By Jim McGinty
This is an ongoing year of gardening challenges, and I hope we are all up for the changes and the lessons to be learned.
I know that my garlic patch was pretty pathetic this year, with reduced yields and smaller bulb size, BUT I determined that I will be sure to save the biggest and best bulbs as seed garlic for September planting. Clearly, the best of the harvest somehow managed to survive and thrive with late cold weather, drought, and intense heat – and it still tastes like great garlic!
Here at Rancho McGinty, the bean plants (green beans, fava beans) are still struggling, as well as the cucumber plants.
Looking good however, are the malignant squash plants which are loving the heat, and surprisingly, the cabbage and kale plants are free of cabbage looper worm holes – that last frost must have killed off the adults and the eggs?
Also looking like we might have a great harvest are the cool weather (?) crops: potatoes, onions, leeks, scallions, rutabagas, beets, and the radishes – ohmygosh, are the radishes ever crunchy and delicious!
Overall, not too bad, and we are only mid-way through Summer: the keys to harvesting actual food will be adequate water, nutrition (manure, fertilizer), and perhaps shade cloth for the plants that look like they might fall victim to sunscald (dry, yellow/brown leaves).
If you have not already thinned your melon/squash/pumpkin vines down to just a couple/three good-looking fruits, now is the time to do so – IF you want to harvest ripe (!), mature edibles, and not a bunch of “almost there” unripe food.
Raspberry and blackberry plants will need a LOT of water now to produce ripe, juicy fruit – don’t stint on the liquids (adding manure tea or compost tea to the base of the plants would also be a great idea). Once the canes have finished producing fruit, be sure to prune out the expended brown canes – we want the purple/green canes for next Spring’s flowers.
If your potatoes are poking their selves out of the dirt/mulch into the sunlight, be sure to hill some more dirt/mulch over the spuds and some of the lower leaves – believe me, the plants will only make better, bigger, and more potatoes, minus the green skin and contents.
In the orchard, now is a good time to finish thinning the maturing fruit – six inches between fruit is a good minimum – no knocking each other around in the wind equals less bruising, and therefore more excellent goodies. And don’t forget to prune out all of those suckers – they just take advantage of the energy the struggling trees can otherwise use to make fruit, and stay healthy.
GARDEN CALENDAR:
I am not aware of any face-to-face or zoom gardening classes happening in our area, but you CAN check in with our local gardening club on-line to see what we are doing this month: elk-camdengardenkeepers.blogspot.com, or you can also check our Facebook page for updates.
That’s it for now – ninety-four degrees at six P.M. today, makes for a long day for the people, livestock, and the green stuff in the garden and orchard. Water, food, shelter – the basics are true for us all. Stay cool!
