Summer edible garden tips

Potted eggplant and petunia

Saturday, July 16, 2022

The summer loving edibles from the tropics love this time of year.  My eggplant, cucumber and squash plants seem to be growing inches every day!  The crops from temperate regions like peppers, tomatoes, beans, peppers and Mediterranean herbs are also growing quite well.  The humidity brings higher risk of disease and the lack of rain during peak summer heat can put a damper on garden production.  

To keep your plants thriving and your harvests at their peak, here are a few tips for summer edibles:

1. Harvest frequently!  Plants are in the business of reproducing.  Their entire life is dedicated to giving the best possible chance of maintaining more plants for the future.  The more you harvest, the more babies the plant will produce.  I have noticed that my cucumber plant can only support one large cucumber on each vine.  As soon as I pick the big one, you can see one of the small ones jump in size by the very next day!  Harvest in the morning for peak juiciness of fruits and in the afternoon for peak flavor of summer loving herbs.
2. Mulch your beds. The mulch keeps the moisture from evaporating, allowing more infrequent watering.  It also moderates the temperature of the soil so it doesn’t get baking hot.  I use natural wood mulch in both my garden beds and pots.  Weed free, self fertilizing, till free garden beds
3. Water consistently.  The cause of cracked fruits is inconsistent water.   The plant gets used to very little water and when deluged the fruit’s skin can’t expand fast enough and the fruit cracks.  Inconsistent watering can also cause blossom end rot.  Over watering can be a problem, too.  Too much water will cause your fruits to be tasteless and mushy.  If in the ground, your plants need either a good soaking rain each week or a deep watering (1" total per week).  I use soaker hoses in my mulched garden beds.  It is best to water in the morning; you get maximum absorption (biggest bang for your water buck).  For pots, you will likely need to water 3 times per week during the height of summer heat.  I like pots with a water reservoir built in the bottom.  
4. Do not water the foliage of your nightshade plants!  They are very susceptible to fungal diseases and water on their leaves encourages fungal growth.  It is recommended to spray every 7-14 days for natural fungicides on all nightshade plants (tomatoes, potatoes, squash, watermelon, and cucumbers) when the risk for fungal disease starts.  In our Zone 7 garden,  late May is not too early to start preventative spraying.  I rotate using Copper, Serenade and Southern Ag as a preventative.
5. Fertilize monthly with side dressing of compost or slow release fertilizer.  It is also a good idea to add minerals to the soil annually.  You can purchase minerals just for gardening.  I like to rotate between Azomite and kelp meal.  If your plants have more minerals, their fruits will too!  The next step in garden production and your nutrition-soil minerals
6. Pick insects off daily.  Keep a close eye on your plants to you can stop an infestation before it gets started.  If I do get an really bad infestation, I will use diacotomus earth (DE) or insecticidal soap.  It is organic and not a chemical.  Some people even eat DE!  DE works by scratching the exoskeleton of the insects which leads to dehydration and death.  Be careful, though, as it will kill good bugs too.  I use it very sparingly and only if desperate.  A few bugs don’t eat much :  )  Another option is the use of light covers to keep the bugs from your plants.  Natural, organic pest strategies and how to make your own bug sprays
7. Keep any diseased leaves groomed from your plants and do not compost them.  Diseases can be killed if your compost pile is hot enough but if not at high enough temperature and duration, disease will survive composting.  I haven’t progressed far enough yet in my composting skills to trust I am getting the pile hot enough and I don’t want to spread diseases to all my plants.  I put any diseased leaves and plants in the trash.
8. Compost.  For all the trimmings from the garden and the kitchen, start a compost pile or get an indoor composter.  I have both.  I have an indoor Naturemill electric composter in the garage and an outdoor tumbler for all the kitchen scraps.  Right now,  I am using the outdoor plastic tumbler.  Troubleshooting your compost pile  
9. Summer veggies can get tired by the end of the season or overcome with disease.  A strategy to make sure you have an abundant harvest all the way through fall is to plant a second round of the heavy producers like summer squash, tomatoes, and cucumbers.  End of June is a great time to get a second round of summer lovers going.  Keep the harvest going, do succession planting
10. If you live an area with scorching heat and sun, even the summer lovers would benefit from some afternoon shade.  Tomato and pepper fruits can get sunburned, called sun scald.  Many eggplant varieties can get thick skins and a more bitter taste in intense heat and sun.  Even in our Zone 7 garden, I have experienced all these.  You can move potted plants or plant on the southeast side to get your veggies some afternoon shade.  I did try shade cloth last year, but the plants did not seem to thrive in our Zone 7 garden under shade cloth cover.