Jumpin’ July 2023! Happy Harvests & Delicious Feasting!

May You and your family enjoy a super beautiful, bountiful and juicy July!

Happy 4th of July to you all! Henry David Thoreau says ‘Gardening is civil and social, but it wants the vigor and freedom of the forest and the outlaw.‘ That’s us, growing the freshest, most nutritious, organic food there is! Enjoy your luscious tomatoes!

July is Tomato month! Bush and cherry toms turned red in May and June, but the big beefsteaks, and indeterminate all-summer-long tomatoes come in July in big numbers! Super sandwiches and salads on the way!

July is not so much a planting month as water, sidedress, harvest and share, seedsaving/getting seeds, and make compost month. Fall soil prep begins for late July, Aug, Sep & Oct plantings! Plan your fall garden. Update your seed variety selections to more resistant, heat and drought tolerant varieties.

July usually brings your greatest variety of table fresh veggies, herbs and flowers! It’s colorful and full of great textures. This is giveaway time if you don’t do canning. It’s giveaway time if you have so much there is enough canned and/or frozen for you and your family and then some! Some of us SoCal gardeners don’t can at all because our fall, winter crops are so nutritious and freshly abundant there is no need! Some feel eating with the seasons is the most natural and best for your body.

Sharing is a blessing for people who don’t have access to fresh organic food or are unable to garden. Fresh foods last so much longer than store bought, and have so much better taste and nutrition! Start with family, friends, neighbors. Give to senior communities and those who prepare food for them. Remember they often have special dietary needs and more fragile teeth. Less spicy and less crunchy. Give to any organization that helps people in need, the FoodBank, maybe your local women’s shelter. When we eat better we think more clearly, our body heals, our Soul mends. Thank you and bless you for caring so much.

Sidedressing is important now while plants are working hard!

General sidedressing, during season feeding times, are when baby plants are just up 5, 6 inches tall, when vines start to run, at bud time & first flowering, and first fruiting. From then on it varies per plant! Late July when some plants are near the end of production, extend their fruiting with a good feed – in the ground, or foliar, preferably both, but foliar tops ground feeding for several reasons! See more!

• Manure feeds are especially great for lettuce, and all others except for beans, beets, carrots, parsnips, sweet and white potatoes, and tomatoes, or there’ll be more foliage than fruit! Lettuce loves chicken manure but only about a 1/4 inch gently dug in. NO foliar teas with manure in them on foliage you will be eating.
• Give your peppers and Solanaceae, tomatoes, eggplant, potatoes, Epsom Salt/Magnesium foliar treatments.
• Every couple of weeks your strawberries would love a light fish emulsion/kelp drench.
• Or you can foliar feed everyone some tea! Make a super duper mixed tea – no compost is needed in that mix for plants whose soil was well composted before planting. First make your tea. When it is ready, make your spade fork holes and apply a good compost/worm castings mix, then foliar feed with your tea! Less holes are better because you don’t want to damage too many of the lateral surface feeder foots. Drippings will help moisten your mulch and compost/castings on the ground below! Last, water gently and well with a low flow water wand underneath your plant so everything stays where you put it and you don’t wash away your foliar feed. Do that before the sun gets on your plants or while it is still cool in the day and plants have plenty of time to dry during the day. Low flow also lets water and tea and compost/castings drippings drizzle down into the spade fork holes! THAT is a super feed!

  Mixed teas feed and help prevent pests and diseases. They serve up beneficial living microbes to your plant and provide trace minerals it may need. Use foliar tea more frequently for plants that are ailing or in recovery. On an immediate basis, foliar feeding is 8 to 20 times more potent than ground feeding, and your plant takes it up in as little as an hour! Plants in immediate need can be helped right away! Compost supplies the organic matter that tea doesn’t supply, so it is critical in and of itself, plus it has many times more nutrients than a diluted tea. On and in the ground it decomposes slowly, feeds your plant steadily. It and castings have great water holding capacity. Do both whenever you can!

• Compost is always super. Remember to use acidic compost for veggies that prefer slight acidity! Pull back the mulch. Grab your spade fork, insert it, rock it gently, remove the fork leaving the holes. Stay 8″ away from the central stem, go out to the dripline. Gently scratch up only one or two separate areas around your plant out to the dripline, even a little further to encourage roots to extend, and to feed the feeder roots that are in progress growing out further. Avoid breaking a substantial number of tiny surface feeder roots, otherwise your plant will be slowed down by being in recovery for lack of food and ability to uptake water. Mix in your compost and lay on a 1/2″ to an inch of compost on top of areas you didn’t dig up. While you are at it, be sure your basins are retaining their shape out to the dripline. Put your mulch back, add more (straw) if it needs replenishing, replace it if it’s by a plant that has had pests or disease. If wilts or blight, put no more than 1″ total of straw. You want airflow so the soil will dry a bit. Gently water well. Keep the area moist for a few days so soil organisms can multiply! See Composting Methods, Make it Your Way!Get/make acidic compost for your plants that prefer acidic soil – blueberries, cranberries, beans, cucumber, eggplant, parsley, parsnips, pepper, radish, rhubarb, rutabaga, sweet potatoes, and tomatoes. Another site says: Chicory, eggplant, endive, potato, rhubarb, shallot, sorrel, sweet potato. SFGate says ‘Vegetable plants that do best in mildly acidic soil include carrots, cauliflower, celery, cucumbers, garlic, sweet peppers, pumpkins, winter squash and tomatoes. Another site says: Bean, Brussels sprouts, carrot, chive, collard, corn, cucumber, garlic, kale, kohlrabi, mustard, parsley, pea, pepper, pumpkin, radish, rutabaga, squash, sunflower, tomato, turnip, watermelon. Get a soil test kit or use your intuition. You can see there are differences of opinion among the ‘experts!’ Woody mulches help maintain acidic soil pH. Specific info about soil pH for veggies
• Save yourself some time by adding 25% Worm castings, and for plants that need it, a bit of manure, to your compost and apply them all together. Especially apply that mix to any ailing plants or plants in recovery. Castings help our plants uptake soil nutrients and boost your plant’s immune system. When your plant is taxed producing fruit in great summer conditions, it also is peaking out for the season and fighting pests and diseases are harder for it. Adding compost and castings may prolong and up the quantity and quality of late summer fruits. However, sometimes a plant is just done. No amount of coaxing will have effect. It worked hard. Thank it. Let it produce its seeds for seedsaving, or take it to the compost altar.

If you prefer organic granulated fertilizer sprinkle it around evenly per instructions, and water in well. Just know you will have to do that more frequently, and it doesn’t provide the water holding capacity that compost and castings do.

Feeding your plants can be plant specific or in general. For example, Tomatoes and Peppers (and Roses – edible petals), do well with a little sulfur. It is easily applied – a Tablespoon of Epsom salts, and a 1/2 teaspoon liquid dish soap as a surfactant (so your application sticks to the leaves), in a gallon watering can is all it takes. If the nozzle turns up to get under those leaves, all the better. Apply before the sun hits your plants or while it is still cool. For Peppers, usually one or two feedings are enough – at transplant or baby height about 8″ and when buds and blooms/fruit set start.

If any of your plants are looking puny, have yellowing leaves, you might give them a bit of easy uptake blood meal for a quick Nitrogen pick me up. Add compost, castings and a tad of manure too so your plant has steady food after the blood meal (an expensive feed) is used. If you have predator creatures, especially skunks or raccoons, forgo stinky fish emulsions, manures and blood meal. Use something else, like Alfalfa Meal.

Late July, gardeners are starting to want new ways to enjoy their Zucchini! ZOODLES! Zucchini Zoodles Kale Pesto Edamame Recipe! Here are 28 cool summer variations on how to include this common veggie in a unique way!

Take care of pests and diseases asap! You don’t want them to spread or increase, lose the fruit of all your efforts and time. July brings hot weather, water stress, the stress of continued production. Though you may be a bit tired with all your tending and harvesting, this is not the time to interrupt your care. The heat will bring pest hatchings; tired plants may get overwhelmed by diseases. Be consistent with your watering. Stay on it with your harvest to keep your plants in production, sidedress (feed) as needed. Mercilessly squash the cucumber beetles, the green/yellow and black striped jobs. They give your plants, especially cucumbers, deathly systemic diseases. Put down pellets for slugs & snails, use sulfur and soap in foliar feeds to keep back aphids. See more! Keep plants that are susceptible to Whiteflies free from dust and Ants, and well supplied with worm castings. Hose the flies away, and remove infected leaves or the whole plant if it gets them repeatedly. Insecticidal soaps or Neem oil can reduce populations, but they also harm beneficial insects.

The old one, two! If your area has Fusarium/Verticillium wilts or Mosaic Virus, first foliarly apply 1/4 C bleach to a gallon of water. Be sure to apply to both under and upper sides of the leaves, and the stems. The next day give your plants a boost with the immune booster/mildew prevention mix: 1/4 C nonfat powdered milk, 1 regular crushed aspirin, heaping tablespoon Baking Soda, 1/2 teaspoon dish soap, to a gallon of water. Or spray with Copper. Let NO LEAVES TOUCH THE GROUND OR ANOTHER ALREADY DISEASED OR VULNERABLE PLANT. Know that the fungi are also windborne, so if your plants are beside each other it spreads from one to the next and others nearby.

I found refraining from watering my strawberries but once a week, unless it is exceptionally hot or windy weather, and not mulching under my strawberries keeps the slugs and snails at bay. They don’t like dry soil. Do put down organic slug/snail bait where you will be sprouting seeds and while the seedlings are coming up. Aphids don’t thrive in a dryer environment either. Water and feed the plants susceptible to them a little less. Remove yellowing leaves asap. Yellow attracts whiteflies. Leafminers love temps in the 70s! Remove damaged areas of leaves immediately so they don’t spread. Plant so mature plant leaves don’t touch each other so pests and disease don’t go plant to plant. Three to four consecutive 80+ hot days can bring those odd Leaffooted Bugs! Keep special watch on your tomatoes! Mice and rats and birds love tomato nibbles and the rodents are well equipped to climb! A garden kitty who loves to hunt is a good helper. Put a tiny bell on your kitty so birds, especially hummingbirds, are warned. Keep your compost turned so mice don’t nest in it, or use a covered enclosure; remove debris piles and ground shrub or hidey habitat. PLEASE don’t use rodenticides that in turn kill birds, pets, or animals that would feed on a poisoned animal. That includes Gophers. For gophers, install wire barriers. See more about pests! 

Watering in July is vital, along with Compost & Mulch. Compost increases water holding capacity. Mulch shades soil, keeps it and your plant’s roots cooler, keeps soil more moist longer, less water needed. EXCEPTION: Melons and winter squashes in cooler coastal areas don’t need mulch! They self shade and hot soil helps them produce better. Give them a good sized basin so tiny lateral feeder roots can fully supply that big plant with water and nutrients. Put a tall stake in the center of the basin so you know where to water when the area is covered by those big leaves! For plants that do well with mulch, replenish tired or missing mulch the birds might have scratched away.

Steady water is a must to produce good looking fruits. Some water then none makes misshapen strawberries, called catfaced, curled beans and cukes, carrots lose their consistent shape and may be dryish. Tomatoes have more flavor when they are watered, but a tad less just before harvest concentrates their sweetness. You can do that with bush varieties, determinates, but with indeterminate vining types you just have to see how it goes. Lots of tasty flavor tests may be in order! They have deep tap roots, so usually watering nearby plants is sufficient. Short rooted plants like beans, beets, lettuces need frequent watering to keep moist. If you are in an extremely hot area, shade cloth might be needed. On hot windy days, some may need watering twice a day, even more. Some plants just need a lot of water, like celery. Eggplant needs 2″/week rather than the standard 1″/week!

If you are in a hot, dry, windy area, see Growing Super Veggies in HOT, Drought, Desert Areas!

Don’t be fooled by Temporary High Temps! Non heat resistant or tolerant tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, and beans, stop flowering and fruiting when temps rise above 85 to 90 degrees F for an extended time depending on humidity. Humidity causes pollen to stick and not fall to pollinate. Dry heat causes the pollen to fall and not stick! When weather cools, you will have blooms again and be back in production. Rattlesnake beans, on the other hand, keep right on producing at 100 degree temps! So choose heat tolerant veggie varieties, like Heatmaster and Solar tomatoes, from locales with hot weather. Wonderful heat tolerant varieties are out there!

Cool summer evenings enjoy Zucchini Lasagna! You can even eat it cold, and for breakfast!

Though July is more a maintenance and harvest month, Yes you can plant more! At this point, transplants are best, but many plants will not still be available at nurseries, and it is a tad late to plant many summer plants from seed. What you can plant is beans! They grow quickly and if you grow bush beans and quickly maturing heat tolerant varieties you will still be eating beans in Sept and Oct if it doesn’t get cold early! Get patio container, dwarf types of quick growing heat tolerant determinate tomatoes if you can find them. Previously planted tomatoes may be done producing, or bit the dust for one reason or another – likely a blight or wilt. Remove the old plants to reduce further spread of disease – do NOT compost them – bag and trash, do not green recycle. Beef up the soil and plant your late tomatoes in an entirely different spot.

