Weekly tips have been tough for me to formulate, but today there are a few things that are in the front of my mind. Many of you ask about plants, problems, insects and general questions about some of the crops. If you have specific questions or issues, get in touch and I’ll do my best to get you some answers!
Tip #1 Time to prune your peppers. Just like the last tip discussed trimming the largest, lowest leaves off your tomatoes, this week it’s the same thing for your peppers. If your plants are putting on some size, which they should definitely be doing, those lowest leaves probably need to be pruned. The peppers here have long, tough, thick-stemmed leaves that are touching the soil. That’s how diseases are caused and spread.
Get out your favorite snips or pruners and disinfect them with Isopropyl alcohol or peroxide. This means the blades, pivot joint, handles, and any locking mechanism. All parts of the pruner could have bacteria or fungus on it and you’d be surprised how many times your plants come into contact with every part of the pruner. Disinfecting your pruners is just like washing your hands before cooking.
Remove those lower leaves, and any others that are low enough to be splashed with soil in a hard rain. Look through the plant and remove any leaves that are severely damaged by wind, rubbing, or pests and any that are yellowing for any reason. Pick up all fallen debris and the leaves that you cut. Your cuts should be made at the connection of the leaf’s stem and the branch that holds the leaf. Make it quick and clean. If your pruners drag, rip, or crush the stem – go get a smaller pruner and try again or use a sharpener on your blades. Clean cuts are the easiest for your plants to heal. All others can introduce insects and diseases and take the plant much longer to try to heal.
Tip #2 Tuck, train, and trim any out of control plants now while you can! Here, this includes tomatoes, peas, cucumbers, peppers, and a few flowers. Tuck climbing or growing plants into or through your trellis material or you can use soft ties, if needed. Keeping the plants secure to your trellis or support helps them weather our winds and storms. Parts of the tomatoes or peppers that are hanging out of the support will probably snap and result in a wound on the plant and loss of fruits. Early peas are winding down, but last week, some loose ones were tied onto the trellis to keep them happy. Same goes for the new peas that are getting started. Tuck them into the opening on the support or trellis and tie them if needed.
This brings us to the cucumbers. You all love the cucumbers, and my arms sometimes look like a cat has fought me and won or there’s “pickle prickle” rash from working in these coarse, spiny plants. To combat this painful situation, I now sport some pretty gardening sleeves. Think: super stretchy, thick tights for your arms. It’s a bit weird to pull on tights up to my armpits (short girl problem, I’m sure) but they keep my arms clean – no more yellow tomato pollen stains, and free from the prickle rash! OK, let’s get into how to maintain the wild mess of cucumbers.
First, most cucumbers will do very well with a vertical support of some kind. It keeps the plants clean, fruits away from soil and soil-living insects. A trellis or support also gets the fruits in a position for you to see them before they are too big. Am I the only one who prunes these? Could be, but they become an absolute jungle without regular haircuts. First, the biggest, oldest leaves from the bottom are removed – cut as much of the stem as you can reach; ideally back to the vine. Next, pick up any stray vines and gently tuck them through the openings of your support. Tying with soft material may be needed here, too. Once the bottom is cleaned and the vines are all upright, go through and lightly thin out the rest of the biggest, oldest, toughest leaves – being careful to leave enough to protect the fruits from too much direct sunlight. The trick here is to get better light and airflow while not making the plants look like a skeleton. They should look tidy, upright, and have a “filtered light” density. Hopefully that makes sense. The other thing that this does is allow the plant to focus energy into flower and fruit production instead of feeding all those unnecessary leaves. Try to prune early or late or on a cloudy day for the least amount of plant stress. Give them some organic matter or fertilizer heavy on the phosphorus (middle number on the N-P-K reading) to help with blooms and fruiting. Remember to water them deeply after all this. They will reward you with nice cucumbers!
Tip #3 Deadhead spent flowers in your landscape. This keeps your plants tidy, and depending on the plant, it encourages new flowers (some plants are one and done like the Asiatic lilies). If you have herbs, go check them, too! If they’re flowering, it is time to get your shears out and cut them off before they go to seed and drop thousands of seeds all over your yard. This is how chives end up everywhere. Deadheading the flowers allow the plants to focus energy back onto plant growth instead of seed production. Unless your goal is to have a 50/50 grass and chive lawn, cut those flowers off. Right now, the daisies, lilies, a few coneflower, some yarrow, and oregano need to be deadheaded here.
Whew! That’s a lot of information and I hope that you’ll find it useful. I look forward to seeing you soon! I had better go out and sort the garlic and get it bundled for drying. Freshly pulled this afternoon and it smells amazing. If you want fresh garlic that needs to be used within the next week, please let me know. Otherwise, the garlic takes a few weeks to dry properly for longer storage.
PS – thank you all for the potato orders! We have 2 bags of medium Red Norland and 1 bag of small boilers that we ordered as extra in case you missed it. Let me know if you’re interested in them.