Vegetable gardening has it’s challenges every summer. Unlike 2015 with the frequent and abundant amount of rain and cooler temperatures, this season has been very warm with only spotty showers here in our area. Most gardens seem to be growing well as long as we provide moisture when the weather doesn’t provide adequate rains. Tomatoes seem to be doing well for most gardeners this summer. Peppers, squash, cucumbers and string beans are also growing and yielding excellent yields.

Cabbage plants like the variety O.S. Cross has produced some huge heads, some weighing up to 16 pounds! The pesky Flea Beetle has been about the only problem here and Sevin dust takes care of that insect. Tomato diseases do not seem as severe as they were last summer. Spacing plants far enough apart for good air circulation helps prevent foliar diseases. Some gardeners are having problems with the leaves at the base of the plant getting spots on them and then this condition begins to move up the plant until most of the plant is infected. Selecting disease resistant varieties helps to control this problem. A newspaper mulch around your tomato plants seems to help to prevent some of the leaf diseases. Most gardeners are picking tomatoes and we hope you are too. The hot weather can interfere with pollination of tomato flowers by causing the pollen to dry out before it reaches the female part of the flower.

Squash, melons and cucumbers have separate male and female flowers and the female flower must be pollinated to produce any fruit and there doesn’t seem to be any problem in this area this year. If you are experiencing a problem getting yields of these vegetables, be patient. When this group of plants begin to flower there is an abundance of male flowers and it may be a week or longer for the female flowers to begin to develop so pollination can occur.

Potatoes are doing very well this year. This makes sense since the plant parts we are interested in are part of the root system called a tuber. We are not interested in the fruit or seeds of the potato or the leaves but the root that is underground and are doing well. All of you gardeners that planted potatoes back in March should be digging an abundant crop.

It is only a matter of 3 or 4 weeks and it will be time to plant our fall and early winter crops. All the Cole crops(cabbage, broccoli, kale, cauliflower) are usually planted from transplants and carrots, lettuce, beets and radishes are direct seeded and will grow well in the fall season.

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Meadow View Growers

www.meadowview.com

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