More lettuces! In summer you want heat tolerant, slow bolting, tip burn resistant lettuce! Lettuce Leaf and Red Sails and Outredgeous are great. Jericho from Israel is great. Sierra, Nevada. Nevada is a Green Crisp/Batavian that grows BIG, doesn’t bolt, and is totally crispy! Green Star is ruffly, quickly grows big around! Parris Island Romaine is slow bolting. Green Towers Romaine tolerates moderate summer heat and has some resistance to tipburn and bolting.

Transplant basil, celery, chard, cucumbers, dill, kale, leeks, summer lettuce, green onions, white potatoes, summer savory, New Zealand spinach. In our hot foothills and further south, go for more melons, okra, pumpkins, summer & winter squash. I’ve seen tomato transplants and bean seeds started in August produce plentiful crops into SoCal’s October! Rattlesnake pole beans do as they are supposed to, make beans in up to 100 degree weather! Yard long beans tolerate late summer weather and make magnificent beans! And some varieties of those don’t get mildew!

Corn is an exception – late plantings often develop smut. But. That smut, from a fungus called Ustilago maydis, is considered a delicacy by many. ‘It’s insanely delicious and luxurious, like black truffles.’ In Mexico it is known as huitlacoche. – weet-la-COH-cheh. Your neighboring gardeners may especially not be pleased, however. See more!  

Fall transplants need babying! Transplant late afternoon or evening so plants have the whole night to begin to recover before they’re hit with a full day of sun and heat. Water well and provide shade from intense mid-day sun. Prop up and secure some of those plastic plant flats that have the smaller grid pattern to filter the light. Keep your transplants moist for at least a month or until they’re well established. Mulch to save water unless they thrive on hot soil.

Harvesting See Grow Veg’s great post on ‘How to Tell When Fruits and Vegetables are Ready for Harvest’ Harvesting has special little techniques and storage varies considerably from veggie to veggie! See more for details!

Be really patient with your big Bells and sweet roasting Peppers. Both like to wait until the nights are longer and cooler in late summer before fruiting and plumping up – making their thick walls. Peppers need time on the plant to absorb nutrients and water and plump up their flesh. Some will still need to change color.

♦♦ At the end of the month, SoCal gardeners start your early winter crops first plantings! Sow carrots (they do best from seed), celery and Brassicas. Brassicas are arugula, Broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage (especially red and savoy types, which resist frost better), cauliflower, and kohlrabi, mizuna, mustard, pak choi, radish, rutabaga, turnip. Besides having your tasty winter crops earlier, you may have time to plant a second round later on. I have planted in December and had terrific crops! They aren’t called winter crops for nuthin!

Mid to late July start preparing by clearing areas for late July first fall plantings.

1. Remove finishing weakened plants that attract pests and get diseases. Remove debris insects live in. Remove and trash mulch from under plants that were diseased and replace with clean mulch.
2. Decide if and where you will plant your green manure patches/aka living mulch/cover crops. Living Mulch!  Cover Crops
3. Improve the soil, mainly, add worm castings to mini nursery areas where you will be planting seeds. Castings speed germination, boost the immune system of the seedlings, and add water holding capacity to help keep the soil moist. Leave space so the seedlings can be removed by a narrow trowel to their permanent place when they become big enough and space becomes available. Keep the soil moist and shaded until they’re up, and then gradually allow them more sun over a week’s time.

It’s time to get seeds if you don’t already have them! If seeds and mini nurseries aren’t your thing, wait until your local nursery starts having the transplants that make you happy! Late August they might start trickling in. Labor Day weekend is a favorite planting time for some gardeners depending on how hot it still is. October is just fine too! One year it stayed so hot we all planted the first couple weeks of November!

Tasty Zucchini Rolls made with Sunflower Seeds Pate, Sun Dried Tomatoes and Spinach! See complete recipe by Chris at Sprout People!

If you are just starting, just got your first plot at one of the community gardens, first, prepare your soil! While waiting for fall planting time, plant a few patches of fast growing, less water needing, heat lovers, lots of summer heat tolerant lettuces for your salads! They may need a little shade cloth protection. Plan out your fall/winter layout – general rule is plant tall to the north, short to the south. Winter plants don’t take up as much food in cooler weather, so use less compost and manure. Remember, nature’s soil is naturally only 5% organic matter, but we are growing veggie bearing plants, so a little more than that is perfect. Too much food and plants go to all leaf, but then a lot of winter veggies are just that, all leaf! Cabbage, Chard, Kale, Lettuces. Oh, lettuces thrive with manures, so put more in the lettuce patch areas, but none where the carrots or peas will grow. They don’t need it. Garden Design/Seed Selection   Fall/Winter Garden Design   Magic of Permaculture!

Important Habitat! As plants finish, let some of them grow out to save seeds. A carrot, celery and cilantro produce masses of seeds! Besides being food for pollinators and beneficial predator insects, their blooms are beautiful! Birds will have seeds for food and scour your plants for juicy cabbage worms, whiteflies, aphids, earwigs, grasshoppers, cucumber beetles and grubs! Chickadees even eat ants!

Seedsaving is really a no-nonsense game! Besides being our second harvest, it insures the purity of your line! Save seeds from your best plant, a plant that grew well at your place! It’s important to our world community, as Thomas Rainer says, to preserve our garden heritage & biodiversity! Besides, it’s fun! Keep some for you – some as spices & others for planting. Package as gifts, and reserve some to take to the Seed Swap in January! 2020 Note! As your plants come into seeding time, consider sharing them as soon as possible! “Little Free Seed Libraries” are Sprouting Up to Help Gardeners Share Seeds in Troubled Times. Take a look at some very clever and loving ideas! Here we are in 2023 and it’s still a good idea!

Let some beans go until they are completely dry in their pods; let corn dry until the kernels are hard on the cob. Let a cucumber turn yellow and tough. Save some seeds from your favorite and best tomatoes. Dry them further at home. When ready, put in an envelope, label with the date/year, their name/variety, where grown, any special notes you think would be helpful. See more about SeedSaving! Here are important details for all veggies at NativeSeed.org!

SoCal, be ready for winter rain! If you garden at home, please look into water capture and gray water systems – shower to flower, super attractive bioswale catchments. Santa Barbara City offers several rebates! Santa Barbara County rebates info per city! Call (805) 564-5460 today to schedule a FREE water system checkup! Check out the Elmer Ave retrofit!

Oh, and please see Tomato Varieties! Humble to Humongous & More!

Gardening is cheaper than therapy and you get tomatoes. ~ Author Unknown

Updated annually

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Check out the entire July 2023 Newsletter!

Harvest & Storage Tips for Our Summer Favorites!
Seasonal Soil Care for Veggies! 
Leaffooted Bugs, Leptoglossus zonatus
SeedSaving! A Beautiful Annual Ritual & Celebration!
Veggie Seed Saving Plant by Plant!

Upcoming Gardener Events! Reminder! Get lodgings for the 10th Annual National Heirloom Exposition, Ventura CA Sep 12-14! Don’t miss this superlative event! July 21 & 22 43rd Annual Seed Savers Exchange Conference! Sep 27-30 44th American Community Gardening Assn Conference in Houston. 

SUBSCRIBE to the entire newsletter!    Friend or Follow on Facebook! 

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Love your Mother! Plant bird & bee food! Think grey water! Grow organic! Bless you for being such a wonderful Earth Steward!

The Green Bean Connection started as correspondence for the Santa Barbara CA USA Pilgrim Terrace Community Garden. Both Santa Barbara City’s remaining community gardens are very coastal. During late spring/summer we are often in a fog belt/marine layer most years, locally referred to as the May grays, June glooms and August fogusts. Keep that in mind compared to the microclimate niche where your veggie garden is. Bless you for being such a wonderful Earth Steward!

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July 2018! Happy Harvests!

Thanks to GrowVeg for this delicious image! See their great post on ‘How to Tell When Fruits and Vegetables are Ready for Harvest’

Happy 4th of July to you all! Henry David Thoreau says ‘Gardening is civil and social, but it wants the vigor and freedom of the forest and the outlaw.’ That’s us, growing the freshest, most nutritious, organic food there is! Enjoy your luscious tomatoes!

July is maintaining and feeding, harvesting, seedsaving, storage, share Month, the beginnings of fall planting preparations for late August!

July is Tomato month! A few turned red, their mature colors, in late June, especially those tasty little cherry toms! Even some of the bigger varieties, but by the 4th, they will definitely be coming in good numbers! Super salads on the way!

July usually brings your greatest variety of table fresh veggies and herbs! It’s colorful and full of great textures. This is giveaway time if you don’t can. It’s giveaway time if you have so much there is enough canned and/or frozen for you and your family and then some! Some of us SoCal gardeners don’t can at all because our fall, winter crops are so nutritious and freshly abundant there is no need!

Sharing is a blessing to people who don’t have access to fresh organic food. Fresh foods last so much longer than store bought, and have so much better taste! Start with family, friends, neighbors. Give to senior communities and those who prepare food for them. Give to any organization that helps people in need, the FoodBank, maybe your local women’s shelter. When we eat better we think more clearly, our body heals, our Soul mends. Thank you and bless you for caring so much.

Sidedressing is important now while plants are working hard!

General sidedressing, during season feeding times, are when baby plants are just up 5, 6 inches tall, when vines start to run, at bud time, and first fruiting. From then on it varies per plant! Late July when some plants are near the end of production, extend their fruiting with a good feed – in the ground, or foliar, preferably both, but foliar tops ground feeding for several reasons! See more!

• Manure feeds are especially great for lettuce, and all others except for beans, beets, carrots, parsnips, sweet and white potatoes, and tomatoes, or there’ll be more foliage than fruit! Lettuce loves chicken manure but only about a 1/4 inch gently dug in.
• Give your peppers and solanaceas, tomatoes, eggplant, potatoes, Epsom Salt/Magnesium foliar treatments.
• Every couple of weeks your strawberries would love a light fish emulsion/kelp drench.
• Or you can foliar feed everyone some tea! Make a super duper mixed tea – no compost is needed in that mix for plants whose soil was well composted before planting. First make your tea. When it is ready, make your spade fork holes and apply a good compost/worm castings mix, then foliar feed with your tea! Drippings will help moisten your mulch and compost/castings on the ground below! Last, water well with a low flow water wand underneath your plant so everything stays where you put it and you don’t wash away your foliar feed. Do that before the sun gets on your plants or while it is still cool in the day and plants have plenty of time to dry during the day. Low flow also lets water and tea and compost/castings drippings drizzle down into the spade fork holes! THAT is a super feed!Mixed teasfeed and help prevent pests and diseases. They serve up beneficial living microbes to your plant and provide trace minerals it may need. Use foliar tea more frequently for plants that are ailing or in recovery. On an immediate basis, foliar feeding is 8 to 20 times more potent than ground feeding, and your plant takes it up in as little as an hour! Plants in immediate need can be helped right away! Compost supplies the organic matter that tea doesn’t supply, so it is critical in and of itself, plus it has many times more nutrients than a diluted tea. On and in the ground it decomposes slowly, feeds your plant steadily. It and castings have great water holding capacity. Do both whenever you can!
• Compost is always super, remember to use acidic compost for strawberries! Pull back the mulch. Grab your spade fork, insert it, rock it gently, remove the fork leaving the holes. Stay 8″ away from the central stem, go out to the dripline. Gently scratch up only one or two separate areas around your plant out to the dripline, even a little further to encourage roots to extend, and to feed the feeder roots that are in progress growing out further. Avoid breaking a substantial number of tiny surface feeder roots, otherwise your plant will be slowed down by being in recovery for lack of food due to its inability to uptake it. Mix in your compost and lay on a 1/2″ to an inch of compost on top of areas you didn’t dig up. While you are at it, be sure your basins are retaining their shape out to the dripline. Put your mulch back, add more (straw) if it needs replenishing. Gently water well. Keep the area moist for a few days so soil organisms can multiply! See Composting Methods, Make it Your Way!
• Save yourself some time by adding 25% Worm castings, and for plants that need it, a bit of manure, to your compost and apply them all together. Especially apply that mix to any ailing plants or plants in recovery. Castings help our plants uptake soil nutrients and boost your plant’s immune system. When your plant is taxed producing fruit in great summer conditions, it also is peaking out for the season and fighting pests and diseases are harder for it. Adding compost and castings may prolong and up the quantity and quality of late summer fruits. However, sometimes a plant is just done. No amount of coaxing will have effect. It worked hard. Thank it. Let it produce its seeds for seedsaving, or take it to the compost altar.

If you prefer organic granulated fertilizer sprinkle it around evenly per instructions, and water in well. Just know you will have to do that more frequently, and it doesn’t provide the water holding capacity that compost and castings do.

Feeding your plants can be plant specific or in general. For example, Tomatoes and Peppers (and Roses – edible petals), do well with a little sulfur. It is easily applied – a Tablespoon of Epsom salts, and a 1/2 teaspoon liquid dish soap as a surfactant (so your application sticks to the leaves), in a gallon watering can is all it takes. If the nozzle turns up to get under those leaves, all the better. Apply before the sun hits your plants or while it is still cool.

If any of your plants are looking puny, have yellowing leaves, might give them a bit of blood meal for a quick Nitrogen pick me up. Add compost, castings and a tad of manure too so your plant has steady food after the blood meal (an expensive feed) is used. If you have predators creatures, especially skunks or raccoons, forgo stinky fish emulsions and blood meal.

