Gardeners Checklist: Here Is What to Do on the Week of July 24

By Ron Kujawski

• Apply a general-purpose garden fertilizer to sweet corn, winter squash, pumpkins, and other long season crops. This is a good practice for this time of year regardless of weather conditions, but this year it is even more important since frequent heavy rains have leached much of the available nitrogen from soils and these crops have a lot of growing left to do. Any crop whose foliage is a little pale should get some fertilizer.

• Prop up bean plants to keep bean pods from contacting wet soil. Mature bean plants have a tendency to flop over, often with the aid of strong winds that accompany summer thunderstorms. Bean pods in contact with wet soil tend to rot. To prop up beans plants, place stakes at the ends of each row and run string about one foot above ground between the stakes.

• Apply an insecticide containing B.t. (Bacillus thuringiensis) or spinosad to the silks on ears of corn at one week intervals to control corn earworm. Continue applications until the silks have turned brown.

• Pull up spent pea plants and prepare the soil for planting of fall crops. Spread compost over the soil and then rake or till the soil. Sow seeds of leafy greens such as arugula, mustard, spinach, and leaf lettuce as well as root crops including kohlrabi, radish and turnip.  Also, try another planting of summer squash and green beans. If you have leftover pea seeds, sow these as well. Peas do better with a spring planting, but they may still yield a decent harvest this fall with a summer sowing.

• Be sure to remove spent raspberry canes immediately after fruit harvest. Cut these canes back to ground level. The remaining lush green-leafed canes are those that will produce next year’s crop, so leave them alone.

• Keep after Japanese beetles since their population should be at its peak about now. Daily hand-picking of the beetles will reduce their numbers. Applications of natural pesticides such as rotenone, pyrethrum, and neem oil are good alternatives to hand-picking but you miss out on all the fun.

• Give your lawn mower a mid-summer tune up. Sharpen the blade, change the oil, clean the air filter, and remove caked-on grass beneath the mower deck. Always disconnect the spark plug before working on power equipment.

• Divide daylilies soon after they have completed their flowering. Daylilies need to be divided about every four or five years; otherwise, they get too crowded and flowering is reduced. Don’t be too fussy about dividing these plants. They are tough. I once left a division on the surface of the ground and it took root and has been growing well and flowering for five years. 

Ron Kujawski began gardening at an early age on his family's onion farm in upstate New York. Although now retired, he spent most of his career teaching at the UMass Extension Service. He serves on Berkshire Botanical Garden’s Horticulture Advisory Committee. His book, Week-by-Week Vegetable Gardener’s Handbook, is available here.