Summer Garden Checklist: Eight Tasks to Keep the Harvest Going - Ep. 154

Karin Velez [00:00:00]:
If we want a specific result, we have to do specific things. This applies no matter what we're working on. Learning to cook requires practicing specific techniques. Becoming a faster runner requires repeating specific drills or miles over and over again, and getting our best harvest from our gardens requires us to perform specific tasks. Welcome back, my gardening friends, to another episode of Just Grow Something, where today we're talking specific tasks we need to perform in the garden to get our best yield and to keep the harvest going through to the fall. Now, unfortunately, our gardens are not just set it and forget it kind of things. We can't just put the plants out there and come back in 6 weeks and expect a harvest.

Karin Velez [00:00:43]:
And as the days heat up and summertime events take over, it can be very tempting to skip some of these things in favor of some other more fun activities. We're gonna run down the list of 8 things that we need to be paying paying attention to as the gardening season moves on in order to keep things running smoothly. Any one of these things by themselves can be critical to our garden success. But I would say that the first 3 are the most vital in my experience. So if we're short on time or desire to work in the garden, that's where I would focus. And I'll be upfront about how difficult this can be when it's hot and sweaty and dusty and dry, and the pool is calling your name, which is why having a checklist in front of you of weekly tasks can help get you in the garden and done so you can enjoy the rest of your summer activities knowing your garden is well tended. Some. Let's dig in.

Karin Velez [00:03:18]:
So if you know someone who might need a little push to get into the garden this week, share this episode with them, and let's see if we can get them out there. Shall we? So a lot of these tasks are going to sound really obvious, or at least they should be. But I know as we get busy, many of these tasks tend to fall by the wayside to help our vegetable and our fruit plants to produce their best harvest during the summer. These are the top 8 tasks that I think a gardener should consider and should keep on a list just to check off every single week. And this first one might not be as obvious as you think, and that is watering. Now, again, if you're new here, I am a market farmer with my husband. We are on 40 acres, and 4 of those acres are planted to fruit and vegetable plants. And they are not near the house, which means they are not near our municipal water source.

Karin Velez [00:04:19]:
We do not have irrigation in the majority of the areas of the farm. Now I do have what I refer to as my kitchen garden, which is the raised planter beds that are out in the front of my house, and I do have access to water there. So in all of our larger areas, we have always relied on mother nature to give us the water that we need and then relied on mulch to trap that water in the soil. And, you know, generally speaking in previous years, this has worked fairly well. We did have a really bad drought, back in 2012 where things did not do well and we were in a drought last year. It looks like we're gonna be in a drought this year again. But in most instances, when we've gotten rainfall, it has watered very deeply, and it's been sort of infrequent, which is what we want to mimic in our gardens. Right? Watering deeply and infrequently.

Karin Velez [00:05:12]:
But for some reason, even though I have success to a hose and sprinklers, etcetera, in my kitchen garden. Up until, I think, the last 2 years, I it wasn't watering those garden beds either. I don't know if my aversion to that was just I don't know. I had it stuck in my head that while the rest of the gardens didn't need it, so these shouldn't need it either. But it wasn't until I started paying closer attention to the amount of water that the individual crops were getting, and how that change how well they were producing, that I started to consider that maybe if I had the ability to give them that water, that they would do better, and, obviously, they do. There's no reason why our gardens need to kind of suffer through, you know, whatever mother nature is throwing at us, whether it's a drought or whatever, if we have the ability to be able to water. So much so that we actually have created a water wagon this year that we can take out into our larger fields, at least one of them anyway, and be able to provide, some sort of emergency water to our plants, which actually is going to have to happen this week because we haven't had enough rain, and it's supposed to hit a 104 degrees here on Thursday. And the field that's got the tomatoes and the peppers and the green beans and the sweet potatoes and all of that stuff is desperately, desperately dry.

Karin Velez [00:06:38]:
So when we're talking water in the garden, again, deeply and infrequently is kind of our goal here. We don't want frequent shallow waterings. Deep watering sessions is going to encourage those plants to develop really deep root systems, which definitely makes them more resilient to drought. So you want to be providing enough water to penetrate that soil at least 6 inches deep. And this can take longer than you think it does depending on your soil type. Remember, we talked last week about how water moves differently through different types of soils. So don't just turn the hose on for 10 minutes and assume that it's good. Check the soil moisture before you move on to the next section of the garden, and don't just set it's like you've got your drip irrigation or soaker hoses.

