What to Do in the Garden
July is a busy month, as we nurture our summer crops to keep them watered and fertilized for the warmer months ahead. Meanwhile, keep and eye on weeds, pests and disease. Investing in time this month will help mitigate problems later in the season.
Keep those newly planted California natives watered the first year, but ease off on established ones. Make any seasonal adjustments and watch for leaks in your irrigation system.
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- Citrus: Did you miss our recent class, Getting Started with Citrus? If you want to learn about citrus, this class covers the basics, including varieties appropriate to our area, great tips and troubleshooting trees both in containers and in the ground. The class recording and presentation can be found on our website.
- Planting schedules by county are listed in Resources. Note that you may need to make some adjustments whether your location is experiences warmer temperatures inland, or cooler temperatures if you live closer to the coast.
- Succession planting is a good idea for quick-turn crops, such as radishes, carrots, beets, lettuces, and annual herbs such as basil cilantro and parsley. Look for varieties that are slow to bolt in our warmer months.
- It's not too late to get beans and summer squashes in the garden.
- Fertilize and deadhead flowers for continuous bloom.
- Regularly harvest vegetables such as pole beans, cucumbers, and summer squash, which prolong the harvest season.
- Managing pests
- Use Pest Notes if you want specific information about particular pests. (Also available in Spanish: Las Notes Sobre Plagas.)
- Take a flashlight tour of your garden at night to catch slugs, snails and other critters you might not see otherwise!
- Using insecticidal soap: Insecticidal soaps work by clogging the breathing holes along the sides of soft-bodied insects and is most effective on sedentary insects like aphids, mites, and mealybugs when their populations grow to intolerable levels. Spray in the evening to avoid hitting flying pollinators and beneficial insects. Also read Quick Tips: Less Toxic Insecticides.
- If you see oozing on fruit tree branches and leaves which look scorched, it's possible the tree has developed fire blight, which affects plant tissue. Development is influenced by weather and should be removed with clean tools as this disease can spread to other trees in your garden. Read about fire blight.
- Clean up fallen fruit, which can attract rodents, skunks and harbor disease.
- Adding compost and mulch to your garden will help retain moisture in the soil. Keep mulch at least 6" away from tree trunks and plant stems. Read UCANR publication Mulching for Landscapes and this guide to applying mulch.
Evergreen Tips
- If you are reusing planting containers, wash with mild soap and water to clean it. Disinfect planting containers with a 10% bleach solution, meaning 1 part bleach to 9 parts water.
- Remove diseased plant material (or discard in your green waste can) to keep your garden as disease free as possible. Do not add diseased plant material to your home compost or leave them in your garden beds. Some pests and diseases can overwinter.
- Make repairs and seasonal adjustments to your irrigation system.
- If you need help determining how to deal with pests or disease, please submit a help request with photos at our gardening hotline website.
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Photo: Black feces and white feeding scars from thrips. (UCANR IPM)
Our hotline received an inquiry about managing thrips: minute, slender insects which can damage both ornamentals and edible plants, such as beans, garlic, onion and peppers. Different species attack different plants, so it's important to manage them. For instance, thrips can cause silvery, scabby scarring on citrus and avocado, though the fruit itself is unaffected internally or in terms of flavor.
While they are not as big of a problem closer to the coast, in warmer microclimates thrips can thrive, hurting flowers and annual vegetables. There are beneficial predatory thrips, but they are generally not seen in large numbers.
Thrips can be challenge to manage, so take a multi-pronged approach to control them if you are losing plants.
1. When you're seeing intolerable damage, do the alcohol test to confirm and get a close look at them and monitor numbers with a few plant samples
https://youtu.be/j0v6RfRKjHM (video)
2. Pepper your growing space with yellow sticky traps and occasionally shake the plant foliage to disturb their feeding and get them to jump on the traps (JPEG). You can buy yellow sticky cards, or 2-sided sticky tape which you wrap around a 1-gallon pot or make your own cards with Yellow Paper and petroleum jelly.
3. Interplant flowers to provide habitat for beneficial and predator insects who want to eat thrips and aphids.
4. Keep the garden weeded and deadhead flowers and try to avoid water stress (hard!).
5. If plants are young and vulnerable, try a light row cover fabric (though it may contribute to heat stress, and if you're already having a big problem, you may just be trapping them under the fabric)
6. A gardening friend in San Jose has had some luck with a silvery reflective mulch but it's quite expensive. You can try to interplant with buckwheat--even if it doesn't repel the thrips, it may break up their lifecycle and protect the soil.
7. They overwinter in bark and plant debris so clean the garden well in the fall to protect against future infestation. Do not compost that plant debris.
Remember, thrips are a seasonal problem and part of the ecosystem. If you have no herbivore pests, you have no predator beneficials.
If you try all those things and all fails, read the IPM.ucanr.edu article (below) to find an OMRI-certified spray like Spinosad.
RESOURCE
Pest Note: Thrips
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This video from 2020 goes through common tomato problems you might find in your garden. Presented by UCANR and our sister organization in San Joaquin County.
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Garden Tour: Thank You!
Thank you to all who made it for our garden tour! It was a delight to bring back our garden tour and to meet so many of you in the garden. If you were inspired by the tour and want to share, we invite you to let us know if you're tried something new in your own garden with a photo and email! Or tag us on the socials!
A final THANK YOU to our garden owners and sponsors:
Soquel Creek Water District | City of Santa Cruz Water Department
Shemeika Fox, Fox Realty Group
Photo: Edible Adventure Garden owner and UC Master Gardener Anne Jensen talks to attendees.
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We offer online classes at no cost (unless otherwise noted), though donations of any amount are greatly appreciated. Feel free to register for our online classes, even if you cannot attend live. All registered attendees receive a link to the online class recording along with a copy of the presentation and any handouts via email.
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DIY Succulent Arrangement Workshop
When: Saturday, July 30 from 10-11 am
Where: Watsonville Demonstration Garden
Cost: $30, includes all materials. Attendance limited.
Join UC Master Gardeners Stephanie Kister-Campbell and Barbara Davidge for a fun hands-on DIY Succulent Arrangement workshop. In this hands-on and creative class, learn about succulents and their care, how to put together an attractive arrangement, and then put your new skills to work making an arrangement for yourself to take home!
We will be outside so dress for the weather: a hat and layers are recommended. Though the workshop will be held outdoors, we will respect CDC COVID-19 guidelines and recommend a mask and that you maintain 6 feet of distance.
Attendance is limited. The $30 fee includes all materials for your take-home succulent arrangement.
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Have a gardening question, disease, or pest problem? We are here to help: Contact us on our gardening help site. Please give us as much information, including photos, to help us give you the best information.
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Copyright 2022 UC Master Gardeners of Monterey and Santa Cruz Counties
Monterey Bay Master Gardeners is a 501(c)3 supporting the UC Master Gardeners of Monterey and Santa Cruz Counties, an all-volunteer organization serving Monterey, San Benito, and Santa Cruz counties. Our mission is to empower people with knowledge and skills to grow food and garden sustainably, protecting California’s natural resources. UC Master Gardener of Monterey and Santa Cruz Counties is a program of the University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources.
UC Master Gardener programs include a gardening help line, a demonstration garden, no- and low-cost classes, and special events. |
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