by Birgitt Evans, ABG Board member and Master Gardener
July is an interesting time in the garden. Harvests have begun coming in and some crops are finished, leaving gaps, while the peppers and tomatoes are just beginning. After a busy spring of planting, gardeners tend to become lethargic, which can waste some of the best light conditions of the year. And it’s dry. Really dry. What’s a gardener to do in July?
Photo by Lori Eanes
Take Stock
Evaluate your plantings to date. How did things do? Were the broccoli heads small? Was the lettuce full of holes? Did you have too much kale or too many cucumbers all at once and now there is none? Did you wish the beans had lasted longer? And, of course, what went right and why?
It can take a while to work out how much to plant for your size family and to get the knack of succession planting. It also takes time to build healthy, fertile soil and attract insects that will eat your plant eaters. Taking stock (and perhaps keeping a garden journal) will enable you to tailor future gardening efforts to meet the needs of your household.
Build Soil
Healthy soil will nourish your plants, making them better able to resist drought, insects and diseases. Think of it as creating overall health for our planet as well as your individual plants.
Every time you remove plants from the vegetable garden or containers, you need to add another inch of compost and a balanced, slow release fertilizer. This is also a good time to take a look at your fruit trees and ornamental plantings. Give them a good soaking and then fertilize them, if you have not already done so. Put down a layer of organic mulch to retain water through the dry months, leaving a few inches between the trunk/stem and the mulch to discourage fungal diseases.
Keep On Planting
In Alameda, we have one more month to plant bush beans, cucumbers, squash, basil, tomatillos, potatoes and corn and harvest a crop before it grows too cold and dark. The plants will grow in the summer daylight and enjoy our Indian Summer heat and give you a last hurrah of summer bounty in September and October. (Almost everything else can be planted well into November, so they can be planted in July, but there is no hurry.) As crops finish producing, remove them, add compost and fertilizer and get another crop in ASAP so you make the best use of your garden space.
Give it a Rest
If you are tired of planting or have plenty growing, you can use a summer cover crop such as buckwheat and cowpeas to add fertility plus both carbon and nitrogen back to your soil. Be sure to till the plants into the soil before they set seed. This will give you space for fall crops.
Do a Water Check-up
Take a trowel and go around and make sure everything in the garden is getting water. Make sure that water isn’t just leaking out the sides of containers, leaving the plants dry. Use a sprinkler to give a little supplemental water to areas not reached by your drip system. If soil in containers has pulled away from the edges of the pot, manually dig in the dirt while running the water at a slow drip to reintroduce the potting mix to water and close up any gaps near the edges of your containers. Consider increasing (or decreasing) watering time between now and October.
July doesn’t have to be the doldrums of the gardening calendar. It can be an important link between the seasons and a time to accomplish tasks that are missed in the excited frenzy of spring and build for the future.