Eight mid-year garden tips
Dig in and harvest new potatoes to enjoy their tender skin and sweetness.
Your garden has just hit its mid-season: somewhere between planting and harvesting.
Middles do not get a lot of credit. The middle part of a story can feel long, our midsections are never strong enough, and the middle child often feels overlooked: just ask Mark, the third of five children.
Yet, as he would maintain, nothing exists without the middle: the middle holds everything together.
Here are our eight top food gardening tips for mid-summer — to help you hold it all together. 1. Prune your tomato plants to grow more tomatoes. This is a lot easier than pruning trees or shrubs. Simply pinch off the suckers that grow between the main stem and lateral branch.
While you are at it, stake your tomato plants if you have not already. Propping them up off the ground improves airflow and minimizes fungal disease. It will double your crop too.
Apply bordo mixture every two weeks to prevent early blight. Bordo is a copper-based fungicide that is safe to use. 2. Finish sowing late-season crops such as leaf lettuce, mesclun, radish, beets, broccoli, carrots, onions and peas so they’ll be ready for harvest as the weather turns cooler. Sowing now will keep up your steady flow of ripe veggies right into autumn.
Many of these plants will grow better now than they did after their first, early-season sowing. 3. Harvest your garlic scapes. Research by John Zandstra, who taught Ben at the University of Guelph, Ridgetown Campus, tells us that the sooner we harvest pigtail-curled garlic scapes, the better.
The reason is that it results in the largest possible bulb at harvest in late August. Trim the scapes soon to yield a 2030 per cent larger garlic bulb. Be careful not to cut the leaves, however, as trimming a single leaf can decrease yield by 17.5 per cent. 4. Stop harvesting rhubarb when the stalks become thin. The remaining leaves will boost the root structure for a good crop next year. Early in autumn, add a five- to sevencentimetre layer of compost or rotted manure. 5. Harvest “new potatoes” two or three weeks after the flowers have stopped. New potatoes are delicious for their tender skin and sweetness, but do not keep as well as mature potatoes.
Any variety of potato can be harvested “new” or mature, it is really a matter of timing. For mature potatoes, cut the foliage off about two weeks after it has died back, then allow 10-14 days more for their skins to toughen up before digging.
Do not overwater during this period, as the crop may begin to rot or develop scab if left for too long. 6. Raspberries and cherries need harvesting immediately. If left on the plant they will rot and infect the rest of the ripening fruits which will reduce your overall yield.
Prune July-bearing raspberries right after their harvest, as these plants will bear fruit on new wood next season. 7. Strawberry plants need love after they’ve had their fruit picked over and harvested. Remove the straw or mulch that has kept the fruits off the ground and compost it.
Cut off the old leaves, leaving only the new leaves and the plants’ crowns open to sunlight. This will allow the plant to fill out and produce more strawberries next year.
Put down a generous layer of compost, five- to seven-cm, and remove any nets that are protecting the plants. 8. Apples, pears and other fruit trees need your continued support, as well. Ignore the spray program and your yield will suffer. Mark uses End-All and Garden Sulphur every two weeks as a safe method for keeping insects and fungal disease at bay.
And there you have the midseason, a busy time for your garden — and for you.
Another of our top tips: while your garden is at its best right now, in the midst of the middle, take the time to stop and appreciate this moment between the beginning and end.
And give credit to your middle child.