August Gardening Tips

August Gardening Article
by Neil DeWitt

Hopefully all is going well in your garden and you are enjoying a bountiful and delicious harvest. This month I have a few hints relative to harvesting your crops of various produce. After months of hard work and tender care, when it’s finally time to reap the rewards of your vegetable garden, it helps to know when it is best to harvest your vegetables. This knowledge can be as important as knowing how to grow them. The following tips might just help you somewhat in picking your produce at it’s prime:
· Early morning is always the best time of day to pick your produce before it becomes stressed from the sun and the heat of the day depleting some of the moisture in the fruit and vegetables.
· Small is beautiful, tasty, and tender, too! (Size does matter for vegetables, usually smaller is even better)
· Keep picking! Don’t let plants go to seed.
· Asparagus: Snap off spears when they are 6 to 8 inches tall. Bend the spear from the top toward the ground, it will snap at the point in the spear where it is tender and not too fibrous. Only harvest spears for about 8 weeks before letting the plant grow to the “flower stage” as this will allow it to “feed” properly for the next spring harvest season.
· Bush Beans: Pick when 4 1/2 to 6 inches long.
· Broccoli: Harvest when the buds are compact but before they turn yellow or open into flowers. Leave 5 to 6 inches of stem attached. Leave the plant in the garden after you cut it and the broccoli plant will produce additional heads.
· Carrots: Pull or dig when ½ to 1 inch in diameter and before the plant begins to produce a seed flower.
· Corn: Harvest when silks turn dry and brown, don’t pull back the husks to peek at the kernels. The kernels should be bright, plump, and milky when pricked with your fingernail.
· Cucumber: Harvest before cukes begin to turn yellow, unless they are the “lemon” variety. Pick when 4 to 6 inches in length for pickling varieties and when 6 to 10 inches for the slicing varieties.
· Eggplant: These are ready when they turn dark and shiny.
· Green onions: Harvest when their tops are about 8 inches tall.
· Summer Squash varieties: Pick when you can easily dent the rind with your fingernail. Smaller is certainly better for zucchini especially.
· Winter Squash varieties: Harvest when the rind is firm enough so that you cannot easily dent the rind with your fingernail.

If you would like to have fewer troubles with your tomatoes, consider these tips:
o Choose the right location. Tomatoes need at least six hours of direct sunlight a day. Leave plenty of space between plants for good air circulation, staking or otherwise supporting plants also helps.
o Rotate crops. Many disease spores can live in the soil for years. Don’t grow tomatoes or related plants like peppers and eggplants in the same spot year after year.
o Improve soil. Get your tomatoes off to a good start by planting them in well-drained, weed-free soil that is enriched with organic matter like well-rotted manure.
o Water correctly. Deep, slow watering encourages good root formation and is better than short, frequent irrigation. Use soaker hoses or drip irrigation systems to avoid wetting foliage, which can lead to fungal diseases. Water early in the day so plan ts dry before evening hours. By keeping moisture levels consistent, you will help prevent problems like blossom-end rot and leaf curl.
o Mulch. Reduce weeds and maintain consistent moisture levels by spreading mulch around plants. Leave space around the stem. Mulching reduces the spread of early blight and other diseases by preventing spores from splashing onto plants.
o Keep it clean. Remove garden debris, leaf litter, and weeds to keep pests and pathogens away. Sterilize garden tools periodically in a solution made from one part bleach to nine parts water to lessen the spread of diseases.
o Encourage beneficial insects. Praying mantises, predatory wasps, lady beetles, and toads are all natural predators that reduce tomato pests. Keep them happy in your garden by avoiding use of pesticides as much as possible.
o Plant the right variety of tomato. Select the types of tomatoes that grow well in hot arid areas. Your garden centers or the local cooperative extension service will have recommendations for our valley. When selecting plants for transplanting, look for healthy green leaves and stems. Avoid plants with roots coming out of the bottom of the pot, as this indicates they have been in the container too long. Also look for signs of pests or diseases on the plant to avoid introducing them into your garden.
o Tomato varieties marked with these codes have built-in resistance to these diseases:
F – Fusarium wilt T – Tobacco mosaic virus A – Alternaria leaf spot N – Nematodes
FF – Fusarium Race 1 and Race 2 L – Septoria leaf spot V – Verticillium wilt