Karin Velez [00:07:28]:
Don't just set them to be on a timer and water every single day. Because what I have found with the experiences that I've had here in, you know, really kind of creating drought tolerant gardens, is that if you water them too frequently, they start to depend on that. And so if something happens with your irrigation or something happens and you forget to water or you go out of town and the person who's supposed to be watering doesn't do things the way that you do, your plants are going to suffer. So you gotta try to start, to strike that happy balance in there somewhere. So deep waterings, 6 inches deep, and just make sure that you are monitoring that soil moisture level. Especially when you were talking about summertime watering. Using the right watering method is gonna make a different, a difference. Different watering methods are gonna suit different plants and different soil types better.

Karin Velez [00:08:22]:
Drip irrigation or soaker hoses that deliver water directly to the soil line is gonna minimize that water loss through evaporation. Sprinkler emitters that are low to the soil level are also a good option. You generally wanna avoid overhead sprinklers if possible they can, you know, waste the water through evaporation, and they might promote fungal diseases. But if that's all you've got, something is definitely better than nothing when we're talking about a drought situation. Watering in the morning or in the late evening is gonna be your best bet. Watering in the morning, especially allows the plants to absorb the moisture before the heat of the day hits. So that's going to minimize the evaporation. It's also gonna give the leaves time to dry if you have to use an overhead sprinkler.

Karin Velez [00:09:07]:
So and that's gonna help to prevent the development of, like, fungal diseases. So if you're watering at the soil level, the evening is not a bad time for watering either. You just don't want the leaves soaked before going into the overnight hours when, you know, they're gonna dry off more slowly. And again, that's going to promote fungal diseases. So at the soil level, not necessarily the base of the plants. You you see a lot of these instructions like, oh, water at the base of the plant. Well, if you set up irrigation at the base of the plants when they were little and you haven't adjusted so that consider that that root system may be, like, 6 to 10 inches further out by now. So you may need to adjust your watering according to how big your has gotten in order for it to be more efficient.

Karin Velez [00:09:51]:
Just monitor your soil moisture. Regularly check the moisture level of your soil by sticking your finger into the ground. And if it feels dry at a depth of about 2 to 3 inches, then it's time to water. You can also get one of those soil moisture meters, and you can stick that down in further, and it will to help you accurately figure out what the soil moisture content is. And you just want to consider your weather conditions. Like I said, we are super dry here right now. It's gonna be really crazy hot this week. So I'm actually going to have to get out there and water, and I'm adjusting my watering schedule in the kitchen garden too based on the incoming weather.

Karin Velez [00:10:34]:
If there has been significant rainfall where you are, though, you may need to reduce or even skip your watering sessions because overwatering for your plants is just as bad as underwatering. So heat waves or dry spells increase the watering sessions even if it's just temporarily, you know, and then if you've had a really good rainfall, you don't need to water at all. Just don't have it sort of automated at all times. Now something else that I see that goes hand in hand with the watering situation would be task number 2 on here, and that is refresh your mulch or add it if you haven't already. And if you're listening to me, you know that I say mulch, mulch, mulch, mulch all the time. So I'm really hoping that you have already mulched. We we know that mulch is great for weed suppression. It helps with soil temperature regulation and the moisture content, keeping that trapping that moisture in there.

Karin Velez [00:11:30]:
Erosion control. If you're using organic mulches, it's gonna help improve your soil fertility. It's also gonna help, the soil structure improve over time. It can actually help act as a physical barrier between the soil and your plants, which can reduce your chance of the soil borne diseases splashing up onto the leaves and stems so mulch can act as disease prevention. It also will help retain the nutrients in the soil because it can slow down the movement of the water through the soil, which can help reduce nutrient leaching. Mulch also helps to reduce the need for you to cultivate in between your plants because, again, it's suppressing those weeds and it's minimizing the soil disturbance, which makes it easier to maintain your garden, and it just looks nice. It's got a good aesthetic appeal. So our goal is a minimum of 2 inches of mulch to get these effects.

Karin Velez [00:12:27]:
This can be up to 4 inches depending on where you're gardening and what your conditions are. If you frequently get really really hot weather, then you're gonna be leaning more towards that 4 inch side to help keep that soil cool and to help trap that moisture in. Also, if you have, like, really persistent weeds, you're also gonna wanna be closer to that 4 inch side. Now even if you put fresh mulch down this past spring check it. If there have been heavy storms or if you have critters in the garden that like to move things around, you might actually have less mulch there in your garden than you think. So number 2 on the task list would be to refresh your mulch. And, obviously, this isn't something that you're gonna have to do every single week, but you wanna do it periodically just to make sure everything is still going well. And to round out the top three.

