Will we have a summer with no real heat?  Those of us on the west side of this county are sure wondering what happened to summer.   It does make working outside easier and watering pressures are lower and I have been surprised that the tomatoes are starting to produce even though they like heat.  It has been a great summer for lettuce, root crops, chard, and the basil and beans don’t seem to be bothered by the cool. 

As tomatoes are ripening you might also find you have some problems.  Two common problems are Blossom end rot and Verticillium Wilt.   Blossom End Rot, when the tomato rots at the very end of the fruit, is mostly caused by a lack of calcium which is hard to reverse when the plant has gone into full production.  Inconsistent watering tends to also exacerbate the calcium deficiency.  Make sure you give your soil a good supply of Oyster Shell Lime in the fall and spring to help with the calcium deficiency.  Manures and bone meal also supply calcium.  If the tomatoes are water stressed it can make a calcium deficiency worse, so keep a your tomatoes evenly watered. 

Verticillium wilt starts on older leaves, they yellow and then die.  Yellowing begins in the main veins of the leaves.  Cold weather, like we have had, favors this fungus.   Grow varieties that are VF resistant,  and make sure you rotate crops so you do not grow tomatoes in the same place twice.   There are not any organic solutions to this once you have it.  But again stress on the plant can make all disease worse. 

With such cool and moist mornings mildews and fungi really can be a problem in the vegetable garden.  I noticed one of my squash plants already has powdery mildew- white splotches all over the leaves, I usually don’t see that until later in the season.  Some mildews and fungus thrive with overhead water- making a good case for drip irrigation, Wet leaves just make everything worse.  Though I was just reading about powdery mildew and it is recommended to spray squash, melon and cucumber leaves with water, or a milk or whey spray (watered down) as you can wash the spores off, something I had never heard before and contradicts everything I had thought about mildew and wet leaves.

Basil is going into full production and it is really important to keep it well picked to keep it producing.  Once it goes into flower it wants to produce seed and stops producing leaves.  If you see flowers beginning to form, prune the plant down several leaf nodes.  I think most people don’t harvest heavily enough and only take the top leaves instead of going down further

Argghh one last comment about gophers- they are getting me really mad.  The winter squash I have in gopher cages are beginning to produce fruit and the gophers just come up and eat the fruit, snip the vines and get them even though they can’t take the whole plant.  I m trapping non stop and still feel like they are taking more than their allotted 20%.   It is so frustrating!!!   

Anyway enough of the bad stuff, love those Romano beans, Trombocino squash, and had a whole handful of tomatoes the other day!!  Elephant Heart plums are my favorite right now and love eating Gravensteins!   Even with all the problems gardening is worth it!

Sara