Category Archives: Summer gardening

Kale in the summer garden

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Kale is thought of as a cool weather crop, and it is. Kale wouldn’t normally do very well given our very, very hot summer temperatures we’ve experienced this summer. Aphid infestations are common in our geography this time of year, and it begins to not even look good. We’ve had a scorching summer: 95+ for over a month, with several days in the low 100’s.

I’ve kept this plant covered and watered it more than I normally would have. Its looks great and we’re almost getting ready to say good-bye to these high temperatures, which will make my job easier. The goal was to have great tasting kale in the summer and then have it last throughout the entire fall, where it gets sweeter after the first frost.

And for the local folks wanting to know what those kale plants I sold a couple of months ago should look like, this is it. This is the same crop you bought and it was planted on the same weekend you received yours. Keep it well watered and cooled down if you can, and you’ll be rewarded with a great tasting fall crop of kale.

In just a few weeks it’ll be time to planning a winter garden. I’m teaching a class on how to do just that. If you’re local and are interested in learning how to do it, click here for more information. I’ll probably only be doing one of these.[ois skin=”3″]

Growing tomatoes vertically

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Here’s the short continuation to my last post. Using one of these, a t-post, is the perfect thing to grow your tomatoes vertically. They are solid and wont be blown over in 70 MPH winds, which is not the case with some of the cheaper and more flimsy aluminum posts that some folks will use. These cost about $5 each and will last forever.

The other important things to remember when using a t-post are: 1)growing indeterminate tomatoes, 2) keeping the suckers pinched back, 3) tying the tomato stem to the t-post every foot or so(I use velcro but string works just as well), and 4) buying the right size post. I buy 8′ posts and pound one foot of them into the ground, leaving 7′ above for the tomatoes to grow. They’re a struggle to take out of the ground by the time the season ends, but I think it’s the way to do it. My tomatoes will sometimes overshoot the tops of the post, in which case you have two options. The first is to do nothing and let them grow. My season is short enough that they don’t end up growing too much over the top. The second option is to cut them off as they overshoot the t-post.

I hope that gives you a good idea of what works for me. Speaking of what works, you ought to check out my new ebook. This is the season where it’s most applicable. As any gardener will tell you, growing summer lettuce is very difficult if you live in a geography that is hot and dry. If you live in a more moderate part of the county where you continue to get moisture through the season it might not be as hard. Lettuce seeds won’t even sprout once it gets to 80 degrees. This book explains the 5 techniques that I’ve used to successfully feed customers in our hot and very dry climate. For me, its a real downer to have vine ripened tomatoes, cucumbers, and carrots ready but no lettuce. And once you’ve had lettuce harvested from the ground 5 minutes before consuming it, you’ll never want to buy store bought again[ois skin=”3″]

How about some snow with those tomatoes?

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In our geography you often hear that it’s safe to plant summer crops after Mother’s day. It’s snowed twice this week-after the tomatoes have been planted. And unless you’ve got some kind of protection, your tomatoes are no longer among the living.

Yesterday I delivered some tomato, kale, and lettuce plants to a customer. As I looked at his raised bed, you couldn’t help but notice the dead existing tomato plants, squash, and zucchini they had planted a couple of weeks ago during one of those early and rare 80 degree spring days. If you want to do that you can, but only if you’re prepared to cover your crops in case of a weather emergency.

These tomato plants made it through just fine with the use of an inexpensive cloche. I don’t use anything fancy but you can spend a lot of money on them if you want. I think its a good idea to have several of these handy items available for this very purpose. Its a good thing to use when you’re first putting in your transplants as well. It protects not just from the colder weather, but also from wind, which is also a bad thing for plants just starting out.

The other nifty think I like about using cheap orange juice container such as this? If night time temperatures will be getting to low, you can simple put the cap on. It’s important to take them off the next day, especially if the sun will be coming out. After 7-10 days, I’ll remove the cloche as the weather should be safe from here on out [ois skin=”3″]

Lemon balm in your square foot garden

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lemon-balmI thought it might be nice to report on something I did for the first time this past season. Where I live the water tastes particularly bad in the summer. I find myself adding slices of lemon for glasses of water to hide the chlorine taste coming out of the tap. I wondered if adding a few leaves of lemon balm would do the trick.

It did. And I made some delicious lemonade with it as well. As I did some reading, I found that this fun herb can be used for all sorts of things ranging from what I had done to making tinctures for folks who have a hard time sleeping to adding it to smoothies and more. It does spread so if you’re planning on growing this in your square foot garden plan on it taking up an entire square. And even then I had to trim it back by seasons end. I included this in my delivery baskets for 6 weeks and they all wanted more!

This was a solid performer with a large yield! One plant was enough to provide 3-4 people with several sprigs for 6 weeks. Trim it back at the end of the season and it will regrow the next spring. Its a nice lush, green, and bushy plant that I think you’ll enjoy[ois skin=”3″]

Time to start plantings for fall lettuce

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cherokee lettuceYes? Unless you are in the warmer climates of Arizona, Nevada, or So. Cal, this is the perfect time to prepare for fall lettuce.  And you’ll be so glad you did.  Temperatures are coming down in our state to the low 90’s.  That’s still too warm to germinate lettuce seeds but this is one of the advantage of the square foot garden.  Because your gardens are limited in size, it becomes easier to do certain things, such as protection.

By having the ability to cover a small patch of garden real estate more possibilities open up to you.  A simple structure that can hold shade cloth can be put together to do just that.  This keeps the hot rays of the sun of your plant, and it helps keep the soil cooler-a very important things to keep in mind when growing lettuce in summertime.  There’s still a few more things you can do to increase your chances of successfully doing this, which is the topic of my next ebook that I’ve been talking about for a year.  Soon!

This particular variety is mottistone, a bavarian lettuce crop.  With night temperatures starting to come down to the mid to low 60’s, it really is a good time to begin your fall garden.  I would put it all in during the next couple of weeks.  You’ll be rewarded handsomely.  And then if you decide not to have a winter garden this year, you can pull it all up and put it away until spring.

I do think you would like the experience of growing fall lettuce, along with other tasty salad greens.  And if there are any seed packets left on the shelves in the store-there usually is-you can usually buy them for .50 each.[ois skin=”1″]