Just Keep Going

If you grew spring stuff, hopefully you are harvesting happily now. The only thing from the early group that is still small now for me is chard. I've eaten a bit, but not much.

The things planted in late spring are probably still a while away: my beans are still small plants with no flowers yet. I have the very first one or two tiny green tomatoes forming, on the two plants that I bought as large seedlings. My own smaller seedlings which I started myself have not yet grown to flowering size. My basil is still extremely tiny.

Anyway, now that the plants are bigger, it's usually easier to manage them. Just keep up on weeding, and watering them (not this weekend, obviously, if you're growing them in the open). Once plants are well established, most of them need only a good, deep watering once a week. Deep means you pour water into the pot, trench, or depression a few times, so that the water can flow down far into the soil, where the roots grow. Many plants will have roots that go several feet or more under the soil surface, and that is where you want the water (where it won't evaporate the next day).

If you have any questions, please ask.

Because I have had more insect trouble this year than before, I've learned more about controlling insects this year. All my insect problem seem to have reduced to a more normal state: a few bites and holes here and there. Hand-picking the large ones, and diatomaceous earth for the small ones seems to have worked.

For the first time I've also been using my Korean "Homi" garden tool to weed with the blade. (Before I only used it for digging to loosen and prepare the soil for planting.) To weed, you run the straight edge of the tool (its blade) along the soil surface, cutting off small weeds. Farmers use long handled tools to weed like this, so they can do long rows very fast. Mine is a short one like a trowel. It takes a bit of practice and care to weed like this, especially so you don't kill your own plants too, but it's definitely faster than hand weeding. (On the other hand, if you have a nice small patch, hand-weeding won't take long. It's all I've done in the past.)