Summer Maintenance Tips for Your Victory Garden 2.0
“When the pandemic hit, I decided to plant a vegetable garden.”
I’ve heard this from consultation clients and Plantrama listeners for the past three months, and my response is always the same. “Congratulations! You made a terrific choice.” I recognize that the stress of the COVID crisis can easily prompt people to eat sweets or binge-watch old television series, so it’s wonderful to hear that many were also motivated to do something life-affirming like planting vegetables.
If growing veggies is new to you, or if you’ve recently returned to gardening after a few years’ hiatus, you might be in need of some mid-summer maintenance reminders. So, here are some tips that will keep your gardens productive and your dinner table loaded with the freshest, tastiest food on earth.
Patty Cooksey, an ER Nurse at Cape Cod Hospital, planted this vegetable garden in the spring of 2020. She says it was a pleasurable “quiet” activity in a very challenging time. Patty also created the charming fence that frames it from dead branches found in the woods.
“I planted too much!”
At the start of the planting season, the young vegetables are so small, and our planting area seems so large. Yet once the weather warms most plants start to explode and that once-spacious raised bed is now crowded.
What should you do when your summer squash is covering the beets and the kale has overtaken the carrots?
Many of your plants can be made more vertical, so start there. Stake any tall kale, broccoli, eggplants, and peppers that are leaning over and smothering the neighboring crops. If your summer squash is near the edge of a bed, let it drape over raised boxes or grow into the surrounding area. And if some of your plants are just too close together, thin them out by pulling or cutting every other one to give remaining crops more space. Remember that the lettuce, kale, chard, and similar leaf crops you’re thinning are all edible, so bring the plants you’ve cut into your kitchen.
“Are my vegetables ready to pick?”
One common mistake novice vegetable growers make is not harvesting quickly. It’s tempting to leave that row of lettuce heads, for example, because they look so beautiful.
Yet when it comes to our veggie gardens, keep in mind that constant harvesting can also mean more food for your table…
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- Cut off the largest leaves on lettuce, chard, and kale plants and use those in your salads.
- Pick green beans every other day so that the plants will continue to flower and produce more.
- Cut broccoli heads when they “look like broccoli,” even though those heads might be significantly smaller than the ones you find in the supermarket. (Another broccoli fun fact: most plants will continue to produce side shoots of tiny heads all summer. Pick these before they go to flower and you’ll have enough small, tender broccoli for salads, omelets, and pasta dishes into the fall.)
Finally, once your lettuce, radishes, or other greens start to flower it’s time to pull them up and plant again.
“What about all these weeds?”
The weeds that seemed insignificant in June can explode into gigantic plants in July. Even experienced vegetable growers will walk into their garden and say, “Where did that huge weed come from?” Some heat-loving weeds prosper close to the ground as well, so during your summer maintenance, you might be seeing crabgrass, carpet weed, and purslane in the garden. Unfortunately, there is no magic wand for this. They need to be pulled.
I highly recommend the cup-of-coffee-glass-of-wine approach to weeding. Go out in the morning or evening with your favorite beverage and pull weeds, pausing occasionally to take a sip and enjoy the day. Once your beverage is done, stop. The weeds will be there tomorrow, and you can go out with your drink once again. Needless to say, if you live in a very hot part of the country, the early morning is the best time for weed control. Don’t overdo it and this will help make this summer maintenance so much better!
Also, the use of mulch can suppress the growth of a majority of weeds, and it makes summer maintenance so much easier! It’s not too late to add a couple of inches of chopped leaves, straw, hay, or other organic material to cover bare soil.
A quarter of the author’s garden is fenced to keep the rabbits out. They seem to prefer the green beans, kale, and broccoli, so these are planted in “the bunny bin” every year. The fence around the area is used to support snap peas and cucumbers.
“How do I water in the summer?”
When you planted your vegetables, they were easily moistened with a wand on the end of a hose. Chances are, you even enjoyed this ritual. But in the heat of the summer, hand watering is seldom enough. First of all, people get bored long before those plants get a good, deep soaking, and a thorough drenching ensures deeper stronger roots. Secondly, it’s human nature to aim the water at the base of the stem, ignoring the surrounding soil which is where the roots are actively growing. If local ordinances permit watering with soaker hoses or a sprinkler, use these, watering deeply but less often.
“Some crops have gone by. What now?”
Once your peas and lettuce have gone by and the garlic heads harvested, you have open real estate where more food can be planted. In many parts of the country seeds for carrots, kale, arugula, lettuce, pak choi, and chard can be planted in these spots. These are all crops that will thrive even as the temperatures cool, so don’t hesitate to sow something new.
When lettuce starts to flower, it’s time to pull it. You can plant more lettuce seeds for cool weather planting.
Written By: C. L. Fornari, Plantrama
Check these posts for additional tips on creating your own Victory Garden 2.0
“This post is provided as an educational/inspirational service of the National Garden Bureau and our members. Please credit and link to National Garden Bureau and author member when using all or parts of this article.”
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4 comments. Leave new
When should I harvest acorn squash? This is my first time growing squash.
Winter squash maturity will usually be indicated by the outside color of the skin. For tan and orange fruits, there should be no tinge of green left on the skin. Fruits that are green at maturity can be more tricky – look for a lighter colored ground spot as one indicator. The stem of the fruit will start to look more brown and woody at maturity. You can also gauge maturity by looking at the plant. Typically vines will begin to die back and leaves will start yellowing. You can look for the small tendrils on the vines nearest to the plant if they are shriveled and brown it can also indicate the fruit is close to maturity. Make sure to research your winter squash variety to learn whether or not it needs a period of curing off the vine after harvest for the best flavor.
There’s an art to watering that comes from observation and experience. It may sound surprising but watering correctly is a learned skill. Many people do not fully appreciate how to water correctly and so over water or more commonly under water their plants. First, know how much water your specific plant needs. A general rule of thumb (excluding aquatic plants) is that plants do not like to sit in water or soggy soil. Soil mixes or garden soil typically should be well drained. Water the soil and not the leaves. Although washing off foliage on dusty, dry mornings probably will not hurt. Its better to apply water slowly and deeply but to allow the soil surface to dry out slightly before watering. If leaves start to wilt its time to water, if the soil is dry its time to water. After watering check the soil profile by taking a hand trowel and digging down 6″ or so to make sure that the water has penetrated that far down. Deep but less frequent watering encourages plants to root deeply. -Joe Parr-Director of Horticulture, Flamingo Gardens
I can not emphasize enough the importance of Mulching. Nature abhors bare soil. She jealously protects that soil that took eons to build by quickly covering the naked ground with a defensive covering of weeds-(nature’s own version of a scab on a flesh wound if you will.) Labor to pull weeds and leave the soil bare and unprotected and weeds will quickly move in to shield the soil from oxidation and erosion. The answer; mulch several inches thick with straw or leaves or newspaper or pine bark. Mulch satisfies natures requirement to safeguard the soil and you will have few if any weeds for months. -Joe Parr Director of Horticulture, Flamingo Gardens