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Do You Want a Great Cucumber?
Cucumbers can bring fresh and cool flavors to your salads and sandwiches.
Here are a few simple guidelines to follow:
1. Cucumbers like the summer heat, so plant them no earlier than 2 weeks after the last spring frost.
2. Decide if you want vining or bush type cucumbers. Use bush type for your containers.
3. Use mulch to help keep the fruit clean and to prevent damage from slugs. This will also keep the soil moist.
4. Make sure to keep an ample water supply so you will have juicy fruits. to prevent bitterness you will need to water big vines every day during the heat of the summer.
5. It is very important to pick cucumbers when small, and pick often. If you wait until the cucumbers are large you are slowing down the production as well as ending with a bitter & seedy
cucumber.
6. When you are harvesting, use your kitchen shears or hand clippers as to not damage the vine.
General Garden Information:
Did you know that plants that were once considered for indoor windowsills are now heading outdoors? A large sellection of tender perennials are shedding their inside image and are being offered at your garden stores for use as annuals in the outdoor garden.
Super Shasta Daisies (Leucanthemum x superbum) have been a long standing garden favorite, valued for a long bloom period. Other than the standards, there are yellow eyed daisy forms, as well as crested, frilly, double and semi-double blossoms. Shasta daisies do best in full sun, with fertile and well drained soil. This plant will not tolerate its feet to get wet, and especially in the winter they are likely to develop crown rot if buried under a heavy winter snow. Dead heading will prolong blooms, when the blooms are finished, cut the flower stalk down to the basal cluster of leaves. |
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Mid Atlantic
The Open Air Farmers Market in Harrisburg, PA has fresh produce, fruit and cheese.
Generously water
Care for your primroses- clip off the dead blooms and brown leaves. Fertilize.
Weed before mulching |
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Northern & Central Midwest
It is Not Too Early To Mulch
Try using Row Covers to Help in the Prevention of Pests
Check on Your Staked Perennials It is Time to Fertilize Your Amaryllis |
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Lower, Middle and Upper South
Make Sure to Water Your New Shrubs and Trees (LS)
It's Time to Fertilize Your Container Greens (LS)
Plant Caladiums (LS)
Water Your Lawns Deeply (LS)
Plant Hot Weather Greens (LS)
Sow Your Level Flower Beds, Then Pour Fine Sand on top Where You Want to (MS)
Transplant Thinned Seedlings (MS)
Prevent the Rotting of Wooden Structures (MS)
Know What Bugs are Important Predators of Plant Pests (MS)
Give Your Iris a Boost (US)
Plant Warm Season Vegetables (US)
You Can Repot your Houseplants (US)
Prepare for Container Care (US)
Time to Sow Annual Flowers (US)
LS= Lower South
MS= Middle South
US= Upper South |
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Coastal & Tropical South
Time to Control Poison Ivy
Check for Weeds
Treat for Fleas Indoor and Outdoor
It is a good Time to Dethatch Your Yard
Pick Your Vegetables and Herbs Daily for best Flavor and to keep actively growing |
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New England
Thin Seedlings for a Better Harvest
Use Row Covers to Protect Young Squash from beetles, flea beetles, Squash Vine Bores
Remove Caterpillar Silk Web Nests from Apple, Cherry, Plum, Peach Trees in PM
It's Ok to Have Ants on Your Peonies |
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Southwestern Deserts
Know the Correct Depth when Planting Trees.
Increase your Soils Nitrogen by planting Peas, then leave the roots to decompose for Nitrogen. Sow Zinnias.
Remove floating Row Covers when plants are in Bloom so Bees can Pollinate.
If you See Orange & Black Moths this is the Pesky Vine Bore, Squash any eggs you see.
Harvest your Cucumbers and Winter Squash or Summer Squash as soon as they are ready to eat size. Don't let them get old and mature on the vine, this will stop the blossoming process and will shorten your growing season. |
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Southern California Coastal & Inland Valleys
If you want to replant in an area that has just grown vegetables, follow heavy feeding leafy vegetables like spinach and cabbage with nitrogen-replenishing crops like peas, beans and soybeans. For greater yields you can feed eggplants, peppers, squash and tomatoes when they are in bloom, increase your magnesium available to tomatoes and peppers by dissolving one TB of Epsom salt into one quart of warm water, then spray of the leaves and blossoms. Pour the rest in a ring around the plant at the dripline. Make your last corn planting . If you have Blossoms on your Squash but do not have any squash, remember that the first blossoms are male, then after a few weeks the female blossoms (the ones with the miniature squash at the base of the flower) start appearing along with the male flowers. When the bees pollinate them. they will set fruit for you to see.
