Richard Larson
Our summer growing season received spring’s final kiss with a few days of rain. Great for your garden beds, your newly planted starts and seeds, and your weeds. The time to start weeding is now! If you don’t get after them, they will take over your yard and garden beds. Get’em while they are young, they are so easy to pull out before they grow, flower, then seed again. Right now, I have baby elm trees growing in all my beds. They are easy to pull out and add to my compost pile. I do love weeds. They provide me with fresh greens to add to my compost pile. I just cut off the weed’s flower off, throw that part away and cut up the green of the weeds to help heat up my compost.
It is heating up outside, so you need to ensure your plants have plenty of moisture. Water early in the morning and early in the evening. Try not to water midday. If the leaves get wet, they can burn the plant with the heat of the sun. Early and late day watering allows the water to drip off and naturally evaporate before the intense heat of the sun hits the leaves. To reduce your water bill, a local gardener recommended you save your water in a bucket when you are heating up your water for a shower. Instead of letting it go down the drain, fill up a bucket to use for watering.
To help retain that moisture on the ground you do need to mulch your planting beds. Use compost, straw or walk-on bark as your mulch. Mulching also reduces the ability for weeds to take over your bed, you must remove the weeds on a regular basis. Rock is only okay, it does retain heat and that can have a negative impact on your plants. Keep in mind, full-sun planting does not mean all day sun. Up here on the high desert plateau, full sun is six to eight hours only.
This year Rich and I are growing a variety of tomato in the shade. This plant only needs 4 hours of sun a day. It is a slicer tomato: Cloudy Day – indeterminate, bred in England, is an excellent tomato to grow in northern climates. This plant does very well in cool, cloudy weather. It offers a high yield of 5 ounce tasty slicer fruit. Tomatoes can be grown easily in patio containers. Support plants with stakes or cages to ensure proper fruiting. Spacing 36-inches height 36-58 inches, width 36–48 inches. Needs four hours of full sun. We will see how it does this year.
Stop by and see us at the Mother Road Farmers Market. We are Growing on 66. We grow our plants right on Route 66 in Winslow.
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Berry and Richard Larson are Arizona Master Gardeners in Winslow. Contact them at Growingon66@yahoo.com
