Growing a successful summer garden

Happy summer! Summer is in full swing with daily high temperatures in the high 90s. Now only plants that can tolerate the summer heat and rains will grow and thrive in the garden. Even though the garden wants to go wild, remove old and dead plants from your garden to keep pest and disease problems down.

Here are a few strategies for the summer garden:

1. Grow vegetables

2. Grow cover crops

3. Solarize the soil

4. Mulch over the garden

The variety of heat tolerant vegetables is limited, but you can still continue to grow black-eyed peas, collards, rattlesnake pole beans, speckled lima beans, New Zealand spinach, okra, sweet potato, Malabar spinach and yard-long beans.

I love cover crops because they are easy and interesting to grow while improving the soil. You can plant cowpeas, sorghum, millet, lablab bean and velvet bean. Sunn hemp is also an excellent choice because it reduces nematodes too!

If you are noticing root swelling due to nematode damage, an alternate strategy to planting Sunn Hemp is to solarize your soil. Soil solarization is a process where you use the energy from the sun to kill soil pests. To solarize, clear all vegetation from the garden, loosen the soil and cover for six weeks with clear plastic. Then, place bricks or other weights on the corners to prevent the plastic from blowing away. The plastic should be removed at the beginning of the fall to prepare for planting.

One last option I will propose is simply mulching the garden with a 3- to 6- inch layer of straw or wood chip mulch. This will prevent weeds from growing and keep the soil from drying out. In addition, it will add organic matter to the soil and keep it alive.

Happy gardening!

Be sure to save these dates for upcoming OWC Garden events. They are $10 per family to attend.

Plant Your Thanksgiving Dinner

Sept. 21 | 9 - 11 a.m.

OWC Garden at Winter Park Presbyterian Church

400 S. Lakemont Ave., Winter Park (garden is located off of Dundee)

Plant Your Christmas Dinner

Oct. 22 | 6 - 8 p.m.

OWC Garden

550 W. Morse Blvd., Winter Park (garden entrance is located on Welbourne)

Our Whole Community is a 501(c)(3) non-profit Christian organization that brings communities together to establish relationships and share resources resulting in innovative programs that inspire, motivate and educate individuals in their pursuit of optimal health. For more information on Our Whole Community, please visit ourwholecommunity.org. Our Whole Community is pleased to contribute monthly to The Winter Park-Maitland Observer. Email [email protected] for inquiries about the OWC Gardens. Plots are available for rent seasonally.