Harvest your celery. To keep these growing cut the plant off about 3 inches above the soil line, this will leave enough of the central growing area to send up more stalks. Once the plant starts to bolt, just keep tasting before harvest to make sure the flavor is still good. Keep Citrus and Avocados well watered, deeply every 2-3 weeks and add a 3 inch layer of mulch to maintain= cool temperatures. Make sure to not allow citrus trees water source to alternate- they need constant moisture.
Plant tuberous begonias, cannas, gladiolus bulbs for late summer color. |
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Northern California Coastal & Inland Valleys
It is time to water trees directly at the roots.
If your grass turns from bright green to a dull blue green- this is an indication that the roots are thirsty, or if when you walk on the blades and the tips of the grass do not spring back.
When you go on vacation, group all of your pots and containers and place into a kiddy pool with about 1-2 inches of water in a shady spot, your plants should survive for about 1-2 weeks.
To keep mosquitos at bay- add some cooking oil to the water in any saucers, or anyplace that water sits for the female to lay her eggs. By using the oil, this will keep the mosquito larvae from hatching and also discourage laying any eggs. If the saucer over-flows any time, just add more oil. |
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Pacific Northwest
It is important to plant trees without any organic matter to the soil, as it will not help the roots establish and it may create conditions that will encourage the roots to stay inside the planting hole instead of seeking and spreading outward to the surrounding soil
Marking the area where your bulbs are planted, as soon as the leaves are ready to be removed mark the bulb area with thin stakes so you will not accidently dig them up while planting your annuals or new perennials..
Protect your new transplants from cutworms with collars. I have used the plastic from milk bottles, cut around the bottle then place the circles around the plants and press into the soil about one inch.
Pinch your Chrysanthemums as will as disbud any small side buds to secure large, beautiful blooms on straight stems.
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Western Mountains & High Plains
Did you know that if you plant several different varieties of columbines in the same garden area the result will be cross-pollination? So if you did so, your new seedlings will have the characteristics of both parents. So expect color variations in your garden. To prevent this cross pollination, you can dead-head the blooms as soon as they start to fade down. Watch for Paper Wasps under eaves, storage areas, garden sheds, garages, outdoor grills. This is the time that a single fertilized queen will start to build her nest. Remember that these Paper Wasps are great predators of many insect, pests.Seal all openings and holes through which these wasps can enter. However, you want Bees. Frozen and canned beans cannot compare to home grown fresh green beans. It is time to plant bush and pole types every two weeks through June for a continuos harvest.
Make sure that your lawn mower has sharp blades as to not damage the green grass blades.
If you see any sap oozing from the base of apricot or peach trees then you have worms. Peach tree borers become active this time of year and chew their way into the growing cambium. Carefully did the the larvae (worms) and spray the trunks with a pyrethrum base insecticide will certainly save your tree.
Build raised garden beds if you are challenged by poor soil, they will also provide better drainage and you can select the soil to be added.
For a tomato to grow correctly here are a few tips, get the plant off the ground, make sure they have plenty of room and never prune or tie the plants when the leaves are wet. The purpose of making sure Tomatoes have enough room is that we want to maximize the efficiency of photosynthesis and minimize the risk of disease. When a tomato plant lies on the ground or when its growth is extremely dense many of its leaves are forced into permanent shade, greatly reducing the amount of sugar they can produce. If a leaf used more sugar than what it produces it will turn yellow and eventually drop off. A pruned and staked plant will produce larger fruit 2-4 weeks earlier. Pruning also will effect the plants health as the leaves will dry off faster thus bacteria and fungal problems will have less of an opportunity of develop or spread. Information ideas from National Gardening. |
Meals in a Minute
BBQ Ribs
Ingredients
3 lbs pork ribs
(baby back ribs) | 2 Tbsp vegetable oil | | 5-6 Tbsp Essential Sauce | 2 Tbsp Zesty Orange Sauce for dipping | | 4 Tbsp Zesty Orange Sauce | | | 1 Tbsp Ginger Rub | |
Cooking Instructions
In a mixing bowl, whisk Essential Sauce, Zesty Orange Sauce, Ginger Rub and vegetable oil to make the wet rub. Prepare the slab by removing the skin. There is a really thin skin on the back of the ribs that can be as tough as leather after it is cooked. Use your fingernail on the edge of one side and get under the skin. Use a paper towel to grip it and tear if off the back of the baby back ribs. Use the rub to generously season the ribs, front and back and then cover them with plastic wrap and let them cure in the refrigerator. Refrigerate for at least one hour. For a more intense flavor, leave the meat in the marinade longer. Grill the marinated ribs until done. To test for doneness, grip two side-by-side ribs and pull them apart. The meat should separate, but not too easily, when they are done. Cut the ribs apart to serve. Serve with Zesty Orange Sauce for dipping. Makes 4-6 servings.
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