Karin Velez [00:13:18]:
We're gonna talk about weeding. I know, it is not a favorite task, but regularly removing the weeds from our garden beds is a good idea because those weeds are going to compete with our plants for nutrients sand water and sunlight. So if there is no time in the garden for any of the remaining tasks that I'm gonna talk about, removing weeds should be at the top of your list behind watering and mulching. There are many types of weeds that absolutely thrive in summer heat. And so they can go very quickly from being tiny little things that are popping up out of the soil 2 monsters in just a matter of days. So remove them as soon as possible because they're gonna steal the moisture and the nutrients from your plants as they grow. And having too many weeds can also encourage insect pests and diseases to move in. And these are things that we don't wanna have to deal with if we don't have to.

Karin Velez [00:14:20]:
They're easiest to pull when they're young. Moist soil makes this task even easier. So if you can do it immediately after stir a watering session or after a rainfall that really makes quick work of it. Another reason to tackle them when they're young, you do not want these weeds to go to seed. Did you know that a lamb's quarter can produce a 150,000 seeds in a year from 1 plant? That's a lot of future weeding that you can avoid in the garden by just picking that thing now when it's little. Again, if there is nothing else that you do throughout the rest of this list, then keeping up the in on the weeds, it it should be one of your main priorities. I used to think that the weeding was just about aesthetics, and I often would let it go, and I ultimately would pay the price for it. I would either have insect pressure, or I would have disease pressure, or the plants that I was growing wouldn't get enough sun or those weeds would be sucking up all the moisture and all of the nutrients, and I just would not have a very good harvest.

Karin Velez [00:15:23]:
So. Weed, weed, weed, weed, weed. Moving on to number 4, we're talking pruning entrellacing. So if you have vining plants like tomatoes or cucumbers, you can tie those to steaks or trellises or you can use cages. But even more stout plants like, eggplant and peppers can benefit from being staked up, especially when they have a really heavy load of fruit. I have had even jalapeno, pepper plants fall over because the load of those peppers was just so heavy. And I'm also experimenting this year with trellising some zucchini to see if it makes a difference in the plant health and production. So not only does trellising keep the developing fruits up off the ground, which prevents damage from too much moisture or insects, or animals at the ground level snacking on them, but it also can help improve the airflow and the air circulation, to help reduce the risk of disease.

Karin Velez [00:16:24]:
Now in the same vein, pruning any excess foliage also does the same thing. It improves that air circulation. It reduces that risk of disease. And you also wanna be cutting off any leaves that look to be damaged store disease because they can just help to continue to spread those diseases. Now be careful though to not remove too much of the foliage. Because in that instance, you might be allowing for sun scald, especially on tomatoes and pepper plants. So you don't wanna be removing too much of the foliage that is above the developing fruit. So anything that is below the lowest level of fruit.

Karin Velez [00:17:04]:
I usually will prune off specifically on tomatoes just to improve that airflow, and pruning them to get them up off the ground helps to get us to a harvest with less damaged fruit. A new year, it's a new season, and it's time to do something different. How about a podcast? I talk about it every week. You listen to me every week. Don't you have something to say? Trust Spotify for Podcasters to get you up and going using their simple creation tools with no risk because it's absolutely free. No matter your setup, you can record from your computer or your phone and publish right away to all the major platforms. Go to spotify. Com/podcasters or download the Spotify for Podcasters app to get started.

Karin Velez [00:18:40]:
So number 5 here is pest management. You wanna be monitoring your plants for pests in order to minimize the damage. I am not one for using any synthetic like chemicals or anything in the garden to manage insect pests. Everything that I do is organic, and these methods can be effective as long as we are fairly consistent about it. You know, handpicking is as tedious as it can be, really is a great way to remove insects and larvae and eggs of the ones that we don't want while still allowing the good bugs or the beneficial bugs to be able to do their job. So we're not spraying things willy nilly that might hit anything and everything. We are regularly inspecting our plants and manually removing what we don't want there. Using physical barriers, like, row covers or netting that insect mesh that I use, to help protect plants from insect pests, really is very, very effective. This is specifically very useful for things like aphids in cabbage worms, and flea beetles. We've had great success specifically in our brassicas from preventing all of those cabbage worms and such.