Late July, gardeners are starting to want new ways to enjoy their Zucchini! ZOODLES! Zucchini Zoodles Kale Pesto Edamame Recipe! Here are 28 cool summer variations on how to include this common veggie in a unique way!

Take care of pests and diseases asap! You don’t want them to spread or increase, lose the fruit of all your efforts and time. July brings hot weather, water stress, the stress of continued production. Though you may be a bit tired with all your tending and harvesting, this is not the time to interrupt your care. The heat will bring hatchings; tired plants may get overwhelmed by diseases. Be consistent with your watering. Stay on it with your harvest to keep your plants in production, sidedress (feed) as needed. Mercilessly squash the cucumber beetles, the green/yellow and black striped jobs. They give your plants, especially cucumbers, deathly systemic diseases. Put down pellets for slugs & snails, use sulfur and soap in foliar feeds to keep back aphids. See more! Keep plants susceptible to Whiteflies free from dust and Ants, and well supplied with worm castings. Hose the flies away, and remove infected leaves or the whole plant if it gets them repeatedly. Insecticidal soaps or Neem oil can reduce populations.

I found refraining from watering my strawberries but once a week, more in exceptionally hot or windy weather, and not mulching under my strawberries keeps the slugs and snails at bay. They don’t like dry soil. I’m growing the Seascape variety that has deep roots, so it works well. Do put down organic slug/snail bait where you will be sprouting seeds and while the seedlings are coming up. Aphids don’t thrive in a dryer environment either. Water the plants susceptible to them a little less. Remove yellowing leaves asap. Yellow attracts whiteflies. Leafminers love temps in the 70s! Remove damaged areas of leaves immediately so they don’t spread.Plant so mature plant leaves don’t touch each other so pests and disease don’t go plant to plant. Mice and rats love tomato nibbles and they are well equipped to climb! A garden kitty who loves to hunt is a good helper. Keep your compost turned so mice don’t nest in it; remove debris piles and ground shrub or hidey habitat. Please don’t use baits that will in turn kill birds, or kitties or animals that would feed on a poisoned animal. That includes Gophers. For gophers, install wire barriers. See more about pests!

Watering in July is vital, along with Compost & Mulch. Compost increases water holding capacity. Mulch shades soil, keeps it and your plant’s roots cooler, keeps soil more moist longer, less water needed. Replenish tired or missing mulch the birds might have scratched away. Steady water is a must to produce good looking fruits. Some water then none makes misshapen strawberries, called catfaced, curled beans and cukes, carrots lose their consistent shape. Tomatoes have more flavor when they are watered a tad less just before harvest. You can do that with bush varieties, determinates, but with indeterminate vining types you just have to see how it goes. Lots of tasty flavor tests may be in order! They have deep tap roots, so usually watering nearby plants is sufficient. Melons in cooler coastal areas don’t need mulch! They self shade and hot soil helps them produce better. Give them a good sized basin so tiny lateral feeder roots can fully supply that big plant with water and nutrients. Put a stake in the center of the basin so you know where to water! Short rooted plants like beans, beets, lettuces need frequent watering to keep moist. Some plants just need a lot of water, like celery.

Don’t be fooled by Temporary High Temps! Non heat resistant or tolerant tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, stop flowering and fruiting when temps rise above 85 to 90 degrees F for an extended time depending on humidity. Humidity causes pollen to stick and not fall to pollinate. Dry heat causes the pollen to fall and not stick! When weather cools, you will have blooms again and be back in production. Rattlesnake beans, on the other hand, keep right on producing at 100 degree temps! So choose heat tolerant veggie varieties, like Heatmaster and Solar tomatoes, from locales with hot weather. Wonderful heat tolerant varieties are out there!

Cool summer evenings enjoy Zucchini Lasagna! You can even eat it cold, and for breakfast!

Though July is more a maintenance and harvest month, Yes you can plant more! At this point, transplants are best, but many plants will not still be available at nurseries, and it is a tad late to plant many plants from seed. What you can plant is beans! They grow quickly and if you grow bush beans and quickly maturing heat tolerant varieties you will still be eating beans in Sept and Oct if it doesn’t get cold early! Get patio container types of quick

growing heat tolerant determinate tomatoes if you can find them. Previously planted tomatoes may be done producing, or bit the dust for one reason or another – likely a blight or wilt. Remove the old plants to reduce further spread of disease – do NOT compost them. Beef up the soil and plant your late tomatoes in an entirely different spot.

More lettuces! In summer you want heat tolerant & slow bolting lettuce! Lettuce Leaf and Red Sails and Outredgeous are great. Jericho from Israel is great. Sierra, Nevada. Nevada is a Green Crisp/Batavian that grows BIG, doesn’t bolt, and is totally crispy! Green Star is roughly, grows big around! Parris Island Romaine is slow bolting. Green Towers Romaine tolerates moderate summer heat and has some resistance to tipburn and bolting.

Transplant basil, celery, chard, cucumbers, dill, kale, leeks, summer lettuce, green onions, white potatoes, summer savory, New Zealand spinach. In our hot foothills and further south, go for more melons, okra, pumpkins, summer & winter squash. I’ve seen tomato transplants and bean seeds started in August produce plentiful crops into October! Rattlesnake pole beans do as they are supposed to, make beans in up to 100 degree weat

her! Yard long beans tolerate late summer weather and make magnificent beans! And some varieties of those don’t get mildew!

Corn is an exception – late plantings often develop smut. But. That smut, from a fungus called Ustilago maydis, is considered a delicacy by many. ‘It’s insanely delicious and luxurious, like black truffles.’ In Mexico it is known as huitlacoche. – weet-la-COH-cheh. Your neighboring gardeners may especially not be pleased, however. See more!  

Fall transplants need babying! Transplant late afternoon or evening so plants have the whole night to begin to recover before they’re hit with a full day of sun and heat. Water well and provide shade from intense mid-day sun. Prop up and secure some of those plastic plant flats that have the finer grid pattern to filter the light. Keep your transplants moist for at least a month or until they’re well established. Mulch to save water unless they thrive on hot soil.

Harvesting has special little techniques and storage varies considerably from veggie to veggie! See more for details!

Be really patient with your big Bells and sweet roasting Peppers. Both like to wait until the nights are longer and cooler in late summer before fruiting and plumping up. Peppers need time on the plant to absorb nutrients and water and plump up their flesh. Some will still be needing to change color.

>>>> At the end of the month, SoCal gardeners start your winter crops! Sow carrots (they do best from seed), celery and Brassicas. Brassicas are arugula, Broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage (especially red and savoy types, which resist frost better), cauliflower, and kohlrabi, mizuna, mustard, pak choi, radish, rutabaga, turnip.

Mid to late July start preparing by clearing areas for late July first fall plantings. Remove finishing weakened plants that attract pests and get diseases. Remove debris insects live in. Remove mulch from under plants that were diseased and replace with clean mulch. Trash that mulch, don’t compost it. Decide where you will plant your green manure patches. Add worm castings to mini nursery areas you will be planting seedlings in. Castings speed germination. Leave space so the seedlings can be removed by a narrow trowel to their permanent place when they become big enough and space becomes available. Keep the soil moist and shaded until they’re up, and then gradually allow them more sun over a week’s time.

It’s time to get seeds if you don’t already have them! If seeds and mini nurseries aren’t your thing, wait until your local nursery starts having the transplants that make you happy! Late August they might start trickling in. Labor Day weekend is a favorite planting time for some gardeners depending on how hot it still is. October is just fine too! One year it stayed so hot we all planted the first couple weeks of November!

Tasty Zucchini Rolls made with Sunflower Seeds Pate, Sun Dried Tomatoes and Spinach! See complete recipe by Chris at Tales of a Kitchen!

If you are just starting, just got your first plot at one of the community gardens, first, prepare your soil! While waiting for fall planting time, plant a few patches of fast growing, less water needing, heat lovers, lots of summer heat tolerant lettuces for your salads! They may need a little shade cloth protection. Plan out your fall/winter layout, remembering tall to the north, short to the south. Winter plants don’t take up as much food in cooler weather, so use less compost and manure. Remember, nature’s soil is naturally only 5% organic matter, but we are growing veggies, so a little more than that is perfect. Too much food and plants go to all leaf, but then a lot of winter veggies are just that, all leaf! Cabbage, Chard, Kale, Lettuces. Oh, lettuces thrive with manures, so put more in the lettuce patch areas, but none where the carrots or peas will grow. They don’t need it.

Important Habitat! As plants finish, let some of them grow out to save seeds. A carrot, celery and cilantro produce masses of seeds! Besides being food for pollinators and beneficial predator insects, they are beautiful! Birds will have seeds for food and scour your plants for juicy cabbage worms, whiteflies, aphids, earwigs, grasshoppers, cucumber beetles and grubs fresh for their hatchlings! Chickadees even eat ants!

Seedsaving is really a no-nonsense game! Besides being our second harvest, it insures the purity of your line! It’s important to our world community, as Thomas Rainer says, to preserve our garden heritage & biodiversity! Besides, it’s fun! Keep some for you – some as spices & others for planting. Package as gifts, and reserve some to take to the Seed Swap in January!

Let some beans go until they are completely dry in their pods; let corn dry until the kernels are hard on the cob. Let a cucumber turn yellow and tough. Save some seeds from your favorite and best tomatoes. Dry them further in home. When ready, put in an envelope, label with their name/variety,  date/year, any other info you think you would be helpful. See more about SeedSaving!

Be ready for winter rain! If you garden at home, please look into water capture and gray water systems – shower to flower, super attractive bioswale catchments. In Santa Barbara County there are rebates available! Call (805) 564-5460 today to schedule a FREE water system checkup! Check out the Elmer Ave retrofit!

Gardening is cheaper than therapy and you get tomatoes. ~ Author Unknown 

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See the entire July 2018 GBC Newsletter!

Please enjoy these happy, and some unusual, June images at two of Santa Barbara’s community gardens, Pilgrim Terrace and Rancheria! Happy harvesting!

July ~ Happy Harvests!

Harvesting and Storage Tips for Our Summer Favorites!
SeedSaving! An Easy Annual Ritual & Celebration!

Upcoming Gardener Events! Mesa Harmony Crop Swap! National Heirloom Expo, Soil Not Oil, American Community Gardening Assn 39th Annual Conference!

Love your Mother! Plant bird & bee food! Think grey water! Grow organic!

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The Green Bean Connection newsletter started as correspondence for the Santa Barbara CA USA, Pilgrim Terrace Community Garden. All three of Santa Barbara city community gardens are very coastal. During late spring/summer we are in a fog belt/marine layer area most years, locally referred to as the May grays, June glooms and August fogusts. Keep that in mind compared to the microclimate niche where your veggie garden is. Bless you for being such a wonderful Earth Steward!

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Veggie Feeding Schedule for Your Summer Favorites!

It’s mid-season now, so this weekend I’m giving the garden a boost by side dressing everything with some ewe poo and topping it off with fresh pea straw… [I think this is in Australia. It took a moment before I got it that it is female sheep poo!]x

May, June, starts feeding time! First let’s go over some general considerations and methods of sidedressing, then we’ll go through the summer favorites Feeding Schedule, in detail, plant by plant. 

Local Conditions  Super soil, short summer, no feeding necessary. But if you have a long growing season of heat tolerant varieties like here in SoCal, plants making big leaves and lots of fruits, or plants that are harvested for their leaves, like summer lettuces, they need food! And that all depends on your micro niche where you are growing at home – some spots are hotter than others, maybe get more sun. Your plant produces more or less, needing more or less feeding. If your soil is not the best, feeding more frequently makes sense. And, so, give the best kinds of feeding you can – quality compost you made yourself if possible. If you plant densely, your plants are competing for nutrients, they will likely need more fuel, more frequently!

Varieties make a difference too! Long season indeterminate tomatoes, will likely do better with late season feeding. Early varieties, determinate tomatoes or bush beans, may not need feeding at all. Heavily and continuously producing pole beans make their own Nitrogen, but that may not be quite enough near their end of season or in very poor soil. If they start to slow down, the leaves yellow a bit, try a feed and see if they perk up. Near the end of the season feeding may not help.

Seasonal Timing Classic times to feed are at transplanting, blooming and just after fruit sets. Baby plants need more Nitrogen. They need to grow big, have a strong body to support all that fruit and make leaves! When it comes to blooming and fruiting your plant is beginning to work hard. We don’t need a lot of leaves now. Lay back on N and give your plants a good feed of more PK, Phosphorus for blooms and Potassium for disease resistance. NPK needs to be highest in P now.

Later in the season, if/when your plants are looking tired, slowing down, a feed can perk them up, extending their production time. Be sure other factors are well tended. Keep plants weeded so weeds don’t siphon off your plants’ food, especially when your plants are babies. Separate or thin young plants so they aren’t struggling for the same food. Early on use dark mulch to warm your soil, keep the soil moist, prevent light germinating weed seeds from starting. Weed out what does come up. Later in the season lay down reflective mulch like straw so your plants’ roots stay cool. See Mulch – Some Like it Hot!

Your plants need adequate soil moisture so their roots can take up nutrients. Water after you feed and keep your soil as moist as that plant needs.

