Gardeners Checklist: Here Is What to Do on the Week of Sept. 4

By Ron Kujawski

• Compile a shopping list of spring flowering bulbs, and get to your retail garden center pronto to get the pick of the bunch.  Look for large, blemish-free bulbs.  If you wait too long, the bulbs will be picked over and only the smaller ones will be left.  

• Search for hornworms if you see defoliated stems on tomato plants.  They are quite large now; some are four inches long and as thick as my index finger.  Not only are they eating the leaves on the plants but they are also gouging the fruit. They are shameless critters.  The usual treatment of Bt won’t work well due to the size of the beasts, but handpicking and running over them with a Mack truck does the trick.

• Pinch out the growing tips of Brussels sprouts if you want to hasten the ripening of the sprouts.  Otherwise, let them be and enjoy a longer period of harvest through the fall.

• Harvest heads of cabbage on the same day that you plan to use them to make sauerkraut.  That will give you crisper sauerkraut.  Never made sauerkraut?  It’s easy.  You can find the USDA recipe for sauerkraut on the internet at https://nchfp.uga.edu/how/can_06/sauerkraut.html 

• Don’t ignore houseplants that have been moved back indoors after spending the summer outdoors.  Inspect them carefully and frequently.  Once plants have been brought indoors, they’ll often experience a serious pest outbreak, such as spider mites, aphids and mealy bug.  These outbreaks typically occur suddenly with large numbers of pests (Sounds like a subject for a movie: “Bugs Gone Wild!”). In such situations, spray plants with insecticidal soap, but check the product label first since there are some plants that are sensitive to soaps. Also, keep sprayed plants away from direct sunlight for a few days.

Among my favorite vegetable crops are dry beans.  I love everything about them: they are easy to grow, fun to shell, store well, and are very nutritious.  I’m now harvesting my dry bean crops: ‘Great Northern’, ‘Black Turtle’, and ‘Red Kidney’.  Though the standard recommendation is to pick dry beans when the plant leaves turn brown and drop, and the pods are dry, I harvest a bit sooner.  If I waited with ‘Black Turtle’ beans, I’d have to sort out beans from soil since the mature pods have a tendency to split open and drop their beans on the ground before the leaves are all brown.  Also, as I learned from previous years with a wet growing season, beans often get moldy in the pods if you wait too long to harvest. So, I pick dry beans when the pods are tan colored and I can hear or feel the beans inside rattling.  If a prolonged rainy spell is in the offing, I’ll pick the pods even earlier and let them dry in an airy location.  Shelling can be done quickly by placing the dry pods in a burlap bag and threshing with a broom handle.  The beans are then separated from the chaff by winnowing.  However, my preferred method of shelling is to sit on the porch and shell each pod by hand while enjoying the ethereal tranquility of a late Sunday afternoon.  One last note: dry beans from your garden will cook much faster than store bought dry beans which may be as old as a year or two.   

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.