JULY - GARDEN PREPARATION

Maybe July should be known as the "Keep Harvesting Month."   I hope you are keeping up...

  Dill.  Source: Public domain

• This month you should be getting first pickings of bush beans, beets, summer squashes and  finishing up with peas as well as with your second or third  plantings  of radishes.

• Enough dill weed should also be available by now for use in salads and salad dressings. I never have to plant dill because I always allow a few dills to go to seed and then scatter their seeds in a few areas in my garden for next year.  I freeze dill stems before they bloom in order to make a dilly vinaigrette in the off seasons.

• Other herbs like marjoram, thyme, basil, parsely, sage etc. should also be mature enough for collection. Like with dill, I prefer freezing herbs to drying because their flavors are better.

• Another task extending your time to enjoy in July's  heat is  to start  planting some of your fall crops especially beans, beets and cucumbers. It  is also time to put in  early autumn  cover crops, such as clover, buckwheat or a field peas  in unused or already harvested beds.  For additional information checkout the recent  post about cover crops.

• Add more mulch  for weed suppression and moisture control, and while you are at it, July is a good time to  fertilize asparagus, eggplants and melons. Your leeks probably also will appreciate hilling them again.

• Finally, keep removing new suckers from your tomatoes to keep the vines from taking control.  And speaking of tomatoes let's move on to tomato horn worms...

If you've grown tomatoes for a while, you have probably come upon Manduca quinquemaculata   (i.e. tomato horn worm). They actually will also feast on peppers, eggplants, potatoes; and a cousin prevalent in the south, the  tobacco horn worm, prefers, you guessed it,  tobacco.  

They are large caterpillars, but they blend in especially well on tomatoes. Usually you will first notice leaf stems that have been stripped of all tissue around their larger veins. The caterpillars are usually at some other location on the plant or an adjacent plant. You always wonder how you missed seeing them! The caterpillars, of course, start small  dining first  on the  lower leaves and then  moving higher as they grow to where you can notice their work.

Five spotted hawkmoth. Source: Public domain

If they survive, tomato horn worms  go underground to pupate in autumn and  transform into hawkmoths over the winter. Hawkmoths emerge between late spring and early summer to start their next generations.  These are  large moths  with wingspans up to 5". They are nectar feeders, and in the south and southwest they seek out plants with large white flowers, especially those in the datura genus  containing toxic alkaloid compounds that seem to intoxicate the moths. These plants may have   evolved  producing an opioid to promote their fertilization by addicting hawkmoths!

Cotesia lavae feasting on a hornworm.
Photo by I. Stephens

Cotesia wasp.
Photo by Betriz Moisset 

In addition to us vegetable gardeners, the hornworms have a lot of other natural enemies.  One of these, the trichogramma wasp, a small parasitoid wasp that you probably will never notice, attacks the eggs laid by the moths near the base of their favorite plants.  The wasps' young feed on these eggs.  Another moth enemy that you have probably seen evidence of, is Cotesia congregata, a larger parasitoid wasp that lays its eggs in the skin  of the caterpillars. You will know that one of these fellows has been to work if you see a horn worm looking like the unlucky chap to the right.

I always leave these zombies alone. After the wasp lavae finish consuming the worm's internal tissue, the carcass will fall to the ground; but more importantly, I will probably have a generation of worm hunters in my garden next year.

And remember...

"If you want to live and thrive, let the spider run and hide." - American Quaker saying