Summer Gardening Tips
Like many gardeners, I'm more of a gardener than a picker. I'd rather poke bean seeds into the ground than gather my 10th basket of squash, which leads to trouble in mid-summer when time is tight. Did you know? Use the garden management guidelines below to keep your summer garden working efficiently on days when time is short but your to-do list is long.
Harvest what is ready
Harvesting what is ready should always be your priority. But we've all slipped up at least once: We're too busy planting and then tending to new plantings, missing out on harvesting the world's finest lettuce at its peak. Make harvesting the ready your priority.
To streamline the harvesting process, think in terms of strategic positions. Pick in the morning and place your ingredients in a shady spot to keep them cool. When you have a lot to collect, freeze water in flat sandwich bags to make ice cakes, then stack them in a portable insulated cooler between your harvested vegetables. This trick can save you a lot of trips back and forth to the fridge.
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Garden stations
Speaking of efficiency, every vegetable gardener needs a place within pitching distance of the compost pile — and within easy reach of water — to groom and clean up the day's harvests. An ideal vegetable cleaning station stands at waist height and is sturdy enough to serve as a cutting surface. You can make such a table from scrap lumber, find cheap or free ones at thrift stores or sharing databases like Freecycle, Craigslist, or Marketplace, or make a temporary table using boards and pegs.
Most deluxe gardening stations include a secondhand sink, or you can fill a large bucket, tub, or wheelbarrow with several inches of water before you start picking. Use this water to rinse or swish freshly harvested salad greens or other vegetables before cleaning them a second time in a colander. You can leave dirty water all day and use it to wash hands, feet, pots, and utensils until evening. Water the thirsty plants as needed and pour the slurry into your compost pile.
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| Home Garden Tips 1 | Home Garden Tips 2 | Garden Tips 3 |
|---|---|---|
| Medicinal plants | Mosquito Repellant plant | Improve Your lawns |
| Flowering Shurbs | Easy grow Herbs | Garden pest |
| Decoration with house plants | Table plant ideas | Fighting Snail home garden |
Protect endangered crops
Some gardeners make it through the summer without facing the challenges of insect pests. Depending on where you live, it may be necessary to use row covers to protect cucumber-family crops from pumpkin bugs, pumpkin vine borers, and/or cucumber beetles. Cabbage-family crops (especially seedlings set for fall harvest in June and July) require protection from cabbage worms, armyworms, and grasshoppers. You can use row covers from breathable spunbond polyester (sold by most seed companies) or make your own from a lightweight fabric such as bridal netting (tulle). Lightweight covers take the edge off sunlight. Very lightweight array covers reduce light transmission by 10% when they are clean, and more after they become dirty. To learn more about using row covers, see The Unsprayed Way to Protect Plants.
If pest pressure is low, you can manage the problem by close monitoring, hand-holding, or using an appropriate organic pesticide. Our Guide to Organic Pest Control article has the most up-to-date organic pest controls, but don't feel like you have to spray. In my large garden, I use Bt (Bacillus thuringiensis, a reliable old biological insecticide that gives leaf-eating caterpillars stomachaches) to make sure the broccoli and cabbage plants are cleaned of little caterpillars. . But in my experience, pest problems are either worth using row covers or are so minor that they can be managed by handling or pulling out badly infested plants.
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Increase your range with relay plantings
Early spring starts (including season-extending clutches and tunnels) set your garden up for relay planting, in which space used for one crop is quickly transferred to another (with compost accumulating in between). For example, many gardeners may follow spring spinach with a quick crop of bush snap beans or slip some carrots after spring peas. In the long summer climate, garden space almost always supports two crops a year, sometimes three.
Finding crop relays that work for you will take some trial and error. You can consider the various possibilities by viewing our monthly What to Plant Now chart for your region. Also, look for what is harvested and planted on local organic farms, which often run tight relays. Heat-tolerant plants — such as squash, tomatoes, and tomatoes that are easily grown in containers — can make relay plantings quick. For example, you can harvest a lettuce bed last, mix in some compost, and pop in some summer squash seedlings within an hour.
If many gardeners realized that the best fall planting dates for Brussels sprouts, broccoli, and other cabbage relatives come during the hottest days of summer, it could be done! Start the seeds indoors, then move them outdoors as they grow in size. Layer them as needed to keep the roots from crowding during cloudy weather.
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Provide consistent care
Irrigation, weeding and many repetitive tasks fall under this guideline, so it is important to use methods that have some staying power. When the root zones of tomatoes, peppers, and other summer crops are covered with 2 to 3 inches of compostable mulch, much less moisture evaporates from the soil, making it easier to maintain a constant soil moisture level, reducing problems. The pod bursts and rots at the end of the flower. Mulches, with or without drip or soaker hoses, make it easy to water your crops while you're busy doing other things, so they save you time and keep your plants out of trouble.
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