Weeding between the lines

By Jim McGinty

All those plant starts and seeds you placed in your garden a month late (due to a never-ending spring supply of cold temperatures and LOTS of rain) are now racing to the finish line of harvest-ready fruit and vegetables.  

That’s assuming we panting, sweaty gardeners are not tripped up by a smirking, evil early frost!

I keep hearing the rumor of us deserving an “Indian Summer” (defined as a killing frost followed by a long period of warm weather) for this growing season, but I’m not betting the ripe tomatoes and peppers on such a hope.

Non-chemical methods of “encouraging” your garden plants:  water as needed (don’t wait for limp, curling leaves), use shade cloth to lower temperatures at the leaf level (simple dark sheer curtains will work) when the Summer sun is “sizzling” hot, add nutrients (food) such as wood stove ash (potassium), coffee grounds (calcium, nitrogen, phosphorus), and compost tea or manure tea (brew it up in a solar-warmed steel drum).  Or you can “encourage” your garden plants with chemical means (a “balanced” commercial 16-16-16 fertilizer), but be aware that the commercial fertilizer can act like gasoline poured on an open fire – you never quite know what will happen.

Here at Rancho McGinty, the garlic is ready to harvest, and looks and smells great – big bulbs this year.  The potato plants have excellent blue, white and yellow flowers, so hopefully something good is happening underground.  Our sweet potatoes had a rocky, late start, and are just now spreading out over the black woven plastic weed block in which they grow – we’ll see what happens.  And the “Doyle” blackberry vines are covered with lots of small green berries, and even more white flowers – blackberry milkshakes may be on our menu.

GARDEN CALENDAR:

On Tuesday, 09 August, our local garden club will depart Camden Grange and Community Center (7 Camden Road, Elk) at 7 P.M. to visit another local garden.  This tour will focus on what we can do to continue our garden glee when weather conditions and/or our maturing bodies do not cooperate with our fruit and veggie production goals:  heat, drought, bad back, creaky knees are all considerations.

Our host was a successful farmers’ market entrepreneur for decades, and loved scrabbling in the dirt – time has taught him some valuable lessons, and he wants to share ideas on how to garden when “stuff” happens.  We will see and talk about wicking baskets/buckets, container plants, homebuilt greenhouses, plants grown in “grow bags” and steel drums, the timely application of liquid fertilizers, and much more.

Gardening in the open air is a good thing for the soul, but you may want to garden early and late in the day, and take up residence next to the air conditioner/fan during the Heat.  Stay cool!