Feeding Methods aka Sidedressing

There are a couple ways to feed. Feeding your soil feeds your plants. Here are some equivalents: One handful of good compost per plant. That is equal to about one tablespoon of 5-10-10 fertilizer. Liquid fertilizer, ie fish emulsion, in your watering can is an easy way to side dress. Compost tea is redundant, since you already put compost in your soil, but a cupful of a mixed tea adds all sorts of things your compost doesn’t have.

Foliar feeding garden tea blends is a super enrichment that offers more options of trace factors. Even if proper nutrients are present in the soil, some nutrients cannot be absorbed by plants if the soil pH is too high or too low. Compost corrects soil pH issues and is one of the best ways to maintain the 6.5 ideal. Foliar feeding saves your plants while compost is doing its job. Foliar feeding is an immediate way to revive and stimulate stressed, tired, or diseased plants. If you have an ailing plant, repeated treatments can get your plant up to par soonest! Feed before sunlight gets on your plants if possible, on a non windy day. You want the leaves to stay wet long enough for the nutrients to be absorbed. See Teas! Compost, Manure, Worm Castings Brews!

Foliar Feeding Facts per Planet Natural:

• Tests have shown that foliar feeding can be 8 to 10 times more effective than soil feeding.
• Up to 90% of a foliar-fed solution can be found in the roots of a plant within 1-hour of application.
• Foliar supplements are an effective way to compensate for soil deficiencies and poor soil’s inability to transfer nutrients to the plant.

Sidedressing during the growing season happens well after your plants are in the ground. It is not a time to be digging up the area around your plant and adding amendments. Do very little to disturb the majority of the soil out to the dripline of your plant. Digging breaks the surface feeder roots that contribute the most to your plant’s nutrition. Your plant goes hungry and sometimes doesn’t produce much, or stops producing. The best way to feed your soil at this point is to pull back any mulch, put on a 1-2″ layer of compost, 1/4-1/2″ layer of composted manure, 1″ or more of worm castings! Cover with 1-2″ mulch, to hold it all in place, keeping the distribution equal. Water well. That also acts as a tea effect as the nutrients drizzle into the soil. DO NOT dig up the soil. That’s the whole point. The surface feeding roots will have a grand time, your plant will perk up, recover from diseases as possible. Keep that soil moist unless it harbors bacterial diseases. If so, let it dry some between waterings. Totally dry roots can’t uptake nutrients.

It makes sense to improve your soil base, AND do foliar feedings that feed well when soil is poor and your plants have trouble with nutrient uptake due to unbalanced soil, your soil lacks water holding capacity, your plants are diseased and need immediate help while the soil is being improved.

If you are container gardening, or have seedlings, use a spray bottle. If you are growing in the ground, get a watering can with a nozzle that rotates to spray UP under your plants’ leaves where some pests live. What goes up between the leaves will fall down and do the tops of the leaves at the same time! In other words, foliar feed your whole plant!

Applying granular fertilizers:  Scatter 8 inches away from the base of the plant on the side of the row or around the plant to just beyond the plant’s drip line to encourage root growth. Apply evenly. Raking the fertilizer into the soil is better than just applying on top of the soil, but rake very gently and not deeply to avoid breaking tiny surface feeder roots.

Some say most granular fertilizers leach from the soil rather quickly due to watering. That is why the instructions say you should reapply periodically throughout the season. Time release pellets do better. But adding organic material to your soil not only adds nutrients, it loosens the soil, attracts worms and other soil building critters and helps your soil retain moisture and nutrients.x

Summer Feeding Schedule Details for Your Favorites!

Beans   Cucumbers   Eggplant   Lettuces   Melons   Peppers
Squash – Summer/Winter   Strawberries   Tomatoes

Beans

Beans make their own Nitrogen, though sometimes not enough when they are in heavy production and it is toward the end of summer. They don’t make their own Phosphorous or Potassium. They make a huge plant from a small short set of roots. A light balanced feed may be in order for them to keep their perk and production up as summer goes on. 

Yellowing, mildew, white flies, ants and aphids? Pests may set in when a plant is stressed or weakened, but pests also like plants in peak condition! Do Aspirin and powdered milk sprays to up their immune system. Add baking soda to alkalize their leaves for mildew prevention. Best to do these treatments every couple of weeks, after significant rains and before trouble arrives! See more!

Tea mixes are good for improving their general health. Just imagine, with all those leaves, what foliar feeding can do! Same for those cucumbers below the beans in the image!

Cucumbers

Some gardeners prepare their cukes, melons, squash, peppers and tomato soil well in advance, in fall for spring! Compost in place – pile on manure, chopped leaves and grass, sprinkle on coffee grounds and kitchen scraps, wood ashes from winter fires, etc. In spring dig a foot square hole, fill with your luscious compost, plant your seed right in that compost! Lasts all season if you live in a short season area, and no compost is wasted where no plant is planted! As long as you get that compost out to just beyond the feeder root area your mature plant will have, it’s good.

You can use granular fertilizers, but cucumbers are generally short rooted needing constant 2-3 day waterings. The fertilizers are leached away. Time release pellets might do better. Instead, nearby, not right at the roots (you don’t want to damage them), add castings plus a tad of composted manure, cover with compost to feed and retain moisture. Then cover your amendments with a layer of moisture retaining mulch. Research shows, for cucumbers, straw mulch might slow cucumber beetle movement from one plant to another! Plus, it is great shelter for wolf spiders, daddy long legs and other predators. The more spidies, the more healthy your garden!

Additionally, a quick uptake Foliar feeding mixed teas feeds the whole plant with no harm to the roots at all! If your soil is poor, this can help a lot. Near the roots you can install a little 2-3″ deep trench to hold some extra water for your big vines. 

Feed your cukes when they first begin to run (form vines and sprawl); again when blossoms set. A big vined short rooted, long fruited variety of cucumber, in a long summer is a heavy feeder, so some gardeners recommend to fertilize once a week! A small fruited, small leaved patio type container cucumber may need little to no feeding.

Cucumbers are quite susceptible to mildews so do the Mildew Mix as well – Powdered Milk, Baking Soda, Aspirin, Soap – add liquid fertilizer if you like, maybe fish/kelp emulsion. Do both the compost and foliar feeding – alternate the Tea with the Mildew Mix every other week or so! If you use fish/kelp be sure to protect your plant from being dug up by raccoons, possums or skunks. A strong deeply anchored enclosure may be called for. Plant far enough away from the edge of the enclosure so your plant can’t be dug up from under the edge.x

Exotic Eggplant

Those eggplant beauties need extra compost and a bit of well-rotted manure at planting time. Dig it in! Apply a general purpose fertilizer in the spring when you till the soil. Add additional applications every three to four weeks. Side dress frequently, especially when the plant begins to bloom. Or sidedress with a Nitrogen fertilizer when the plants are half grown and again immediately after harvest of the first fruits. Or, depending on your soil, feed your eggplants 3 weeks after planting and at blossom set. Given sufficient moisture and good food, eggplant thrives in the heat of summer!

Epsom Salts, Sulfur, is a cheap home remedy that can keep plants greener and bushier, enhance production of healthier fruit later in the season, and potentially help reduce blossom-end rot. You could apply 1 tablespoon of granules around each transplant, but research has shown a foliar spray of a solution of 1 tablespoon Epsom salts per gallon of water at transplanting, first flowering, and fruit set is more effective! As a foliar spray, Epsom salts can be taken up quickly by plants, otherwise, it is sometimes hard for the plant to get it out of the soil because of calcium competition.

Sulfur, a key element in plant growth, is critical to production of vitamins, amino acids (therefore protein), and enzymes. Sulfur is probably the oldest known pesticide in current use. It can be used for disease control (e.g., powdery mildews, rusts, leaf blights, and fruit rots), and pests like mites, psyllids and thrips. Sulfur is nontoxic to mammals, but may irritate skin or especially eyes. CAUTIONS! Sulfur has the potential to damage plants in hot (90°F and above), dry weather. It is also incompatible with other pesticides. Do not use sulfur within 20 to 30 days on plants where spray oils have been applied; it reacts with the oils to make a more phytotoxic combination.

This mix is super for tomatoes, eggplant, peppers and roses!x

Cut & Come Again! Lettuce is a hard working plant!

It likes water and manure! Regularly. Water just about every day, even twice a day on the hottest or hot windy summer days. Hand scratch in some 1/2″ deep grooves, with one of those little 3 prong scratcher cultivator tools. Drizzle chicken manure into the grooves, cover back up and water gently. If your lettuce is planted densely that’s going to be a little challenge. A Tea Mix might work better for you. Use the spout of your watering can and get it under the leaves so the soil is moistened. DO NOT do a foliar application of any tea mix that has animal poo in it on any plant you eat the leaves of! If you have space between your plants, and no fish loving predators like raccoons or skunks, or your lettuce patch is safely enclosed, a fish emulsion/kelp feed is good – just keep it off the leaves.

Feed three weeks after germination, or transplant.
Loose-leaf after second and third cuttings for cut-and-come again crops.
If head lettuce, when the head starts forming.x

Luscious Melons

Unless you are planting mini Melons, container varieties, Melons are a big plant, big leaves, big fruits, on a long vine! 

Before planting large melon varieties, add in a little extra compost, and leaf mold, some well rotted manure, cow manure if you can get it.

Fertilize big melons every two to three weeks before blooming starts, using an all-purpose 5-5-5 fertilizer. If you are using mulch, pull it back, sprinkle on some worm castings and add several inches of compost to root areas monthly. Put the mulch back and water it in. If you are not using mulch, put on a light covering of mulch over your amendments to keep them moist. It’s like giving your plant compost/worm tea as the water and compost/worm juice drizzle down into your soil!

Better yet is 2 to 3 days before you sidedress, make a mixed tea sans compost! When the tea is ready, put some spade fork holes in the root zone around your plant. Fill the holes with compost/castings. Foliar feed the tea to your plant and pour tea into the spade fork holes! Of course, the very best is to do both – layers of compost and castings plus the tea and spade fork holes!! Especially sidedress melons when blooming starts and every 6 weeks after. They are hard workers!

Another method is to feed when they begin to run; again a week after blossom set; again three weeks later. This probably works well for mini melons too.

Once the first fruit ripens, stop all watering. Too much water at ripening time dilutes the fruit’s sugars and ruins the sweet flavor. The melons don’t need the water because they develop a deep root system soon after they start to flower. This means you stop fertilizing just before then. Your plants need soil moisture so their roots can take up nutrients, so there is no point in fertilizing after you stop watering.x

Fabulous Peppers!

Peppers need VERY RICH SOIL, are heavy feeders! Place compost for water holding capacity, worm castings, rotted manure under them when transplanting. Mix in Maxi Crop, and Island Seed & Feed Landscape Mix if you are in Santa Barbara area. Sandy soils are preferred for the earliest plantings because they warm more rapidly in the spring. Heavier soils can be quite productive, provided they are well drained and irrigated with care.

Epsom Salts! Rather than in the soil, do foliar Epsom Salts! A cheap home remedy that can keep plants greener and bushier, enhance production of healthier fruit later in the season, and potentially help reduce blossom-end rot. You could apply 1 tablespoon of granules around each transplant, but research has shown a foliar spray of a solution of 1 tablespoon Epsom salts + a 1/2 teaspoon of liquid dish soap (Dawn) per gallon of water at transplanting, first flowering, and fruit set is quite effective! As a foliar spray, Epsom salts can be taken up quickly by plants, otherwise, it is sometimes hard for the plant to get it out of the soil because of calcium competition. See Eggplant above

Sidedressing  Peppers need fertilizer in small doses, a rich organic fertilizer when blooms appear. If you scratch in some compost, be careful not to damage near-the-surface lateral feeder roots. Liquid chicken manure is high in nitrogen and potassium for heavy feeders like peppers. Big, sweet peppers require a continual source of nutrition. The easiest way to fertilize them is to incorporate gradual-release fertilizer in the ground at planting. Fish-meal pellets, alfalfa pellets or cottonseed meal are all good organic choices. You also can foliar feed plants every week or two with a fish/seaweed soluble fertilizer, spraying the tops and bottoms of leaves, or water the ground with the same mixture.

At least, feed at three weeks after transplant; again after first fruit set.x

Super Squash

Another vining plant, like melons, huge leaves and vine, or patio minis! Big squash plants have the biggest leaves in the garden. They aren’t shy about growing 30′ or more!

Summer – Soft, Zucchini types, Chilacayote

We all know how prolific Zucchini is! That is a hard working plant! Some varieties make more fruit than others. Costata Romanesco, in the image, makes a zuke at every leaf join! Huge Chilacayote vines don’t quit! Even patio container varieties work their little hearts out!

Feed them when plants are about 6 inches tall; again when they bloom. That’s standard, but later in the season, if you still want more fruit, feed them again. If you are so tired of summer squash, never mind.

Like Cucumbers and Melons, summer and winter squash are also susceptible to mildew, so do the Mildew Mix  for them too – Powdered Milk, Baking Soda, Aspirin, Soap – add liquid fertilizer if you like, maybe fish/kelp emulsion. Alternate the Tea with the Mildew Mix every other week or so!

See also Cucumbers and Melons above

Winter – Hard, Butternut, Acorn, Pumpkins

Give them a fat start with soil amended with well-rotted manure and compost prior to planting. These babies run all summer long, first making the dense fruits, then hardening the fruits. A healthy plant will make a lot of fruits, an ample supply for all winter long!

