Late June is Time to Clean Up the Garden in Zone 7

Some things to do now in the garden, if you haven't done them. I let spots on my cucumbers go to long and had to remove one plant. I got lazy. Late June is a good time to clean-up and remove spent plants and give the warm season vegetables a boost.

Epsom salts. I give my tomatoes a dose of epsom salts for magnesium. A handful sprinkled around the base of the plant. You can water it or let the rain disolve it.

Removal

• Lettuces will be bitter and bolting, time to remove them
• Radishes will be woody, no point in letting them grow
• Kohlrabi should fully bulb up soon, if it isn't, it is going the woody route
• Peas can be looked at for removal
• Remove weeds as always

Feed

• Cucumbers, zukes, and squash could use some liquid fertilizer.
• Tomatoes could use a little boost of the above

Disease Prevention/Insect Prevention

• Check your tomato leaves, I found 2 with spots
• Check you cucumbers for mildew and spots
• Remove any infected leaves from all plants and spray
• Sevin Dust or similar the bases of cukes, zukes, and squashes (beetles are coming)
• Sevin Dust or similar your eggplants (flea beetles are around)
• Look for holes in plant leaves and treat
• Remove bottom growth of tomatoes to prevent soil splashing
• Remove center growth of tomatoes (a bit) to allow for air circulation
• Mulch Mulch Mulch and create a barrier over your soil

Planting

• Put in your beans or second rotation
• Plants some zukes, cukes, and squashes in cups for back-ups
• Sunflower can go in the ground
• Cilantro and basil can be dropped in the ground again
• All fast growing herbs should go in the ground

Make a general assessment of your plants. I removed 1 tomato from a container because it wasn't growing well and looked pale in comparison to the other 32. Now I do have the luxury of having many plants. Sometimes it is better to remove and replant, if a plant isn't doing well.

I have one tomato with a nasty leaf distortion and curl. Worse the the leaf curl/mosiac pictures look on-line. That is probably what it has but I wonder if my aspirin baths did it. It is only one plant. I'll get some picture up for any passer by plant detectives.