Sunday, June 25, 2017
July is the time of year for harvesting the heat lovers like tomatoes, eggplant, zucchini, cucumbers, sprouting broccoli, green beans, all types of peppers, garlic, basil with other Mediterranean herbs.
Peppers, zucchini, cucumbers, and green beans are ripe and being harvested. My tomato plants have many baby tomatoes and are typically ready to start harvesting by the 4th of July. I'm not sure if they will make it this year. My eggplants have many flowers, but no fruits so far. They love this heat and humidity so should be producing within the month.
By the end of the month, there will be more summer veggies than we can eat and we will start preserving the extra. Preservation garden
The spring greens have bolted, but there are summer greens that are robust during the hot days of summer. My favorites are salad burnet, Swiss chard, collards, Malabar spinach, mustard greens, New Zealand spinach, orach, sorrel, sprouting broccoli and cultivated dandelions. Growing summer salads
There are even a select few varieties of lettuce that can stand up to summer heat:
Leaf lettuce-”New Red Fire”, “Simpson Elite”
Butterhead-”Optima”, “Winter Density:
Romaine-”Jericho”, ”Green Towers”
Batavian-”Magenta”, “Nevada”
If you haven't already, now is the time to plant these heat champions. Bolt-free, sweet summer lettuces
Pole green beans on trellis |
The pole green beans are putting out beans consistently. Harvest them to keep them producing. I keep a quart bag in the freezer and add mature green beans as they are ready for picking. The other legume, my snow peas, have finished producing for the season. I love to eat them right off the vine. There was a bumper crop this spring so I have frozen the extras. Legumes-peas for spring, beans for summer
I have already harvested the garlic, including the elephant garlic. I love elephant garlic as the cloves are as their name suggests, they are huge! I am hardening both types in the shade outdoors for two weeks before storing indoors. Hardening is critical for the garlic to not rot when stored. Save the biggest cloves for replanting in the fall. Garlic harvest time is near!
Our basil has been slow to get started but is now off to the races. The trick to keeping the plants from getting woody is to make sure to harvest down to the first few sets of leaves before the plants go in to full flower. It will regrow to give me at least one more good harvest before fall. Basil basics-harvesting, preserving, growing basil
Oregano, mint, and catnip is in full bloom. The bees love the small lavendar flowers! It could be cut and dried now, but I love the flowers, too, and will wait until fall. Make your own "Herbes de Provence"
I fertilized all the pots again as well as the basil to keep it growing. Pots lose nutrients at a much higher rate than garden beds. I am using a foliar spray on all the plants at least every other week and using a solid fertilizer monthly around each plant. I like Espoma. I use their tomato fertilizer for all fruit producing plants and their general purpose vegetable fertilizer for all other veggie and herb plants. Decorative container gardening for edibles
I have started using a mineral supplement for my plants this year. Right now I am using Azomite. So many soils are low in minerals. Your plants can't absorb what the soil does not have. Adding minerals to the plants and soil will significantly increase the minerals in the plant itself, giving you minerals in the veggies you eat. The next step in garden production and your nutrition-soil minerals
I have started using a mineral supplement for my plants this year. Right now I am using Azomite. So many soils are low in minerals. Your plants can't absorb what the soil does not have. Adding minerals to the plants and soil will significantly increase the minerals in the plant itself, giving you minerals in the veggies you eat. The next step in garden production and your nutrition-soil minerals
A key to keeping the garden productive this time of year is to keep even moisture to all the beds and containers. Water the beds weekly and deeply. During hot, dry periods, your containers may need watering every other day. Self-watering pots with reservoirs in the bottom are the trick to extending watering duties. Summer garden tips
If you are getting higher than normal rainfall, you'll need to fertilize more often as the rain will wash away the nutrients. Keep an eye on the the growth of your veggies and if they are not growing and producing as expected, they may need some extra food.
The wild blackberries are ripe and ready for picking right now. You have to get them quickly or the critters will beat you to it. The Alpine strawberries are producing well. Giving them a good fertilizer boosts the size of the fruits. Alpine strawberries are super sweet, but small. The apples are starting to turn red. The fig tree is full of small green baby figs. Looks to be a bumper crop for the figs. I'd like to dry some this year.
Finally, the summer flowers are going gangbusters. The zinnias, daylilies, marigolds, sunflowers, echinacea as well as the herbs like oregano, sage, and thyme are all in full bloom. The hollyhocks, Cock's Comb, Love Lies Bleeding, delphiniums, morning glory, hummingbird vine, sedum are all in bud and will be blooming soon. The mustard, carrots, broccoli and lettuce have all bolted and are flowering. The bees just love their tiny flowers! Flowers are not only beautiful, but attract pollinators making the garden more productive.
Finally, the summer flowers are going gangbusters. The zinnias, daylilies, marigolds, sunflowers, echinacea as well as the herbs like oregano, sage, and thyme are all in full bloom. The hollyhocks, Cock's Comb, Love Lies Bleeding, delphiniums, morning glory, hummingbird vine, sedum are all in bud and will be blooming soon. The mustard, carrots, broccoli and lettuce have all bolted and are flowering. The bees just love their tiny flowers! Flowers are not only beautiful, but attract pollinators making the garden more productive.
A butterfly on zinnias in the edible garden |
No comments:
Post a Comment