Feed them when the vine starts to run; again at blossom set.

See also Cucumbers and Melons abovex

Strawberries

Perfectly adorable image by Tricia was at Peaceful Valley Farm Supply

It’s just as the image says! At Pilgrim Terrace Community Garden we had a first time gardener that fed exactly that mix to his strawberries every 2 weeks and he was so proud to tell us he was harvesting strawberries by the shoebox full! His patch was not so big, but it was prolific with good sized berries! He later went on to sell his fine famed strawberries at Farmers Markets!

Be sure to protect your strawberries from predators – birds and furry animals! They both like the berries, but the animals are also attracted to fish emulsion. They dig up your plants looking for the fish! Bird, Animal, Insect Pests Above Ground Protection!

Tomatoes

Another heavy feeder, making zillions of tomatoes! If your plant is indeterminate, it will make fruit all summer long!

Before planting add plenty of well-rotted manure/compost.

AFTER planting, add a weak solution of complete fertilizer or fish emulsion to the soil around them. Continue to feed them two to three weeks after transplant; blossom time, again before first picking; again two weeks after first picking. Blossom time and after, go light on nitrogen or you will have a lot of leaf, no fruit!

Leaves curled lengthwise with patches of brown on them? Wilts or blights? Foliar feed with potent Tea Mix!!! When plant surfaces are occupied by beneficial microbes, there simply is no room for pathogens! The plant will suffer little or no blight, mold, fungus or wilt! That’s a huge claim! But even if it doesn’t entirely work, your plant will likely have a much improved existence for a longer period of time. Beneficial microbes compete with disease causing microbes. Go tigers! The live microbes enhance your soil and in turn, up the immune system of your plants.

If your plant is diseased or pest infested, you may need to apply your mixed tea every five to seven days. Otherwise, make your tea applications every two weeks until your plants start to flower. We want our plants to make fruit then, not foliage!

A dramatic treatment requiring less work than making tea is bleach once a week. It works! See about it!

This Table will help you save time! See at a glance which plants to feed at the same time with the same food. Copy and print, cover with clear waterproof tape, put it on your tool bucket for quick reference! See timing details above, plant by plant!

With any foliar feeds remember to add that 1/2 teaspoon of dish soap, surfactant, so the feed will ‘stick’ to your plant!

Stand back and take a look at your garden. See who’s the slowest, behind in production, lacks perk, and who looks vibrant, reaching for the sky! Grab a barrow of compost, make a super tea mix, go for the gusto! You could even note your feed date, then mark down about when to do it again!

To another super plentiful and most joyful summer!

Updated 5.26.23

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Love your Mother! Plant bird & bee food! Think grey water! Grow organic! Bless you for being such a wonderful Earth Steward!

The Green Bean Connection started as correspondence for the Santa Barbara CA USA Pilgrim Terrace Community Garden. Both Santa Barbara’s remaining community gardens are very coastal. Climate is changing, but it has been that during late spring/summer we are often in a fog belt/marine layer most years, locally referred to as the May grays, June glooms and August fogusts. Keep that in mind compared to the microclimate niche where your veggie garden is.

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Peppers, HOT or Not!

Edible Garlic chive blossoms on beautiful thick walled red bell pepper!
Image by super gardener Kenny Point in Pennsylvania

Peppers are not just food, they are an adventure that spices your life! They are not just a veggie, but an edible garden beauty in your landscape!

Peppers Come in an Amazing Array! 

Mini to Mammoth! Tiny brain wrecking hot chilis, dainty mini to humongous sweet Bells! Early maturing thin walled, later thick walled. Short, long – pointy, round. Ones that hang down, others that point up!

Peppers come in colors you won’t believe! How about these super thick walled Jupiter Sweet Burgundy Bells?! On the right are 8″ colossal beauties Yellow Monster Peppers! Really sweet, meaty, great fresh, fried or roasted!

Striped, one of the prettiest peppers ever, Fish Pepper, above left, is an African-American heirloom that predates the 1870s. It starts out an unusual cream color striped with green, the fruits ripen to orange with brown stripes, before turning all red. Super for containers! At right is beautiful Numex Twilight. It can produce more than 100 small pretty pods! At 100,000 Scoville Scale, it’s HOT! Respect.

SMART CHOICES!

Disease resistant If your land is moist, hybrids are probably going to do better for you than heirlooms. In coastal Santa Barbara CA we usually have a late spring/summer fog belt/marine layer, locally referred to as the May grays, June glooms and August fogusts. Choose Resistant varieties per the list below and also for Potato Yellow Mosaic Virus, Pepper Mottle Virus and  Cucumber Mosaic Virus.
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Pepper Resistance Codes:(BLS 1-3) Bacterial Leaf Spot (Races 1-3)
(BLS 1-2) Bacterial Leaf Spot (Races 1, 2)
(PC) Phytophthora Root Rot
(PVY) Potato Virus Y
(TEV) Tobacco Etch Virus
(TM 0-2) Tobamovirus (Races 0-2)
(TM 0-3) Tobamovirus (Races 0-3)
(TMV) Tobacco Mosaic Virus Here are recommended varieties by UC Davis in California. TMV is Tobacco Mosaic Virus, PVY is Potato Virus Y. AAS is a super plus! It is an All America Selections winner!
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Hot
Tam Mild Jalapeño (mild heat with Jalapeño flavor) PVY
Jalapeño M (very hot)
Anaheim TMR 23 (chili pepper, moderately hot) TMV
Anaheim (standard hot chill)
Cayenne Long Red Slim (hot)
Hungarian Yellow Wax (popular for canning, moderately hot)
Serrano Chili Pepper (tabasco type)

Sweet Bell
Bell Boy AAS, TMV
California Wonder TMV
Yolo Wonder TMV
Keystone Resistant Giant TMV
Jupiter TMV
Golden Summer Hybrid (yellow when fully mature) TMV
Golden Bell (yellow when fully mature)
Early Pimento (used fresh or for canning) AAS
Sweet Yellow or Cubanelle Sweet Banana AAS
Gypsy AAS, TMV
Hy-Fry
Cubanene

Every time you plant, plant the best! Cornell University’s Disease Resistant Vegetable Varieties LIST is awesome and kept up to date! Take a peek before you order seeds or buy transplants! It may take some time to make your choices, but is so worth it! A point to know is some varieties are commercial, meaning they are tough enough to last through shipping, and all it takes to process the fruits to market. If you are eating fresh from your garden, you may not prefer some of those varieties. Try two or three so you have some choices. Look up the variety online and see other home gardeners’ comments. Note if the commenters are in an area with similar planting conditions as yours. If a commercial seed company is the seed seller, sometimes they will also sell in mini quantities to home gardeners! Yay! Just call that 800# and ask! Often they really enjoy talking with a home gardener, delighted you called! They generally are very well informed because their business depends on it. They can tell you important inside things that aren’t in the catalogs and about the latest varieties that haven’t yet appeared in the catalogs!

GROWING CONDITION CHOICES

Location! If you have a short summer season or are cooler and coastal perhaps, choose earlier smaller fruited varieties than ones that need a long hot summer to fully mature and if necessary change color too.

Cold Tolerant! If you love your peppers and want some early, or have a short growing season, order ones that mature quickly and are cool weather adapted! Plant those first and others more heat tolerant soon after to carry the length of the season. For sweet bell peppers, get seed for Ace, Lady Bell or King of the North! Obriy Ukrainian sweet red pepper is both cold and heat tolerant! For hotties that don’t mind cold, order up Early Jalapeño, Hungarian Hot Wax or Anaheim. Rocoto stands some cold but not a hard freeze. Manzano are reported to survive at 20°! The extraordinary feature of these two peppers, Capsicum pubescens (hairy leaves), is they grow into four-meter woody plants relatively quickly, and live up to 15 years! Truly sustainable perennials! If cold weather can happen anytime where you live, grow your peppers in pots; take them inside when it gets cold.

Heat Tolerant! Peppers are a Solanaceae like tomatoes, and like most tomatoes they produce poorly during high temperatures. Banana, ‘Gypsy’ and pimento produce very well, despite the heat. Jessie Keith says ‘super spicy classic jalapeño ‘Tula’, wonderfully flavorful pasilla-type pepper ‘Holy Molé’ (2007 AAS Winner), and classic spicy sweet red bell pepper ‘Mexibell’ (1988 AAS Winner) are great! Of the sweet bell peppers nothing beats the tough, [thick walled] disease-resistant ‘Orange Blaze’ (2011 AAS Winner) and its crisp, bright orange peppers.’ Heirloom Olympus (65 days green, 85 days red) has large bell peppers on medium-sized plants with good leaf cover. They are high-yielding plants, are heat tolerant and can set fruit under a wide range of conditions. MG Seed Stock. If you planted varieties that are more heat susceptible, put up a shade cloth cover. Depending on the density you select, shade cloth can lower the temperature by approximately 5-15 degrees. If you live in a hot area, bell pepper transplants can be planted in August for fall production when the weather cools down.

Drought tolerant Look for the terms drought tolerant, drought resistant, dry farmed when searching for the best variety for your garden. It’s important to know that drought tolerant doesn’t necessarily mean heat tolerant and vice versa, so stay alert if you need both. When you are buying seeds, consider the location of the seed company. Perhaps local seed houses will understand your needs best. Check in with local farmers, at farmers markets, to see which varieties they are growing, remembering that some of their standards are different than a home gardener. For those of you in water critical areas, one way to help the situation is to pick pepper varieties with fewer days to maturity. You get peppers, you can freeze some, your plants are done before the highest heat and driest times. The UC Sonoma County list is short, only two varieties, Jupiter Red Bell and Ordoño.

HAPPY COMPANIONS!

Sweet Peppers like Basil, tomato, rhubarb, eggplant, lettuce, asparagus, parsley, silver beet, spinach, carrot, onion, beans, cabbage, peas, marigold and okra.

At left, HOT Cayenne Mix at Eden Brothers Seeds, Scoville Scale: 30,000-50,000 Units

Pepper plants repel cabbage worms! Hot Pepper plants are terrific with eggplant, tomato, okra, Swiss chard, escarole, squash and cucumbers. Marlene Affeld says hot peppers ‘emit a chemical from the plant roots that helps prevent Fusarium, root rot, and a wide range of other plant diseases!’ Tomatoes have high susceptibility to Fusarium wilt. Plant biodiversely! In the same row, alternate peppers, tomatoes, eggplant and okra! If planting in neighboring rows, change the order of the plants. Plant shorter plants slightly to the sunny side of taller plants.

PLANTING

Peppers are Temp Particular! Peppers grow best in daytime air temperatures 65° to 85°F. Transplant when night time temperatures stay above 50 degrees, 55 is better. Below that plants grow very slowly, have yellowish, puckered leaves, and look sickly, often don’t recover. Night temps between 60° and 70° are best. The ideal temperature for peppers is a daytime temperature around 75°F and a nighttime temperature around 62°F.

At soil temperatures above 65 degrees, pepper growth accelerates. If either the soil or air temperature is much below 55 degrees, blossoms of transplants may drop off. The plants may survive and more blossoms will appear. But it is more likely plants will become stunted and never recover. If your plant is puny and showing no growth, best to compost it and replant when it is warmer.

• Nighttime temperatures below 60 F or above 75 F can reduce fruit set. In daytime temperatures greater than 85°F, peppers may drop their blossoms although set fruit will ripen. When daytime temps reach 90 F and above, and stay there, just like with tomatoes, the blossoms seldom set fruit. Not to worry. Just give them some time after temps lower.
• Plumping up! Gardeners in hot regions will need to be especially patient with big bells and sweet roasting peppers. Both of these tend to wait until the nights are longer and cooler in late summer before fruiting and plumping up. These folks may want to plant banana peppers or sweet non-bells, which will ripen in time to use with those bumper crops of tomatoes and basil. Peppers need time on the plant to absorb nutrients and water and plump up their flesh, so pack your patience.
• Color Changes! Mother Earth News says: After reaching their maximum size, green peppers that are meant to turn red, will develop red pigments in 10 to 28 days, if daytime temperatures are between 65 degrees and 75 degrees. In southern regions where temperatures exceed that range, peppers turn yellowish and may acquire an off-color pallor that is not attractive. Below the optimum temperature range, color development slows dramatically; below 55 degrees, it stops completely. If soil temperatures drop below 68 degrees, pigment production declines and eventually ceases.

Peppers love sun, but a bit of shade is good for the fruit. I planted a Poblano between two big tomato plants. For a while I thought it was a goner, shaded out, then, it just grew and grew! It got almost 4′ tall and produced like crazy and I gave giant peppers away!

►►► Peppers need VERY RICH SOIL, are heavy feeders! Place compost for water holding capacity, worm castings, rotted manure under them when transplanting. Mix in Maxi Crop and Island Seed & Feed Landscape Mix. Sandy soils are preferred for the earliest plantings because they warm more rapidly in the spring. Heavier soils can be quite productive, provided they are well drained and irrigated with care.

