  Although the spectrum available today in stores is quite nice.  You can also order plants from most seed catalogues.

Surprisingly, peppers don’t like extremely hot weather.  They get sunburned when the temps get into the 90’s consistently.  Their sunburn looks like dark spots on the exposed fruits.  If you can, move them into the shade when temps are extreme.  They won’t croak, but they are stressed during periods of high heat.  

Almost all veggies love fertile soil and consistent watering.  Peppers are no exception.   Summer edible garden tips  Some swear that stressing the plant will increase the heat of the pepper.  However, a recent Guinness winner thinks the secret to getting the world’s hottest pepper was run off from a worm farm.

Peppers will get flowers on them that, if pollinated, will grow into a pepper.  If you look into the center of a flower, you can see the emerging baby pepper.  Just a watch out-if a pollinator goes from a hot pepper flower to a sweet pepper flower, the baby pepper may have a little kick to it.  If you want all sweet peppers, put some space between the plants.

Pepper flower with baby pepper forming

Anything that produces a seed or fruit needs a visit from a friendly pollinator, like the honey bee, mason bee, bumble bee, predatory wasps, hover flies, butterflies, moths, beetles, or many other insects.  It is important to not use insecticides as they kill the pollinators along with the bad bugs or to use very sparingly and not on the flowers themselves.  I have not seen any pest issue with peppers in my garden that would need a pesticide.

I plant the peppers in a pot with nasturtium or petunias to attract the pollinators and to look good on the patio.

Pepper plant with petunias

This year I am growing several peppers:

*Sweet-burgundy meaty snacking pepper from saved seed, Habanada, and Nadapeno

*Overwintered hot peppers-Chiltepin for adding to my seasoned salt, Jigsaw pepper because it is variegated and has purple fruits and Baklouti-use for making hot sauce.

I didn't need many sweet peppers because I have so many frozen from last year.

I have been overwintering the Chiltepin, Baklouti and Jigsaw peppers inside for the last few years.  Peppers are a tropical perennial so can be overwintered in the garage or house to get a jump start on the next season.  Plus, if you have a pepper plant that was just outstanding the previous year, you know you will get a repeat show.  Personally, I have had luck only with the hot pepper plants overwintering indoors successfully.

Peppers all start out green.  It is as they ripen that they turn colors.  Jalapeño will turn red if left to ripen on the vine.  They can be eaten either when green or after they have turned.  Their flavor, and heat, will intensify as they ripen.

The trick to keeping the pepper crop going is to harvest often.  It’s like the plant knows when it has its quota of peppers.  The blossoms will fall off until more are picked.  Save the seeds from your best pepper.  Seed saving-fun, easy and a cost saver

Here are some ways to preserve your pepper harvest if you have more than you can eat  Preserving peppers

Peppers come in so many different flavors and heat intensity.  There is a pepper out there for everyone.  Combined with their carefree horticulture and beauty, they make a great plant to add to your garden this year. 

Decorative and Edible Container Gardening

Pepper plant with petunias

Saturday, May 16, 2026

There are so many new edible varieties out every year.  There are ones that are more resistant to disease.  Ones that have higher nutritional value.  Ones that produce more.  Ones that have improved taste.  Ones that are developed for their small size and big harvests for those of us who have limited space or just want to get more for the effort.  It is amazing what can now be grown in pots!

 

A little background on plant types.  We hear a lot about Monsanto and GMO’s (genetically modified organisms) and crop breeding can seem a bad thing.  The difference between GMO’s and other types of crop is that GMO’s bring in genetic material from other organisms in a lab, like bacteria and even viruses.  The plants are engineered so that they kill insects that try to eat it.

 

That is only one side of the plant breeding story.  There are many other natural, with a little help, breeding of crops today.  It can be as simple as saving of seeds from the best producer of last year.  There are also hybrids which take the best traits of two different parents by deliberately cross pollinating two genetically distinct parent plants to produce seed.  These hybrids may not produce seed that you can reuse next year and get the same vegetable as the parent.

 

Heirlooms and open pollinated vegetables will produce “true” to seed.  The offspring will be like its parent.  It isn't just the old varieties that you can save and use seeds from year to year.  It is any "open pollinated", non-GMO, non-hybrid.  If you find a veggie you really like at the store, it doesn't hurt a thing to save the seed and try growing it in your garden.