Karin Velez [00:19:57]:
I have used that this year in the zucchini, and you can go back and listen to the, episode that I did on Parthenocarpy. We're using the insect netting to help protect from the squash vine borer and the cucumber beetles and the squash bugs. So far so good. I will give you guys an update on that later on. You can also use sticky traps. You can put those in and around the garden. Although, again, those are very indiscriminate. So using the sticky traps, you're gonna you're gonna catch the good ones and the bad ones.

Karin Velez [00:20:26]:
And so I try to stay away from those unless there's something very specific that I'm going for. Biological controls. Now this one can be a little bit tricky because, you know, bringing in beneficial insects or organisms that prey on or parasitize the ones the insect pests that we're trying to keep out of our garden can be beneficial in a sort of controlled environment. Like, this has worked well for us in our greenhouse bringing in ladybugs. Unfortunately, what I have discovered is that a lot of times ladybugs these are not, like, bread in a lot of instances, to be sold for insect control. They are harvested wild, and there is a problem with folks going out and collecting these and actually decimating native populations. So I'm a little hesitant to to recommend purchasing ladybugs and lace wings and and parasitic wasps to add to our gardens. Especially, since once you release them in the garden, you know, you're hoping that they're gonna stick around and go after, you know, what it is that you want them to go after, but there's nothing keeping them there, and they may just fly away and go to your neighbor's garden.

Karin Velez [00:21:36]:
But things like beneficial nematodes and BT, the bacillus thuringiensis, these are biological controls that are effective against certain soil dwelling pests and for caterpillars. So those are some things that you can use in addition to neem oil and insecticidal soaps. Again, these are a little broad spectrum, strums, so be careful about when and how you are applying them so that you're not affecting the pollinators and the other good bugs. And one of the things that we don't talk about a whole lot when we talk about insect pests is making sure that we have a healthy soil. Right? Because if we have a healthy soil, we're going to have healthy plants. And maintaining a healthy soil fertility and plant vigor is actually making those plants much more resilient to pests and helping them be better equipped to withstand those attacks. So if you wanna reduce the amount of time that you're spending going through and checking for insect pests and managing them, then making sure that we are focusing on good soil health and good plant health is a good really good place to start. Number 6 on our list is disease prevention.

Karin Velez [00:22:50]:
We wanna be vigilant for signs of any plant diseases and take preventative measures when we can. Signs of plant diseases is gonna vary depending on the specific type of disease, the affected plant, where you're gardening. But some of the common signs to look out for are leaf spots and discoloration, wilting or drooping, and I mean sudden wilting or drooping of the leaves and the stems, especially during, like, the morning time when the soil moisture should be really sufficient. You don't wanna walk out there in the middle of the day, like, o'clock in the afternoon when the sun has been beating down and see that your plants are wilting and go, oh, no. I have a disease. They're likely just, you know, protecting themselves and keeping their the, evaporation down at that point. But if you go out there first thing in the morning, and suddenly you're seeing that they are completely wilted or they're drooping, or you go out in the evening when they should have recovered and they still are wilted, then you might have some problems like a root rot, from fungal pathogens. So that's something to look out for.

Karin Velez [00:23:56]:
Stunted growth or any abnormal growths like, galls or swellings on the stems or the leaves, that can indicate that there is some sort of an infection by a pathogen or even a pest. Some of these will also be indicated when you have a certain insect pest. Leaf curling or distortion, powdery and fuzzy growth. You know, powdery mildew and downy mildew are very, very common. So if you see, like, fuzzy growth of some sort, that's usually a fungal disease. Yellowing or mottling of the leaves, this can be from a disease. This can also be from nutrient deficiency. So you kinda have to know what your plants are prone to in your area in order to know what to look for.

Karin Velez [00:24:39]:
Premature leaf drop, this is another one. If you have some premature defoliation, this is oftentimes in response to a disease, specifically fungal infections like leaf blights or rust diseases. The leaves may turn brown or yellow before falling off the plant, but not always. So it's always a good idea to make yourself familiar with what the most prevalent diseases are for what it is that you are growing in in your area because all of these signs, or most of them anyway, can have multiple causes. So it could be a plant disease, but it also could be environmental stress, or it could be a nutrient deficiency. So if you suspect that it is a plant disease, then get with one of your local extension agents or a very experienced gardener in your area and try to get, like, an accurate diagnosis so you can figure out what your treatment options are. Number 7 is to monitor stir for nutrient or pH imbalances. K? You should be regularly inspecting your plants for signs of nutrient deficiency.

