What can I plant NOW? There is life after lettuce!

Posted bysummitgardenpvdPosted inEducation, Gardening AdviceTags:

Your lettuce is going to self-destruct in the heat, your peas too. But you can keep your plot going through the whole season.

Plant from seed (direct sow into ground) in July

  1. Green (bush) beans. If you sow them now you will have a crop at end of August. Easily grown and productive. You can sow up to July 15 if you get full sun. If you have partial sun, best to sow right now. Later in July, maybe, but you may not get a full crop depending on the weather.
  2. Green onions (scallions, aka bunching onions). You can sow now through July or into August for spring use. The beauty of scallions is that they last through the winter. What you don’t harvest this fall you can pick through the winter until early Summer 2022 (when they go to flower and aren’t edible anymore).
  3. Kale. Same as green onions — it survives the winter and can be harvested through to summer 2022, when it goes to flower and seed.
  4. Radishes. Fast growers.
  5. Greens of all kinds. Chinese cabbage, arugula, Swiss Chard, etc.
  6. Lettuce. You can start a new crop of lettuce at the end of July and early August.

NOTE: Try a light mulch over your seeds and water often, every 2 days or so, ’til seedlings are up.

Gardening in Mid-Summer – some tips

Pests

  • Watch the leaves of your tomato plants for signs of leaf spot diseases.
  • Pick off and dispose of sick leaves in the brown bags. (Try to find varieties that are disease resistant in the first place – this will make it easier. to succeed.)
  • Monitor for insect damage. Remove sick plants and dispose in the brown bags.

Fertilizer

Flowering requires lots of energy so it can be quite helpful to fertilize flowering plants (including tomatoes, eggplants, squash, etc).

Water

A garden needs one inch of rain or water each week. Early morning is the best time to water. Evening watering makes the plant more susceptible to fungus diseases. Water deeply twice a week as needed. Sprinkling lightly encourages shallow roots and makes the plants less drought tolerant.

Mulch

Mulch your plot to reduce water losses and boost yields. Mulch can be straw, saltmarsh hay, buckwheat hulls, pine needles, old leaves, even newspaper. But not plastic. Do not use plastic in the community garden because it can break down into smaller and smaller plastic bits that remain in the soil.