 

Through the centuries, farmers have chosen the traits they like and have built on them from season to season.  This has given us Brandywine tomatoes, Vidalia onions and Jalapeño peppers.  Yum!

For plant breeders recently there has focus on urban gardening: growing great tasting fruits and vegetables in small spaces and containers.  There are lots of new compact, dwarf, bush, patio, container varieties available every year.  Today, you can grow almost anything you like in a pot, even corn and watermelons!

 

Just be sure to match the right edible with the size of pot you have.  Or if you are starting fresh, pick out the edible you want to grow and buy the pot that will support it.  Add flowers, too.  This not only adds pizazz to the container, but attracts beneficial pollinators that increase yields.  A real win-win.

 

Also be sure you are using the right variety for the season, the pot size and sun/shade conditions your pot will be placed in.   There are edibles and flowers that thrive in cold weather and shrivel in hot conditions and vice versa.  Some love full sun while others need lots of shade.

 

Read seed packets and plant labels to get the plants that will be happy together in your pot’s growing conditions. 

 

How to know what to grow together in a pot?

When deciding what to grow together in a pot, you can use the saying of “Thriller, Spiller, and Filler” to make it pretty.  This means you want a focal point (“thriller”), like an architectural eggplant or pepper plant with a pretty petunia that is eye-catching and “spills” over the pot for summer.  The eggplant and pepper plant also “fill” out the space.  Or beautiful red lettuce with short vining snow peas for spring or fall.

 

What size pot do you need for a container veggie garden?

Any varieties listed for a smaller pot will be happy in a larger pot, too.  There are many more varieties out there than listed below.  Just look at the seed packet or plant label for terms like patio, compact, or dwarf.  A rule of thumb for a single plant in the smallest pot you can get away with is half the diameter it says the plant’s spacing should be.  Here are suggestions by pot size you have.

 

For containers 8” wide by 6-8” deep:

Carrots-Thumbelina, Parmex, Tonda di Parigi 

Greens-arugula, corn salad, cress, small pac choi like Tatsoi, purslane

Lettuce or Kale-any type that you are going to continually harvest and not grow into full heads.    

5 Day Golden Cross Cabbage

For containers 10” wide by 10” deep or larger, these will grow well:

Carrots-Atlas, Caracas, Little Finger, Adelaide, Short n Sweet

Dwarf cabbage-5 Day Golden Cross, Parel, Caraflex

Eggplant with small fruits-Bambino, Casper, Fairytale, Neon, Patio Mohican, Slim Jim, White Egg

Greens-French sorrel, salad burnet, spinach

Herbs-any.  Mediterranean herbs love having dry feet.

Lettuce-Little Gem, Tennis Ball, Tom Thumb if growing to full heads

Peppers, compact types-Blushing Beauty, Chili Pepper Krakatoa, Habanero, Hungarian Yellow Wax, Sweet Pepper Ingrid, Prairie Fire, Red Delicious, Sweet Pickle, Zavory, Yellow Banana

Radishes-Amethyst, Cherry Bell, Pink Slipper, Poloneza, Red Head, Rudi

Strawberries

 

For containers 14-16” wide and 10” deep or larger:

Beans-compact bush types, Runner Beans on a trellis or stake

Beets

Broccoli raab

Celery

Chard

Corn-On Deck Sweet Corn

Cucumber, compact bush types-Lemon, Little Leaf, Suyo, Salad Bush, Fanfare, Sweet Success, Bush Champion, Spacemaster, Miniature White, Picklebush, Mexican Sour Gherkin, Patio Snacker

All types of eggplant

Horseradish

Kale

Okra-Little Lucy

Onions-Apache, Pompeii or the perennial Egyptian Onion

Peas-dwarf bush types

All types of peppers (large sweet peppers like bell types seem to be more productive in the ground while my snacking size hot and sweet peppers flourish in pots)

Tomatoes, look for bush, dwarf, patio, compact types-BushSteak, Patio Princess, Bush Early Girl, Tumbler, Bush Big Boy, Baxter’s Bush Cherry, Lizzano, Sweetheart of the Patio, Tumbling Tom Yellow, Bush Better Bush, Balcony, Fresh Salsa Hybrid, Celebrity, Daybreak, Johnny’s 361, Legend, Sweet Baby Girl, Sweet n Neat