Epsom Salts! Rather than in the soil, do foliar Epsom Salts! A cheap home remedy that can keep plants greener and bushier, enhance production of healthier fruit later in the season, and potentially help reduce blossom-end rot. You could apply 1 tablespoon of granules around each transplant, but research has shown a foliar spray of a solution of 1 tablespoon Epsom salts + a 1/2 teaspoon of liquid dish soap (Dawn) per gallon of water at transplanting, first flowering, and fruit set is more effective! As a foliar spray, Epsom salts can be taken up quickly by plants, otherwise, it is sometimes hard for the plant to get it out of the soil because of calcium competition.

Plant your peppers about a foot to 18″ apart.  A healthy pepper will get big and top heavy with fruit! It is wise to put small tomato cages over thick wall bell pepper varieties when you plant, to support the weight when they are heavy with fruit.

Though a perennial, they are very susceptible to freeze. With Bell peppers, I have heard a lot of people say their peppers overwintered and produced just fine the following year, but I have not seen that to be true at the Santa Barbara CA community gardens. They are never as robust nor do they produce the big healthy fruits first year plants do. If you are one of the lucky ones, by all means, protect them when there are freezes.

Hot peppers are another story. They seem to do a lot better overwinter, depending on the variety, and I have seen them carry on wonderfully!

CARE

Personal Mulch! Solanaceae, that’s peppers, tomatoes, eggplants, like mulch from their own leaf litter, so just let the leaves fall and accumulate. In hot summer weather your peppers will appreciate a heavy mulch. Several inches of straw or dried grass clippings will keep the soil cooler and reduce moisture evaporation. ►►► Continually moist ground is a necessity for peppers, as they, like tomatoes, suffer from blossom end rot, a physiological disease caused by a calcium deficiency. Most soils contain ample calcium, but the mineral relies on water to transport it to the plant’s root system. When the soil lacks moisture, the calcium can’t reach the plants and a tell-tale black leathery spot forms on the blossom end of developing fruit. Heavy Nitrogen fertilizer applications can also induce a transient calcium deficiency. I emphasize that you give your peppers plenty of compost for water holding capacity and keep them well mulched!

Peppers have shallow roots, need even watering. Keep the soil moist, not soggy, to encourage root development and prevent blossom wilting and bitter-tasting peppers. Moisture stress during bloom can cause substantial reduction in fruit set.

Later on, however, as a friend from Farmers Market pointed out: ‘Red & yellow peppers are green peppers that have been ripe for a while. So you are asking an already ripe fruit to stay on a vine longer to change color. Too much water, and the pepper will start to turn brown and rot. So we switched to watering a LOT less frequently and the results have been outstanding.’

Sidedressing Peppers need fertilizer in small doses, a rich organic fertilizer when blooms appear. If you scratch in some compost, be careful to not damage their surface area feeder roots as little as possible. Feed two or three segments around your plant, but not the whole circle. Feed to just beyond the dripline. Liquid chicken manure is high in nitrogen and potassium for heavy feeders like peppers. Big, sweet peppers require a continual source of nutrition. The easiest way to fertilize them is to incorporate gradual-release fertilizer in the ground at planting. Fish-meal pellets, alfalfa pellets or cottonseed meal are all good organic choices. You also can foliar-feed plants every week or two with a fish/seaweed soluble fertilizer, spraying the tops and bottoms of leaves, or water the ground with the same mixture.

Replenish mulch as needed throughout summer! You might schedule a mulch check for them and all your plants once a month.

ANNUAL OR PERENNIAL?

Technically peppers are perennials, grow year after year – in the right climate. Bell peppers are another story. Geographically, in Santa Barbara CA they are temp sensitive annuals, very susceptible to freeze. I have heard some gardeners say their peppers overwintered and produced just fine the following year, but I have never seen that happen at two of Santa Barbara CA’s community gardens. If pruned, they simply die. They are never as robust, don’t grow, nor do they produce the big healthy fruits first year plants do. If you are one of the lucky ones, by all means, protect them when there are freezes. If you want to overwinter yours, better to pot your pepper before any frosts and take it indoors by a sunny window or into your fine greenhouse! You have a couple choices. Prune it ruthlessly, or keep it growing, even producing, with lights and bloom sprays. There are many online threads about overwintering your peppers. Check out tips from several experts to make your efforts count!

Hot peppers are the other story. Some chilies overwinter well in Santa Barbara, depending on the variety, and I have seen them carry on wonderfully year after year!

Personally, there are so many tasty fresh winter foods that grow well here in our SoCal ‘winter,’ that I am more than happy to replant peppers in spring!

PESTS & DISEASES

For Blossom End Rot, see above under Care.

Early Blight and Verticillium Wilt are a problem at all the Santa Barbara Community Gardens. Please see more about them and what to do here.

See more about Pepper pests and diseases at the UC Davis IPM page.

Choose Resistant varieties!

California Wonder Peppers changing color!  Eden Brothers Seeds image.

HARVEST

Bell peppers are at their sweetest and are highest in Vitamins A, C and carotenoids when fully mature! When choosing bell peppers for eating, select those that are firm, heavy for their size with shiny, bright and vibrant richly colored skin! The bell pepper’s sweetness increases as their color changes from green to their final color if they are a color changing variety.

Their stems should be green and fresh looking. To avoid breaking branches, use a sharp knife to cut, instead of pulling.

It’s nice to know that if not optimally ripe, vitamin C and carotenoids in bell peppers will actually increase with refrigerator storage over the next 10 days!

STORAGE can be really fun with peppers! So many options!

For maximum flavor, eat peppers on the same day they are picked! Room temp is best for peppers, leave them on a kitchen counter for a day or two to ripen further. Rinse with cold water just before you use them. Bell peppers are very sensitive to ethylene gas so don’t store them with fruits and vegetables that produce ethylene gas. If you put them in the fridge, do it only 1-3 days and use immediately upon taking out of the fridge. Don’t remove their cores because they are quite susceptible to moisture loss. Peppers are warm-weather fruits that don’t store well in cold temps. If you have too many peppers, consider the following storage options.

Freezing This is the easiest storage method. Peppers freeze well without blanching. Thawed peppers still retain some crispness and can be used in cooked dishes or raw in uncooked preparations. Their flavor is retained, so use frozen peppers primarily for adding ‘spice’ to soups, stews, and sauces. If you stuff the peppers before freezing, you’ll have a ready-made dinner, perfect for the microwave.

To Tray Freeze Sweet Bell Peppers

Wash and core peppers. Chop, dice or slice according to how you plan to use them. Spread in a single layer on a tray of a cookie sheet. Place tray in the freezer for an hour or longer. Loosen pepper pieces from the tray and pour into zip closure freezer bags. Immediately place sealed bags in the freezer. The pepper pieces will remain separated for ease of measuring. Simply remove as many as you need, reseal the bag and return to the freezer. Or bag them separately in the amounts you plan to use them.

Pickling/Canning Peppers are low-acid fruits so require canning under pressure. It’s easier to pickle peppers as you would cucumbers in a crock filled with a simple brine of four cups of water, four cups of vinegar, and 1/2 cup of pickling salt. Add a clove or two of garlic and some fresh herbs for delicious added flavor.

Sweet Banana, Sweet Hungarian, Cubanelle are long, narrow tapering down to one, two or three lobes. They are thin walled, Cubanelle the thinnest. They are usually picked when light yellow or green. Because they have less water content than bells, they are perfect for frying. ‘Sweet Banana’ was the 1941 All America Selections Winner!

Drying This method works best with thin-walled peppers, particularly the smaller varieties that can be dried whole right on the plant. The key to drying peppers is doing it slowly to retain their color and flavors. Perfect for spicing up bland backpacking meals!

Another form of drying is in brilliant wreaths and Ristras!

You can grind chilies into culinary or medicinal powders! They retain their lovely colors! Paprika is a dried powdered form of bell pepper, and though we are used to seeing red paprika, a paprika can be made from any color of bell pepper and it will end up being that same color. Both the decorative forms and these potent powders make sensational gifts!

SEED SAVING

To prevent cross-pollination, hot pepper plants should not be planted near sweet or bell pepper plants. TRUE! Plant at least 400 feet between varieties to ensure absolute purity. That’s important info for seed savers!

Harvest mature, fully-ripe peppers for seed. Most bell peppers turn red when fully mature. If frost threatens before peppers mature, pull entire plant and hang in cool, dry location until peppers mature.

• There are two methods to process pepper seeds, dry and wet. The dry method is adequate for small amounts. Cut the bottom off the fruit and carefully reach in to strip the seeds surrounding central cone. In many cases, seeds need no further cleaning.
• To process the seed from large amounts of peppers, cut off the tops just under the stem, fill a blender with peppers and water and carefully blend until good seeds are separated and sink to bottom. Pepper debris and immature seeds will float to the top where they can be rinsed away. Spread clean seeds on paper towel and dry in cool location until seed is dry enough to break when folded.

FYI Birds are not sensitive to capsaicin, the heat factor in chile peppers, and are therefore the main dispersers of the seeds!

HEALTH

Remedies: Hot Oil! Healing Spices. The countless health benefits claimed are exciting and enormous! Cayenne is said to stop heart attacks. Hot oil works wonders on knees.

Nutrition: I’m not sure people really eat peppers for nutrition, LOL! Peppers are in a food category all their own! Choices are made according to the Scoville Scale, how hot or not they are! At the lower end of the scale, nutrition may factor in somewhat, but it is more likely a visual choice, shape and color, whether for salad or type of cooking you will use the pepper for.

From the Netherlands, marvelous Red on Yellow, AKA Flame, Enjoya, and Aloha!

Sweet luscious Bell Peppers have a whopping 169% of the daily value of Vitamin C we need, but who thinks of peppers as a source of Vitamin C?! More we think of low calories, but most of all, that delicious taste! But look, here’s more! Absorption of dietary iron is significantly increased when consumed with fruits or vegetables that are high in vitamin C. Eating raw bell peppers with iron-rich foods like meat or spinach, may help increase your body’s iron stores, cutting the risk of anemia. Eat peppers!

Absolute Culinary Delight!

Mexican recipes are classic! Salsa! Chile Rellenos! Add to burritos, roll-ups and tacos. Stuff and eat fresh, hot pockets! Roasted, grilled on the barbie! Pickled. Fine chopped in tuna or chicken salad! Go Cajun by sautéing with celery and onion, then mix with tempeh, chicken, seafoods. Stir fry some bits in the wok with cashews, shrimp and Oriental veggies. Puree in summer zucchini soups, hot or cold. Add color and crunch to your dip tray, make a pureed pepper dip! Pizza topping. Fresh slices in a cool Romaine, cucumber, avocado salad – add black beans for protein!

Roasted Poblano Salsa, and by chef Rick Bayliss, Grilled Shrimp Chile Rellenos in Corn Husks

Tasty Buddha Bowl with Red Peppers

To your great health and a happy palate! Stay cool when it’s hot!

Updated 5.26.23

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Love your Mother! Plant bird & bee food! Think grey water! Grow organic! Bless you for being such a wonderful Earth Steward!

The Green Bean Connection started as correspondence for the Santa Barbara CA USA, Pilgrim Terrace Community Garden. Both remaining Santa Barbara City community gardens are very coastal. Climate is changing, but it has been that during late spring/summer we are in a fog belt/marine layer area most years, locally referred to as the May grays, June glooms and August fogusts. Keep that in mind compared to the microclimate niche where your veggie garden is.

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Quick Guide to Summer Veggie Soil & Temp Preferences!

We can thank Dr Jerry Parsons, Extension Horticulturist at the Texas Agricultural Extension Service, for the temps info in this great chart!

The graph above is of best SOIL temps for seed sowing! And even then, some seeds are more cold or heat tolerant, so get enough seeds to try again should there be some kind of fail or temps take an unprecedented shift.

Challenging conditions can be shady areas, or if you are intermingling veggies in your landscape, areas shaded by permanent ornamental plants. Transplants are already up and more hardy, sun reaching sooner, so your wise choice may be to start with transplants, not seedlings started outside. If you are container gardening, move your container to follow the sun during the day. Use one of those little plant dolly thingies if it is a heavy container.

STRING BEANS 

DARK AND LIGHT-SEEDED BEANS: Dark-seeded beans are more resistant to rotting in cool soil than light-seeded beans. Beans need a minimum soil temperature of 65°F to germinate well, otherwise rotting may occur.

Beans are crazy to grow! They will give you a good crop in soil that’s loamy, sandy, rocky, rich or poor and even in clay as long as it has good drainage. They do prefer slightly acid soil. Though beans do need regular water for their short roots, still, avoid planting them in shade with soil that stays wet.

When growing beans in a new garden site or place in your garden! Special tip from Bountiful Container: ‘With inoculant, the critical bacteria that enhance the plant’s ability to convert Nitrogen from air into N in the soil, are added to the soil. Either powder the inoculant on wet seed or sprinkle granules in the soil along with seeds. Grow stronger, produce more beans.’ Like with our other favorite legumes, peas and favas, be sure to use the right inoculant with your seeds if your soil needs it. Inoculants are plant specific. Actually, the bacteria ‘infect’ your plants and cause them to make the nodules. If there is none in the soil, seeds may even be unable to start. Even if you presprout to start your seedlings, they will live, but not have the ability to fix the N they need, are feeble, struggle and produce little. That lack can be why. Definitely work inoculant into the soil before you plant presprouted seeds, or, better yet, dip them in your inoculant mixture when you put them into your soil! Even simpler, if available, scatter a few spadefuls of soil from last year’s bean patch into new planting sites.

