Direct Seeding July Crops (Vegetable Gardening Live Monthly Questions & Answers E-61)

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Welcome to Garden Grounds. We’ll get started in uh just a second. Please, somebody let me know if you can hear my voice, see the garden out my window, and I’m just going to set up a few things and we’ll get started. Today’s light subject is going to be on July crops, things that you can direct seed now. And of course, I’ll take all your questions and see how many I can answer in 45 minutes. All right, chat looks good. You guys can see everything. Let me just turn on the video here. All right, we are good to go. So, if you have a question, this is my live event. I do every second and fourth Thursday of the month. It’s public, so anybody who subscribes to me can watch this, ask a question. Every second, third Thursday, 11:00 a.m. garden grounds. If you have a question, just type question before the question because so much goes through the chat, I have to be able to pick it out. All right, popping out the chat here. And we’ll start with the first question. The light subject today too is going to be on direct seating in the month of July. And welcome Angela to uh perk memberships. I’ll talk about that shortly. What are your thoughts on heat tolerant peas like Wando peas for summerlong sewing? So peas and your cool weather crops tend to bolt or stop producing when the soil gets too warm. It’s really about soil warmth. I just harvested a bunch of peas on July 1st. One of the strategies if you want to grow longer into the hot summer when the sun’s coming down, heating up the soil, all that is to put the peas into a shadier part of your garden. That’s what I did as an experiment this year. They grew extremely well. They were delicious peas and I was able to harvest all of them on July 1st. I don’t think it’s really about the pea variety for summerlong sewing. It’s really about the coolness of the soil and your temperatures. So, give the Wando peas definitely a try. Um, and select a shadier part of your garden and that should help. All right, just checking a few things here. So, if you have a question, just type question, throw it out there. Anything related to vegetable gardening is good. And this is the public Q&A garden grounds. I also have a perk membership, $3.99 a month. People that have stars next to their names are perk members. I do this format probably five times a month and some other things. It’s a smaller group. I stay down for one hour and just answer your garden questions. I can be sort of your garden mentor, but everybody in your group is really knowledgeable. They can help you out, too. You find people in similar growing zones. So, it’s just a nice way to really learn about vegetable gardening, chat with like-minded people, and get some help with your vegetable garden. All right, so I’m just waiting for some questions to roll out. July crops. So, I’m in Maryland zone 7 and I can pretty much sew most of the warm weather crops right now. Just did a video on that, too. And before I answer that, I don’t see anything rolling through the chat here. So, I always get a little bit nervous that something is wrong. Let me just double check everything. Okay, things look all right. So, I just did a video on what you can sew in July. Let me link that. It’s 18 vegetables that you can really direct sew. Now, it’s going to vary a little bit based on where you’re growing, but you know, you can adapt. Here’s the link. Let me just type that in real quick. So, you can check out the video for more details. So, because the soil itself, not just the air temperature, but the soil is warmer, your seeds are going to germinate really quick quickly, faster than what it says on the seed packet, they’re going to mature more quickly. So, when you plant a zucchini cucumber, it’s possible that from germination, they can be producing in as little as, you know, 35 days, 45 days, depending on the variety. So you have plenty of time to direct seed a lot of crops in your garden in July and in August. And one of the things that happens is that you plant through you put in new seeds, you get new plants through the disease cycles and the pest cycles in your garden. So maybe your cuces got all beat up, your zucchinis got all uh killed off by the vine bore or something like that. You can keep planting and you can harvest middle of August, late August, September depending on the zone. All right. So, the chat is working and rolling in Lisa Moore questions, suggestions for eating 100 radishes. So, one of the things I talk about is succession planting. And I always use radishes as an example. I love radishes. It’s hard to eat a hundred of them. So, when you plant radishes, you kind of want to plant like 50 at a time. After they germinate, wait two weeks, plant another 50. After they germinate, wait another two weeks. This way, you’re getting your radishes spread out over time, and you don’t have to eat a 100 or 250 radishes all at once. Suggestions. Um, you can actually stir fry them and pickle them, you know, but I don’t know, see what people think. Is it too late to direct sew eggplant seeds and get a harvest? It is, in my opinion. I if I planted them in Maryland right now, the seeds would germinate. They would grow. The plants do like the heat. If you’re in a place that doesn’t get a frost, our frost rolls in around the end of October. You could give it a try, but it is a little bit late for eggplant. I do encourage people to experiment because gardening covers so many gardening zones. You know, you could, you know, drop a couple of seeds. always plant like three seeds in case one or two don’t germinate, but plant, you know, two or three seeds and just watch that plant grow. I I think it’s not going to be long enough depending where you’re at, but you can certainly experiment and