Turnips

Summer squash, compact bush types-Bush Baby, Yellow Crookneck, Eight Ball, Cue Ball, Golden Delight, Anton, Patio Star, Giambo, Astia, Raven, Cosmos Hybrid (look for bush types versus vining types)

Pot of assorted greens and snow peas with red petunia

Containers 20” wide by 16” deep:

Apple-Columnar varieties

Beans-any bush type, more compact pole types (look for the ones have vines 6’ or less or you can pinch off the longer types)

Blueberry-Tophat

Broccoli-I really like sprouting broccoli or broccoli raab for pots

Cantaloupe-Honey Rock, Minnesota Midget

Fig trees

Lettuce-all varieties

Peanuts

Peas-all bush types and more compact pole types (look for ones that vine 6’ or less)

Potatoes-there are containers made just for potatoes nowadays

Pumpkins-miniature, like Small Sugar

Shallots

Sweet potatoes

Watermelon-Bush Sugar Baby, Sugar Pot

Winter squash, compact bush types-Butterbush Butternut

 

For really large containers on the scale of a half whiskey or wine barrel:

Beans-all pole beans

Carrots-all varieties

Cucumbers-bush and vining types

Summer squash-Bush Baby, Space Miser, Egg Ball, Papaya Pear

Tomatoes

Watermelons

Winter squash-Honey Bear, Carnival, Discus Bush Buttercup

Black Beauty eggplant with fuchsia petunias and Egyptian walking onions

When growing veggies and fruit in containers, they will require more watering and more liquid fertilizer than if they were in the ground.  In the summer, you may have to water some water lovers every day.  A rule of thumb is you will need to fertilize at twice the rate as you do your garden beds.

How to care for the summer edible garden

 

To reduce watering, purchase or make pots that have a water reservoir in the bottom.  A couple on the market today are “Earthbox” and “Grow Box”.  With this type of pot, you may be able to water weekly.  

 

Practice crop rotation in pots like you would in the garden.  Refresh the potting soil annually.  Pots heat up faster in summer and cool down quicker in fall than gardening in the ground.  A bonus of container gardening is that you can move them when you want or need to.

Crop rotation made easy for small gardens

 

With all the colors and varieties out there, beautiful container combinations can expand and beautify your garden space while providing your family nutritious food right outside your door.

What's happening in the early May garden

Potted lettuce in May

Sunday, May 10, 2026

Everything is lush and green this time of year.  The edibles are growing quickly.   Salad fixings are in their prime with the summer edibles just getting started.  Herbs are filling out nicely.  By this time of year, we no longer need to purchase produce from the grocery store and can get fresh herbs to add to dishes that make them taste wonderful and are chock full of antioxidants.

The last few weeks have been much cooler and drier than usual.  We've had temperatures in the 60's and 70's during the day, dropping into the 40's and 50's at night and very little rain.  So the greens are doing wonderful.  I am having to water almost every week.  Heat lovers like eggplant, cucumbers, melons and squash are having a long germination period or not coming up at all.  I am moving them in their starter peat pots from the front to back of the house to keep them in full sun to help them come on up.  It's supposed to be back in the 80's next week so I'll look to plant them in the garden then.

The greens we are eating-French sorrel, dandelion greens, winter cress, plantain greens, chick weed, sweet clover, celery, Chinese Giant Leaf mustard, sprouting broccoli leaves, many varieties of lettuce, and chard.  Many are overwintered or volunteers from last year.  I also bought one 6 pack of lettuce from the store and started seeds in early March.  I like to have new lettuces and greens coming on all the time so there is always plenty for salads.

I have lots of volunteer Blue Feather lettuce, carrots, celosias, zinnias, morning glory, hummingbird vine, husk cherry and Blue Spice basil popping up all over the garden and pots.  

Herbs to add to dishes and salads-garlic chives, regular chives, oregano, thyme, horseradish, Egyptian walking onions, tarragon, sage, young garlic, rosemary, marjoram, celery, parsley.  All are perennials or self-sowers so they come back year after year.

