Summer in the garden

Get the most from your vegetable garden with our July gardening tips

• To obtain maximum pleasure and value from your vegetable garden, continue planting during the growing season. This provides a harvest until cold weather kills the plants.
• Uncaged tomatoes can be damaged by sunscald. To prevent this, lean an old window screen over the plants to protect them from the sun.
• Before you spray an insecticide on your vegetables, check the label. Each insecticide has a time you must wait before you can harvest.
• To prevent okra from becoming slimy while cooking, leave the stem on the pod. The stem is edible, or you can remove it before serving.
• Dry weather causes Swiss chard to bolt or go to seed. Water your plants to extend the season.
• Cucumbers develops a bitter taste if the soil is not kept consistently moist. Harvest for pickling whole when 2 to 4 inches; for table use, when longer than 5 inches. Remove any overripe cucumbers to encourage continuous production.
• Although tomatoes are self-pollinating, they need movement to transfer pollen. If it is hot and calm for several days, gently shake plants for assured pollen transfer and fruit set. Hot temperatures can also interfere with blossom set.
• Water stress in sweet potatoes can result in cracked roots. A potassium deficiency causes long, slender roots. Too much nitrogen reduces yield and quality.
• Too many cucumbers, zucchini, or tomatoes? Think pickles, relishes, and tomato sauces.
• For the best flavour, pick ripe tomatoes as needed; flavour peaks within three minutes of picking. If you must wait to use garden-fresh tomatoes, don't refrigerate them. Fruit texture and some aroma compounds deteriorate quickly in the cold.
• To get more vitamins out of your vegetables, keep the outer leaves on your cabbage heads. They are high in vitamin C. Grow yellow corn varieties; they are higher in vitamin A than those with white kernels. Wash, but don't peel, cucumbers -- most of the vitamin A is in the skin. Harvest some green leaves with broccoli heads and stalks; the leaves have more vitamin A than the head and are richer in vitamin C, too.
• Most fertilizer recommendations are for 100 square feet, so keep your garden's square footage a simple fraction of that. For example, a 4 x 12 1/2 foot garden is exactly 50 square feet and would require exactly one half the fertilizer required by a garden of 100 square feet.
• A garden needs 1 inch of rain or water each week. Early morning is the best time to water. Evening watering is less desirable because leaves that remain wet through the night are more susceptible to fungal diseases. Mulch plants to reduce water loss and improve yields.
• Keep peas, beans, and berries cool while you pick them by spreading a damp cloth over your harvest basket.

  By Janet Keith

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