Vegetables & Herbs ~ Early August

Your Cape Cod veggie and herb garden this month: harvesting, planting and problem solving.

Once the cool, damp June weather gave way to sunny, hot days in July, our vegetable gardens have started to grow vigorously. Many people on the Cape are picking cucumbers, beans, summer squash and tomatoes, and have pulled their garlic. This has left open areas where seeds can be sown for fall harvest. While we enjoy all edible plants that are abundant, gardeners also have questions when things aren’t growing well. Here are some of the issues that vegetable and herb gardeners wonder about, and tips for continuing to enjoy your garden.

My zucchini plants aren’t producing squash!

Sometimes vegetable gardeners wonder why their summer squash plants aren’t producing. They see flowers open in the morning and then wilt by mid-afternoon, while no zucchini are being produced. This is especially common when the plants first begin to bloom.

These plants make male and female flowers, and only the female blooms will produce squash. You can tell the males and females apart by the size of their stems. The male flowers are on tall, skinny stems, while the females are on short stems that start to thicken even as the flowers open. If the female flower is fertilized, it will go on to produce the squash under that bloom.

You can’t control how many male or female flowers a plant produces. Occasionally, but rarely, a plant will only produce male flowers. This is one reason we usually plant squash in groups of three to six plants; the more plants you have, the more likely it is that you will get plenty of zucchini.

Male and female flowers open in in the morning, and all fertilization takes place before noon. That’s why the flowers wilt as the day goes on…their work is done! It is also common for zucchini plants to produce more male flowers in the first week or two after they start flowering.

How can you help your plants to produce squash? First, don’t water with a sprinkler from about 8 AM to 11 AM as that will prevent the bees from pollinating your plants. If you don’t see many bees in your vegetable garden, try putting some Zinnias near your squash plants to attract the pollinators.

Something is eating my parsley…

There are three likely causes of disappearing parsley leaves on Cape Cod. The first is earwigs, the second is bunnies, and the third is swallowtail butterfly caterpillars. It’s important to find out which is eating your plant because the treatment for earwigs would kill the butterfly larvae, and we certainly don’t want to do that. If you’re sure that caterpillars aren’t on your plants, you can spray with spinosad (Captain Jack’s Deadbug Brew) or dust with diatomaceous earth to slow the earwigs down. If you think that bunnies are to blame, put a wire cage or similar barrier around the plant. But if you see swallowtail larvae, rejoice and share your parsley gladly.

Remember to harvest vegetables frequently.

At this time of year it’s smart to go to your veggie garden every day and pick anything that’s ripe before it gets too large. Not only are young vegetables especially tender and tasty, but removing them before they mature stimulates the plants to continue to bloom and produce. If you let the cucumbers stay on the vine until they turn orange, fail to pick the zucchini before they get as large as war clubs, or leave the beans until their pods are lumpy with seeds, your plants will think that they’ve done their job (producing seeds for the future) and will stop flowering. So harvest frequently for flavor and production.

What can I plant where the garlic grew?

There are several crops you can plant now from seed and harvest in September, October or even November. Choose beets, radish, carrots for root crops, and space the seeds well so that they won’t be crowded and will develop quickly. Plant lettuce and other greens; these will germinate very quickly in the warm soil. You can also grow kale, chard and broccolini from seed. Be sure to check where you’ve planted daily and not let the soil dry out as the seeds sprout and the young plants develop roots. Once your plants are an inch or more high, you can start watering less frequently but for longer so that the soil gets moistened more deeply.

My basil is turning yellow and looks sick…what’s going on?

First, be sure you aren’t over-watering your basil plants. These plants appreciate well-drained soil and deep soakings less often. Soil that is constantly wet can rot their roots, causing the plants to turn pale. If you’re sure watering isn’t the issue, look under some of those yellowing leaves for signs of gray specks or a dirty look. That’s how basil downy mildew appears. (See photo below.) If you suspect your plants have downy mildew, harvest the tops that are still green and make pesto to freeze, but leave the bottoms of the plants in the garden. Downy mildew is edible and usually moves from the bottom of the plant up, so if you catch it in time you’ll have green top leaves to harvest.

After the good foliage is picked, spray the plants with an organic fungicide and apply a bit of fertilizer. Given this treatment, the basil plants will frequently grow some new, fresh foliage that can be harvested in September.

What can I do with all this oregano?

Next to mint, oregano is one of the most vigorous herbs. It should not surprise us then that oregano is in the mint family, Lamiaceae. If you have an abundance of oregano, be sure to pick stems to include in flower arrangements and bouquets. These make good filler-greens when they aren’t in flower, and sweet additions of leaves and color when the stems are in bloom. Oregano is also one of the best herbs to dry, as it retains its flavoring well. Read about the many ways to dry herbs here.

If you have a question about your herbs or vegetables, come into the store and talk to C.L. or Marsha, who are experienced vegetable gardeners and have seen just about every possible problem. You can bring in samples of problem plants or photos for C.L. to see on Fridays between 9 and 3, or email clfornari at countrygarden dot com.