Beans like days to be at least 70° and nights to dip no lower than 40°. It’s worthwhile to wait until those conditions are met. Otherwise, you’ll have spotty germination and stunted, spindly plants. Beans grow so quickly that waiting for ideal temperatures will be worth some patience.

CUCUMBERS

Warm, light, sandy loam soils are preferred for early production. Compost and composted manure is good. Cukes like moist well drained, fertile soil and need a pH above 6.0. A farmer says: Apply 6 to 10 pounds of fertilizer for each 100 foot of row, using care not to bring fertilizer into contact with the seed. A home gardener says: When I plant cukes, I dig out a hole, about a foot square, fill it with compost, and plant my seed right into the compost. No fertilizing the rest of the season and you’re not wasting fertilizer in soil between plants that the roots never touch.

A tropical vegetable, cucumbers thrive when the weather is hot and water is plentiful. If the weather is unseasonably cool, wait a while to mulch until the ground is warmed by the sun. When you mulch, scatter straw for airflow, to let soil dry somewhat – reduce fungi, only 1″ deep.

Sow seeds directly in the garden when daytime temperatures are at least 65° to 75°. They are frost tender and should not be planted until the soil has warmed up to 65°, some say 70°! Cukes grow well in daytime temperatures in the 70’s, best at 81° F to 101°.

Mini FYI: The inside of a cucumber can be up to twenty degrees cooler than the outside temperature. This is where the saying cool as a cucumber came from!

EGGPLANT

Wherever you plant them, the key word for eggplant soil is ‘rich.’ Sandy loam or loam is lovely. Eggplants are greedy feeders; ideal eggplant soil is well-drained, rich in organic matter, including lots of well-rotted manure, and has about a neutral in pH. During the season, sidedress with extra compost. Keep the soil moist to promote maximum growth.

Eggplant do NOT thrive in very humid areas. Pollination is difficult when the weather conditions are very wet, overly humid or excessively hot.

The minimum soil temp needed for seed germination is 60° F. The optimum range is 75-90° F. 
Transplant at soil temp that is minimum 65°F.

Critical temperature for setting out eggplants isn’t the daytime high, but the nighttime low. Cool evenings will set back the seedlings’ growth and make them more susceptible to diseases. Wait until the evening temperatures are above 65° before putting in seedlings. Cold temperatures will stop plant and root growth reducing plant vigor and yields. If your crop is still producing in the fall, cover them on cold evenings to extend the harvest.

Place transplants in the garden slightly deeper than they were in their pot. Cold soil will shock the plant and set it back several weeks.

Eggplants are more susceptible than tomato plants to injury from low temperatures and do not grow until temperatures warm. They like temps to remain above 68°, 70° to 85° F is even better.

Don’t be in a rush to mulch. Mulching too early in the season keeps the soil cool, resulting in slow growth, poor fruit set, and shallow rooting.

PEPPERS, either hot or bell, need VERY RICH SOIL, are heavy feeders!  Place compost, worm castings, rotted manure under them when transplanting. Mix in 1 T Epsom Salts, Maxi Crop, and from Island Seed & Feed, Landscape Mix. Sandy soils are preferred for the earliest plantings because they warm more rapidly in the spring. Heavier soils can be quite productive, provided they are well drained and irrigated with care.

Rather than in the soil, do foliar Epsom Salts! It is a cheap home remedy that can keep plants greener and bushier, enhance production of healthier fruit later in the season, and potentially help reduce blossom-end rot. Apply 1 tablespoon of granules around each transplant, but research has shown a foliar spray of a solution of 1 tablespoon Epsom salts per gallon of water at transplanting, first flowering, and fruit set is more effective! As a foliar spray, Epsom salts can be taken up quickly by plants, otherwise, it is sometimes hard for the plant to get it out of the soil because of calcium competition.

Peppers are Temp Particular! Hot peppers grow best in daytime air temperatures 65° to 85°F. Transplant when night time temperatures stay above 50°, 55° is better. Below that plants grow very slowly, have yellowish, puckered leaves, and look sickly, often don’t recover. Night temps between 60° and 70° are best. In temperatures greater than 85°F, peppers may drop their blossoms although set fruit will ripen. The ideal temperature for peppers is a daytime temperature around 75°F and a nighttime temperature around 62°F.

At soil temperatures above 65°, pepper growth accelerates. Plants may become stunted and never recover if either the soil or air temperature is much below 55°.

• Nighttime temperatures below 60° F or above 75° F can reduce fruit set.
• Plumping up – making thick walls! Gardeners in hot regions will need to be especially patient with big bells and sweet roasting peppers. Both of these tend to wait until the nights are longer and cooler in late summer before fruiting and plumping up. These folks may want to plant banana peppers or sweet non-bells, which will ripen in time to use with those bumper crops of tomatoes and basil. Peppers need time on the plant to absorb nutrients and water and plump up their flesh, so pack your patience.
• Color Changes! Mother Earth News says: After reaching their maximum size, green peppers that are meant to turn red, will develop red pigments in 10 to 28 days, if daytime temperatures are between 65° and 75°. In southern regions where temperatures exceed that range, peppers turn yellowish and may acquire an off-color pallor that is not attractive. Below the optimum temperature range, color development slows dramatically; below 55°, it stops completely. If soil temperatures drop below 68°, pigment production declines and eventually ceases.

SQUASHES grow best in full sun! They like rich well-drained soil, high in organic matter, and require a high level of feeding. Zucchini, in particular, produce a lot of leaf and fruit and get hungry!

Days need to be at least 70° and nights to dip no lower than 40°. Summer squashes grow best in air temperatures ranging from 60° to 75°F.

Plant in a warm soil. If the soil is below 60° F, summer squash seeds are more likely to rot in the ground before sprouting. The ideal soil temperature for germination is 70-90° F. A doable temp is 65-70°F.

TOMATOES

I add a good dose of animal manures and compost, and my usuals to the planting hole –- a huge handful of bone meal – for blossoms, bird guano high in P, Phosphorus helps your plants continue to bloom LATE in the season! An NPK ratio like 1-10-0.2, takes 4 months to become available to your plants. I add a handful of non-fat powdered milk – for the immune system,  25% worm castings – immune system, a tad, half a %, of coffee grounds. This robust combo works well. As they decompose, coffee grounds appear to suppress some common fungal rots and wilts, including FUSARIUM! Go VERY LIGHTLY on the coffee grounds. Too much can kill your plants. It was found in studies, what worked well was coffee grounds part of a compost mix, was in one case comprising as little as 0.5% of the material. That’s only 1/2 a percent! During the season, sprinkle them very lightly on top of your soil, then scratch in and water lightly.

Temps are crucial! Tomatoes are not happy when there are

High daytime temperatures – above 85° F – select heat tolerant varieties
High Nighttime Temperatures – above 70° F – select heat tolerant varieties
Low Nighttime Temperatures – below 55° F, except those very early varieties!

True, tomatoes are heat lovers, but per the University of NV, temperatures over 104° F, for only four hours, causes the flowers to abort! If you expect high summer temps, plant heat tolerant (“heat set”) varieties: Florasette, Heat Wave, Solar Set, Sunchaser, Sunmaster, Sunpride, Surefire. When your variety is not heat tolerant, temps above 85° are out of your tomatoes’ happiness range, they abort fruit set and go into survival mode, stop production. That’s why your plant may make no tomatoes for a period of time. Don’t think it is a quitter and pull it. It will start up again when temps lower.

High nighttime temps are even worse than high daytime temperatures because your plant never gets to rest.

Unless you have early varieties, in spring, wait until nighttime temperatures are reliably above 55° F or protect your plants with a cover at night.

Many seeds can be presprouted. Presprouting is super and clever because you know you have plants! Germination in the soil can be spotty, so get fresh seed from a reliable source and presprout! It’s easy and terrific fun to watch the little ones appear! See more

Regions have huge variances in planting time strategies, and even in the same yard there are micro niches that vary considerably, so get a soil thermometer and plant in the right place at the right time!

With your Soil Thermometer, and good gardener self discipline, get your seeds and plants in the ground at their most productive times for your location!

Here’s to super tasty abundant harvests!

Updated 3.23.23

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Love your Mother! Plant bird & bee food! Think grey water! Grow organic! Bless you for being such a wonderful Earth Steward!

The Green Bean Connection started as correspondence for the Santa Barbara CA USA Pilgrim Terrace Community Garden. Both of Santa Barbara City’s remaining community gardens are very coastal. During late spring/summer we are often in a fog belt/marine layer most years, locally referred to as the May grays, June glooms and August fogusts. Keep that in mind compared to the microclimate niche where your veggie garden is. Bless you for being such a wonderful Earth Steward!

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How to Transplant for Super Successful Returns!

I know these are not veggies. What I want you to see is the roots. Healthy, opened out, pointing down, not rootbound. These little guys will get a good start.

Many wouldn’t think how you transplant your veggies would make much difference, but it can! Here are some tips for smoothing and soothing that step in your gardening for your plants’ health and the soonest harvest!

Rather than popping your transplants out of the six pack and stuffing them into the ground unceremoniously, throwing some water at them, 5 minutes and you’re gone, consider enhancing that process! It’s an investment.

Think how big that root ball will get and generously give the planting spots some wholesome nutrients. Remember, also, hungry micro feeder roots grow laterally searching for food, like from naturally decomposing leaves and insects, so amend your planting area a little larger than that – at least out to the dripline of the mature plant! Do as nature would do.

Put delicious plant fuels right where they will be used, right in that planting hole!

• Throw in compost, what you estimate to be 5% organic matter by weight, 10% by volume if that area hasn’t had compost added recently. Be sure that is acidic compost for beans, celery and strawberries. Compost is slow release nutrition and has great water holding capacity.
• Add 3/4 cup or so of chicken manure (or a manure of your choice). Compost and manures add N (Nitrogen), necessary for growth.
• A good handful of bonemeal. It is high in Phosphorus (for blooming) and takes 6 to 8 weeks before it starts working – perfect timing! It is also high in calcium, which helps prevent blossom end rot in tomatoes.
• Add high in P, Phosphorus, helps your plants continue to bloom LATE in the season! Its NPK ratio might be like 1-10-0.2, takes 4 months to become available to your plants.
• A handful of nonfat powdered milk for immediate immune system support at planting time.
• Maybe a little bit of landscape mix from Island Seed & Feed bulk bins.
• A teensy tad of Coffee grounds helps prevent soil diseases. Go very lightly, all that is needed is 1/2%! That’s not a typo!
• 25% Worm castings is research approved as optimum. Worm castings have special plant-growth hormones, improve water holding capacity, suppress several diseases and significantly reduce parasitic nematodes, aphids, mealybugs and mites. They are not fertilizer.
• Add a sprinkle of kelp meal if you think your soil could use a few minerals.

If the roots of your transplant are jammed up a bit, gently pull down their little legs, spread them out in all directions. Dig your planting hole wide and deep enough that you can make a little cone of soil in the bottom. The longer roots will dangle down around the cone, happy to be in their natural direction, already starting to be able to reach for deeper soil nutrients and moisture.

Some gardeners trim or cut off any extra long roots rather than have them curl and fold. It’s better to dig a deeper hole and leave the roots intact rather than lose time in ‘transplant shock’ recovery. If you do trim the roots, also trim the canopy because now that there is less root, the canopy is too large for them to feed properly. Clearly you can’t do that with a plant like corn.

►►► The Six Pack Crowd! Often there will be a bunch of tiny plants in every section of nursery bought six packs! This is another form of being rootbound. They need to be separated!!! Gently. This is typical with beets, onions, carrots, parsley, cilantro. If planted as a bunch, they can starve, be stunted, can’t reach water, suffocate. They don’t have room to grow and flourish – beets and carrots never produce. Usually most of them die, especially the ones in the center. Take a look at John Kohler’s excellent video of how he separates and plants the baby plants –  it’s also money saving!

Selecting Transplants to save money! Not everyone wants to plant from seed! Not everyone wants to spend a ton of bucks on transplants either! Ok, so do it John Kohler style! See this terrific detailed video of him separating out ELEVEN lemon cucumbers from one 4″ container he purchased for $1.79 (those were the days, ha, ha) ! I didn’t believe it, but he did it easy! And I’ll bet they all grew! You can use this technique with many plants.

Sprinkle Mycorrhizal fungi right ON the roots of your transplants when you put them in the ground. Gently pat it on so it sticks. It increases uptake of nutrients, water, and phosphorus that helps roots and flowers grow and develop. The exception is the Brassica family – for example, won’t work on broccoli, kale, turnips, radish – save your time and money. Ask for it at Island Seed & Feed in Goleta.

If you have a spritz bottle handy, spray the roots and saturate the planting hole with hydrogen peroxide, H2O2. It gives the little guys a boost of oxygen, uptake of nutrients, kills many disease causing organisms, pests, algae, fungus and spores.

It may take some getting used to these next two ideas…  1) When you install your transplant, add soil in gently and water as you go. Let the wet soil flow into the spaces so your plant’s roots have soil contact and can eat. 2) Especially don’t tamp down the soil with your foot because it may break tiny roots, slowing your plant’s growth. Compacting your soil presses the oxygen out of the soil and soil needs to breathe and so do your plants! Channels for soil organisms are closed – they can’t get around and closed water channels deprive your plant of deeper moist soil! Leave your soil light and loose!