The flowers that are blooming-irises, spiderwort, roses, marigolds, Sweet William, pansies, hellebores, coreopsis and petunias.  The herbs and veggies going to seed-yellow flowers of the sprouting broccoli, mustard, chard and cress, yellow and pink dandelion flowers, beautiful purple flowers on garden chives,  sage and lavender, and pinkish thyme flowers.  Soon, the white garlic chive flowers will be showing off.  All veggie and herb flowers are edible.  A fun way to add flavor and beauty to salads or other dishes.

The overwintering and early spring planted lettuce is just beginning to bolt so soon there will be the white, yellow and blue flowers from the different kinds of lettuce.  Several carrots are starting to bolt, too.  If not pulled, they have beautiful white flowers resembling Queen Ann's Lace, which are in the same family, that bees love.

The lilacs and peonies have already come and gone.  They and the peonies were heavy with flowers this spring.

We put in a new raised bed 4' x 8' for strawberries last spring.  We have gotten 8 quarts so far in the last week or so.  We are growing ever bearing strawberries so they will produce fruit into the summer months.  Had also started Alpine strawberries from seed last year.  I have gotten a few berries from them.  

2 years ago in the fall, we put in a bed for raspberries and blackberries.  So far, only the blackberries are blooming.  The wild blackberry bush is quickly overtaking the bed.  It has thorns.  I'll let it fruit and then move it to the edge of the woods in the sun.  The raspberries are ever bearing.  They will bear from June to frost.

I also transplanted blueberries into pots 2 years ago in the fall.  They all have little blueberries on them.  I doubt we will get many berries this year, but we will get some!  I want to add Rabbiteye or Southern high bush varieties.  These varieties do well in our hot and humid climate.  I think it is just too hot for the northern varieties for them to thrive.  If your summers are hot like ours, I'd make sure the northern varieties are getting afternoon shade.  Rabbiteye and southern high bush varieties do well in full sun in our hot and humid summers. 

I have only planted out the veggies that do okay in cool weather like amaranth, cabbage, dill, and flowers.  I did plant eggplant, eucalyptus, sweet peppers, huckleberries and a tomato into pots.  Pots warm up so much faster than the ground.  I'm waiting on it to get back to the 80's to plant out the tomatoes, beans, cucumbers, melons, and squash into the garden beds.

I divided and planted creeping thyme into empty spots around the edge of my flower beds.  Thyme deters voles and it looks really pretty edging the beds.

It is a good idea to wait 10 days after planting new plants before you give them much fertilizer.  I'll add a diluted liquid fertilizer to all when they have their first set of true leaves.  I am using Neptune kelp and fish liquid fertilizer for spring feeding this year.  Kelp really stimulates growth so I use it only in the spring.  Also, when I transplant, I add char, worm castings and starting fertilizer to each planting hole for sustained nutrition.

It's okay to just be getting started in the edible garden with the summer lovers.  You can plant a summer garden into June and still have a nice harvest.

Volunteer Red Malabar spinach and Chinese Multicolor amaranth

I have been harvesting the greens by taking only the outer leaves so that the plants will continue to grow.  By harvesting, it stimulates the plant to grow even more leaves.  If you have extra greens, besides lettuce, you can blanch and freeze them.  I still have plenty left in the freezer.  Preservation garden

I am doing good right now on lettuce, but will need to start transplanting some of the volunteers coming up in the yard into pots to keep the harvest going.  If you don't have volunteers, it is a good idea to sow lettuce seeds now.  If you start seeds every 2-3 weeks, it keeps you in lettuce all the way until winter.  This time of year, start the heat tolerant varieties.   

I have also moved to using greens that stay sweet during the dog days of summer to supplement lettuce.  The greens I have found so far that are great lettuce and spinach substitutes in salads are Red Malabar spinach, New Zealand spinach, Perpetual Spinach chard, Chinese Multicolored amaranth, all colors of orach, Chinese Hilton cabbage (doubles as a great wrap, too), and sprouting broccoli.  Keep salads going all summer long. 

I overwintered New Zealand and Red Malabar spinach in the house.  I put it outside a month ago.  It is pretty good but will really pop when it warms up.  We use their leaves just like spinach in salads.  They are heat lovers with leaves that stay sweet all summer; a great spinach substitute.