Early July Garden To-Do List
We’re right in the middle of summer — the best of times and the worst of times in the garden. Gardeners are sweating and swatting bugs, but also filling baskets with tomatoes and peppers and making pesto to last all year. Get out early, drink lots of water, and harvest often. Use the rest of your garden time and energy on the tasks below. And shockingly, it’s not too soon to start thinking about what to plant in the fall garden. Where has the year gone?!
Harvest: Tomatoes, cucumbers, green beans, basil, zucchini, summer squash, onions, peppers, and carrots are all ready this month. Don’t let those cukes get too big or the plants will stop producing. Harvest okra when pods are three inches. They don't taste good when they get any bigger. If birds or squirrels or insects are stealing bites from your tomatoes, harvest them early, when they have just started to turn red, and allow them to ripen inside at room temperature (safe from the critters). Cut herbs often, cut flowers often.
In this high heat, you may see your tomato plants slow in fruit production, or perhaps big green tomatoes will sit on the vine, endlessly waiting for temps to drop back onto the 80s before they turn red. What can you do? option 1: Wait it out and keep plants healthy. They should start to ripen and produce again when the weather cools a bit. 2: Eat fried green tomatoes.
Plant: There is still time for another round of beans, cowpeas, and summer squash. If climbing cucumbers have fizzled from the heat, pole beans can utilize the same trellis and provide a great harvest in September.
Support: Continue to weave or tie tomatoes to their trellis. Dahlias and other tall flowers like zinnias may need a stake near their main stem to keep the plant upright. Look out for them to flop after a big rainstorm. They probably won’t stand upright again without help.
Prune: If perennial herbs like thyme, oregano, and sage have flowered, give the bees some time to enjoy the blossoms, then cut the stems back to a node below the flowers. They should have enough time to produce fresh leaves for another harvest this year.
Regularly remove damaged or yellowing leaves on all plants. If your tomatoes are getting wild, you can remove some suckers. You can also prune any or all leave below the actively ripening fruit. They usually shaded and not helping the plant by gathering light, only contributing to leaves staying damp and creating conditions for fungal diseases to grow. Lower leaves can also be removed from summer squash — you should definitely do this if you are seeing any powdery mildew on them.
Feed: If you haven’t given long-season plants like tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, and melons a boost of nutrients yet, do that this week (and again in a month or so) to keep them producing for the rest of the season. Use a fertilizer like TomatoTone which has a lower percentage of nitrogen.
Pests: Hornworms, Squash Vine Borers, Squash Bugs, and Flea Beetles are all out doing their thing this month. Hand-picking and drowning in soapy water is always a good approach. See our Growing Guides for more info on these pests and options for treatment.
Diseases: You may start to see spots on your tomatoes leaves — yellow or brown, followed by the leaves drying up and falling off. There are several different fungal diseases that can start to affect tomatoes at this time of year, especially if we get some heavy rains. Bad news: most of them aren’t really treatable, so if you see these spots, prune off affected leaves and hope for a few more weeks production before the plants die. Good news: You can prevent or seriously lessen the chance of these diseases by keeping your tomatoes pruned so that they have airflow around them and leaves are able to dry quickly. (Which you already did if you are using this checklist!) And yep, we talked about pruning last month in regards to powdery mildew on squash, bee balm, zinnias, or other plants with fuzzy-textured leaves. Remove the affected leaves and be sure when you are watering to moisten the soil (with drip irrigation if possible) and not the leaves of plants. If any plant completely wilts and dies, pull it out right away. Do not compost these plants, put them in the trash.
Planning for fall and next year:
A productive gardener is always thinking a few months ahead. It seems crazy, but if you want to have a fall garden you have to get started in July. In the next couple of weeks, plan what you want to grow this fall and start figuring out where it might go in your garden. If you are starting your own seeds indoors, clean and take stock of your supplies, including seeds for the varieties you want to grow. Tennessee Kitchen Gardens offers complete fall planting services, but spaces are limited, so book now.
And Shopping! Garlic should be ordered now to plant this fall. It often sells out fast, so don’t delay ordering! You can also use a couple of bulbs from your own harvest this year as seed for next year. Don’t forget the fall-planted bulbs like tulips, daffodils, alliums, and ranunculus. Order them now before the best colors sell out, and they will ship to middle Tennessee in October.