Be sure where your water will flow. Use trenches, basins/wells, mini berms, to keep it where you want it, where it is needed. For plants like melon or winter squash, put a tall stake in the center of the basin where the seeds or transplants are, so you can water right where the roots are. As your super healthy plant matures, finding where it starts is often lost among prolific monster foliage. Time to time, restore the basin. The rest of the soil doesn’t need watering. Good hot soil keeps those melons and squash producing and dry soil grows less weeds!

After your transplants are in the ground, give them an Aspirin+ bath! Yup. One Aspirin, 1/2 teaspoon liquid dish soap (surfactant), per gallon of water. While you are at it, add a 1/4 C nonfat powdered milk and a heaping Tablespoon of Baking Soda as well. Aspirin, triggers a defense response and stimulates growth! As stated above, powdered milk is a natural germicide and boosts the immune system. Baking Soda makes the leaves alkaline and inhibits fungal spores! Use especially on your young bean plants, all your cucurbits – cukes, zuchs, any mildew prone plant. Use a long spout watering can that has a rose (nozzle) that turns upward to get the undersides of leaves as well as their tops. Especially do this for tomatoes! Sometimes I plant one day, give the new babies their treatment the next, depending on how much time and energy I have, how many plants I need to plant.

Special treatment for Peppers! Rather than in the soil, do foliar sulphur, Epsom Salts! A cheap home remedy that can keep plants greener and bushier, enhance production of healthier fruit later in the season, and potentially help reduce blossom-end rot. You could apply 1 tablespoon of granules around each transplant, but research has shown a foliar spray of a solution of 1 tablespoon Epsom salts + a 1/2 teaspoon of liquid dish soap (the original plain Dawn) per gallon of water at transplanting, first flowering, and fruit set is quite effective! As a foliar spray, Epsom salts can be taken up quickly by plants, otherwise, it is sometimes hard for the plant to get sulphur out of the soil because of calcium competition.

Last, if it is warm weather, if your soil has the wilts/blight fungi, top off the soil around cucumbers and tomatoes with soil feeding mulch. Straw is simple. Apply it no more than 1″ deep, enough to allow some airflow. Mulch keeps tomato leaves from picking up wilts from soil. If it rains, replace the soaked and flattened straw under wilt susceptible tomatoes and cucumbers with fresh straw. With other crops just add some more. It keeps cucumbers, winter squash and strawberries up off the ground, less vulnerable to insects and susceptible to rot, keeps fruits clean. See more tips about planting in fungi infected soil – tomatoes and cucumbers especially!

With bigger plants, plant an understory of living mulch! That can be two-for-one edible companion plants that enhance, repel pests and/or diseases, or a legume cover crop that feeds your soil while your plant grows! An understory of edible plants like lettuce, carrots, beets, are a wise use of space – no need for a special bed for them. As your bigger plants make shade, remove the lower leaves so the littles get enough light. Legume cover crops save time by feeding your soil while your primary crop is growing! White Clover is a good choice depending on your locale. See more on Living Mulch.

Don’t forget to put down organic snail/slug bait a couple times BEFORE you plant an area, or you may not have plants the next day! If you live in a bird area, cover your new planties with bird net, aviary wire, row covers or a wire cloche. Make your cloches quite big – healthy plants grow pdq, pretty d— quick!

Soon, very soon, put up trellises by beans and cukes, and install sturdy cages for tomatoes and peppers. Going vertical gives you more space to plant, and keeps fruits clean up off the ground, they ripen all the way around, are free of soil diseases and ground crawlies! Convenient picking height too. Eat ’em as you stand there!

Planting Seeds!  Do your soil preparations the same as for transplants! Worm castings are especially good for seeds! Seeds germinate more quickly, seedlings grow faster! If you aren’t putting in your seeds at the same time as you do your soil prep, stake the center of the spots where the seeds will go so when you plant their roots will have maximum opportunities for tasty nutrition! If it will be a bed, stake and label the areas for each kind of seed so you plant in the best places for each.

Again, lay down that snail/slug stuff a few days before you plant. Do it at least twice to get the generations. If you miss that step, then put it down right when you plant. Otherwise you may think your seedlings never came up. Soil predators feast overnight. Stake the area where the seeds are so you don’t over water or step in the bed and compact the soil, damage delicate seedlings before you can even see them, or accidently dig them up! Cover the area if you have birds. Seeds are tasty, tiny sprouts are a delicacy. Water gently, set your water wand on the fine mist setting, so your seeds stay where you put them and aren’t uncovered or washed away. Keep them moist until they are up. Water gently so tiny sprouts aren’t damaged. When your little ones are up about 3, 4 inches, give them their aspirin+ bath, mulch them, promptly install their trellises and cages.

Mazel tov! Enjoy eating your favs soonest!

Updated 2.3.23

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Love your Mother! Plant bird & bee food! Think grey water! Grow organic! Bless you for being such a wonderful Earth Steward!

The Green Bean Connection newsletter started as correspondence for the Santa Barbara CA USA, Pilgrim Terrace Community Garden. Both Santa Barbara City’s remaining community gardens are very coastal. During late spring/summer we are in a fog belt/marine layer area most years, locally referred to as the May grays, June glooms and August fogusts. Keep that in mind compared to the microclimate niche where your veggie garden is.

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Some Surprising Tips on How to Grow A Profusion of Glorious Sweet Peppers!

Peppers with 3 bumps on the bottom are sweeter and better for eating. Peppers with 4 bumps on the bottom are firmer and better for cooking. Do you think that is true?

To prevent cross-pollination, hot pepper plants should not be planted near sweet or bell pepper plants.  TRUE!  Plant at least 400 feet between varieties to ensure absolute purity.  That’s important info for seed savers!

Sweet Peppers like:  Basil, Tomato, rhubarb, eggplant, Lettuce, Asparagus, Parsley, Silver Beet, Spinach, carrot, onion, beans, cabbage, peas, marigold and okra. Hot Pepper plants do well alongside Eggplant, Tomato, Okra, Swiss Chard, Escarole, Squash and cucumbers.

Soil  Peppers need VERY RICH SOIL, are heavy feeders!  Place compost, worm castings, rotted manure under them when transplanting. Mix in 1 T Epsom Salts, Maxi Crop, Landscape Mix.  Sandy soils are preferred for the earliest plantings because they warm more rapidly in the spring. Heavier soils can be quite productive, provided they are well drained and irrigated with care.

Epsom Salts!  A cheap home remedy that can keep plants greener and bushier, enhance production of healthier fruit later in the season, and potentially help reduce blossom-end rot. Apply 1 tablespoon of granules around each transplant, but research has shown a foliar spray of a solution of 1 tablespoon Epsom salts per gallon of water at transplanting, first flowering, and fruit set is more effective! As a foliar spray, Epsom salts can be taken up quickly by plants, otherwise, it is sometimes hard for the plant to get it out of the soil because of calcium competition.  The easy way to foliar feed is to have a watering can whose nozzle swivels so the spray can go UP, wetting the undersides of the leaves.  What goes through and above the leaves as you spray, comes down on the top of the leaves you are spraying, doing both top and bottom at once!

Peppers love sun, but a bit of shade is good for the fruit.  Last year I planted a Poblano between two big tomato plants.  For awhile I thought it was a goner, shaded out, then, it just grew and grew!  It got almost 4′ tall and produced like crazy and I gave giant peppers away!

Plant your peppers about a foot to 1 1/2 feet apart.  A healthy pepper will get big, and it is wise to put small tomato cages over thick wall bell pepper varieties when you plant, to support the weight when they are heavy with fruit.

Too cool weather, nighttime temps 55 F or below for a time, may cause the blossoms of transplants to drop off. The only solution is to make sure night temperatures have warmed sufficiently before transplanting peppers outdoors. The plants will survive and more blossoms will appear. When daytime temps reach 90 F and above, and stay there, just like with tomatoes, the blossoms seldom set fruit.  Not to worry.  Just give them some time.

Personal Mulch!  Solanaceae, that’s peppers, tomatoes, eggplants, like mulch from their own leaf litter, so just let the leaves fall and accumulate.

Watering tip!  Peppers, have shallow roots, need even watering.  Keep the soil moist—not soggy—to encourage root development and prevent blossom wilting and bitter-tasting peppers.  Moisture stress during bloom can cause substantial reduction in fruit set.  Later on, however, as a friend from Farmers Market pointed out:  ‘Red & yellow peppers are green peppers that have been ripe for a while. So you are asking an already ripe fruit to stay on a vine longer to change color. Too much water, and the pepper will start to turn brown and rot. So we switched to watering a LOT less frequently and the results have been outstanding.’

Sidedressing  Peppers need fertilizer in small doses, a rich organic fertilizer when blooms appear.  If you scratch in some compost, be careful not to damage their shallow roots.  Liquid chicken manure is high in nitrogen and potassium for heavy feeders like peppers.  Big, sweet peppers require a continual source of nutrition. The easiest way to fertilize them is to incorporate gradual-release fertilizer in the ground at planting. Fish-meal pellets, alfalfa pellets or cottonseed meal are all good organic choices. You also can foliar-feed plants every week or two with a fish/seaweed soluble fertilizer, spraying the tops and bottoms of leaves, or water the ground with the same mixture.

Harvest!  Bell peppers are at their sweetest and are highest in Vitamins A and C when fully mature. When choosing bell peppers for eating, select those that are firm, heavy for their size with shiny, richly colored skin.  The bell pepper’s sweetness increases as their color changes from green to their final color.

SEEDS!  Harvest mature, fully-ripe peppers for seed. Most bell peppers turn red when fully mature.  If frost threatens before peppers mature, pull entire plant and hang in cool, dry location until peppers mature.

• There are two methods, dry and wet, to process pepper seeds. The dry method is adequate for small amounts. Cut the bottom off the fruit and carefully reach in to strip the seeds surrounding central cone. In many cases, seeds need no further cleaning.
• To process the seed from large amounts of peppers, cut off the tops just under the stem, fill a blender with peppers and water and carefully blend until good seeds are separated and sink to bottom. Pepper debris and immature seeds will float to the top where they can be rinsed away. Spread clean seeds on paper towel and dry in cool location until seed is dry enough to break when folded.

May your peppers be fat and plentiful!

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July, August, September and October Garden Timing! Tomato-Hot Juicy July!

July is not so much a planting month as water, sidedressing, harvest, and making compost – soil prep for September & October fall plantings! Get seeds!
August is keeping your soil water absorbent, sidedressing, harvesting, plant a last round of summer favorites, start cool-season seedlings, time to preserve your abundance for winter eating, to take stock and make notes for next year’s summer planting!
September is exciting because it is the first month to plant fall veggies! Do your final harvesting, preserving, clean up, chop and compost, and plant on Labor Day weekend!
October is considered by many to be the best planting month of the year!! Time to take up strawberry daughters (runners) for November planting, clean up to break pest and disease cycles, plant your winter veggies, plant more veggies if you started in September!

Tomato-Hot Juicy July!

Plant another round of your summer favs if you want, but keep in mind that Sep/Oct are the best fall planting months, so check those dates to maturity! The sooner you start your winter plants, the faster start they have, the sooner you have winter veggies. Things get slower as it gets cooler. And, heat lovers started now will have a shorter harvest period. Just saying.
Watering  Keep your veggies well watered, daily on extra hot days. Seedlings may need water 2 to 3 times a day! Keep strawberries moist or they will stop producing. It tomatoes dry out, they drop their blossoms. Water short rooted plants, beans, lettuces, cukes, more frequently. They like lots of water!
Mulch short rooted plants, beans, lettuces and strawberries, and deeper rooted chard, to keep them cool and moist. More about summer mulching.
Feeding  Get out your fish emulsion, get some manures, and feed your plants! Foliar feed with compost, manure, worm casting tea. Epsom salts your peppers. Seabird guano (NOT bat guano) keeps plants flowering and producing!  Blood meal is a quick Nitrogen fix for yellowing leaves.
Prep your fall raised beds! Start making compost for fall planting. Chop into small pieces for faster decomposition.
Install gopher wire barriers in your new beds. Incorporate manures and already-made compost into your soil.
Get the best varieties of seeds for Sep/Oct planting!
Let strawberry runners grow now.
Harvest! Do keep up so your plants keep producing.  What you can’t eat or preserve, give away!  It will be so appreciated!

I’m passing this along from a Linda Buzzell-Saltzman, Santa Barbara Organic Garden Club post:

This article is by Robyn Francis, one of Australia’s top permaculturists.  She’s also a pioneer in rethinking international aid.

“While mental health experts warn about depression as a global epidemic, other researchers are discovering ways we trigger our natural  production of happy chemicals that keep depression at bay, with surprising results. All you need to do is get your fingers dirty and harvest your own food.  “In recent years I’ve come across two completely independent bits of research that identified key environmental triggers for two important chemicals that boost our immune system and keep us happy – serotonin and dopamine.  What fascinated me as a permaculturist and gardener were that the environmental triggers happen in the garden when you handle the soil and harvest your crops…”

Smile and be wild!
Cerena

Next week, Composting Made EASY! 

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