Karin Velez [00:25:47]:
Sometimes this isn't gonna be nutrients. Sometimes it's gonna be a pH issue. Hopefully, we have done a soil test, and we know where we're starting with, but that doesn't mean that things can't change throughout the season. Again, a lot of these are very similar to what we see when we have diseases, plant discoloration, stunted growth, the leaf deformities or abnormalities. If you have reduced fruiting or flowering, that is generally, definitely, a lack of essential nutrients. They're gonna produce fewer flowers or fruits. Phosphorus deficiency specifically will result in poor fruit development. Potassium deficiency can lead to fewer flowers or smaller fruits.

Karin Velez [00:26:27]:
So when you see that your plants aren't flowering or fruiting, as readily as they should be, usually, it's an essential nutrient issue, but also know that high heat can also be a factor with a lack of flowers or with flowers dropping too. So pay attention to your environmental factors as well. And then know that some plants are sensitive to soil pH levels. So if your pH is too high or too low for what it is that you're growing, then they're gonna act stressed out. So, I mean, blueberries, they're very typically what we talk about when we talk about pH sensitive plants because they prefer an acidic soil. So if your soil is very alkaline and you're trying to grow blueberries, they may end up showing signs of an iron deficiency because the the iron just can't move through the soil into the plant the way that it needs to. So again, doing a soil test is gonna provide you much more accurate information about the nutrient levels and the pH so you can help figure out what it is that you need to do in order to amend your soil, or use fertilizer, and do some sort of nutrient supplementation. And finally, this last 1, might seem obvious, but you'd be surprised.

Karin Velez [00:27:43]:
Number 8 is harvesting. Obviously, this is the reason why we're growing our gardens. Right? We're trying to grow food, and we want to be harvesting. But not harvesting regularly can actually encourage your plants to stop producing. So if you're not picking the fruit when it is ready to be pulled, it's signaling to the plant, oh, okay. Well, now we have done our job. We have produced a fruit. It's getting ready to drop to the ground and spread the seeds so my job here is done, and I don't have to produce anymore.

Karin Velez [00:28:22]:
So harvesting encourages that continuous production. It it helps redirect the plant's energy towards producing more fruit. It also prevents over ripening. Like, if you've grown zucchini or cucumbers, you know you can walk out there one day and be out there looking and go, that one's kind of ready, but not quite. I'm gonna give it another day, and then I will come out and pick it. And then 2 or 3 days goes by, and suddenly you go out there and you have a baseball bat sized zucchini or a cucumber the size of a boat. So my advice is, speaking from experience, if it looks like it's almost ready, just pick it, pull it, bring it in, let it start producing another one that you might wanna get to the ideal size. The same thing goes with harvesting tomatoes.

Karin Velez [00:29:09]:
Yes. Vine ripened tomatoes taste the best, but you can harvest them at what we called the breaker stage, where they're just starting to get their blush of color. If you have a problem with not getting to them before they are overripe. You can pick them and just let them sit in your kitchen on the counter, and they will continue to ripen over the next couple of days and be ready to eat, versus not getting out there in time and having them be overripe and be mushy. Or this is especially helpful if you have animal pests who also wait for them to be beautifully, perfectly ripe, and then they swoop in, and they eat the tomatoes before you get a chance to pick them. Squirrels are notorious for this. So if you have that problem, then frequent harvesting at the breaker stage is gonna be better straw for you, and you're not gonna have as much loss to those those pests. So just remember, harvesting frequently or regularly is going to encourage that continuous production and keep those plants going all the way through until your 1st frost.

Karin Velez [00:30:17]:
So so those are my top 8. Those are the things that I really think we need to be paying attention to as we move through our summer garden. Of course, these specific tasks are gonna vary depending on your location and your climate and the types of plants that you're growing. So it's always a good idea to kind research and consider the very specific requirements of whatever it is that you are growing to make sure that you get your best possible harvest. So. I hope that your summer garden is looking fantastic, and you are getting all kinds of fabulous harvest out of it. Keep in mind, with this whole task list thing. None of us is perfect.

Karin Velez [00:30:53]:
We're not gonna get to all of it. And even if we do, there may still be issues that we face in the gardens. Trust me. I am facing plenty of them right now in my own, so don't feel like you've done something wrong. If you have gone through this entire list and done everything that supposed to and you still end up having problems in your garden, it happens. We're trying to control mother nature, and, well, she does a better job at it than we do. Until next time, my gardening friends. Keep on cultivating this dream garden, and we'll talk to you again soon.