see how it goes. What it will tell you at least is you’ll see how far the plant gets before the frost comes in, and then you’ll know, you know, for next year when to direct seed your your um eggplant. Allan and M guys, make sure you put question. Sometimes I see them anyway, but put question in bold before your question. Anthrachnos seeing a lot of fungal issues. I’m seeing a lot on my tomato plants, too. Is there a way to eliminate or slow this? Any advice? Um, is highly respected. So, check out my channel and look up hydrogen peroxide spray. Hydrogen peroxide spray actually cleans the leaves of tomato plants and other plants. Always test spray before you try new sprays. So, hydrogen peroxide can really help. I also use a baking soda spray to prevent the fungus from spreading. You can use any antifungal to manage the fungal issues and anthrachnos and all that. You do have to spray on a regular schedule. I am losing a lot of my tomato plants to fungal issues even with spraying because it’s just raining crazily here and I put down the spray it rains it washes off it’s humid it’s still raining the next day so plants are getting beat up but it is manageable I always say that you can’t eliminate these fungus or the fungi if you have them in your garden they’re going to show up every year but you can greatly reduce the damage with antifungal sprays Continuing on the peace subject, I kept expecting mine to die, but they bounce about back. How long into the heat should I expect them to last? It’s going to just vary because we’re in different garden zones, but typically when the days are in the upper 80s and the sun beats down, most peas sometimes, you know, they begin to die back. They don’t produce flowers, you know, and they kind of die off. they just don’t produce well. If yours keep keeps bouncing back, producing flowers in pods, I mean, obviously you let them go. They can kind of hang around, but they don’t produce a whole lot. And we also rip them out because of that because you just just have a plant that’s alive and it’s doing a couple of sprouts, but it’s not really producing well. Yeah. So Susan, you’re in in Detroit, so I don’t think you have enough time for eggplant. Can I plant some Persian cucumbers in a six-foot raised bed that has a pumpkin planted in it? I You can. I would probably try and trellus that cucumber upward so that the pumpkin can take all the space down below, but you could do that. Is it too late to direct seed peppers? I think it is. Um, I don’t know where you’re at 007. Um, if you don’t get a cold fall in a freezing winter, you can probably direct seed them, but peppers and eggplant are are usually out for now. So, some of the plants that you can definitely direct seed now, cucumbers, zucchini, squash, winter squash, okra, you can put in another round of carrots, put them in a shadier area. Turnipss, put them in a shadier area. There’s a lot that you can plant. The whole idea with direct seeding in July, and I mentioned it a little bit in the beginning, is the earth is just warmer. So, these seeds really germinate quickly. They grow fast and you get to harvest much sooner than you think and much sooner than what’s on the seed pack. I think the biggest key to success really is watering. Because it’s so hot, you put in the seed, you want to water it every other day and and then once it germinates, a good 10 days of watering every other day or so that the root system establish. That’s, you know, the whole key. In a day or two, that top two inches can heat up to well over 100° Fahrenheit. Like, I don’t know, 36 37° C. Heat up, dry out, and kill off your seedlings. So, you want to stay up on the watering, but there is so much you can can plant. And also around now, a lot of the cuces and zucchinis get beat up. I’m losing zucchini. I’ve lost all of them actually to the crazy rain we’re having. Don’t get discouraged because you can just replant. I’m on my fourth wave of cucumbers. I’ll be doing a video on cucumber care. My first round is starting to die out, but I pulled out like I don’t know 40 cucumbers from there. Plant in waves and you can do that through July and even early August in a lot of areas. I direct uh sewed my tomatoes, bell peppers in early May, and the pepper plants still look like starts, I believe. And the plants are only 6 in tall. Ochre is 24 in tall, 9B. So, I would just hit any plants that are struggling, hit them now with a water-soluble organic fertilizer. It’s going to give the nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium uh to the plants in a form they can use right away. So, go ahead, hit them with the water soluble. You can use organic, you can use the chemical types. You know, chemical fertilizers, humanmade, aren’t going to wreck your garden. No matter what you hear online, it it just doesn’t happen. Gardens to really thrive and to really be organic, you just need to use tons of compost. The extra fertilizers can come in organic form, more expensive on your budget, use the chemical types. Anyway, it’s the water soluble form of nitrogen that will help your plants really take off and grow. So, hit them now. And I have a video on on it, I think maybe from last month, on how to help struggling plants. Did this with my shashidto peppers and I’m on my second round of production now. Hit them with the water soluble fertilizer. Wait a week. They should green up. They should grow more. Hit them again. Wait a week. Hit them again. With that two or three waterings of the water soluble, your plant should take off. There’s no need to kind of wait around for a struggling plant to take off. Use the water soluble. It’s your best friend. After all the rain, tomato leaves got black spots but no yellowing leaves. Any idea what it is? I don’t know. Usually, if it’s a fungal issue, you get a brown or black spot with a yellow circle, a yellow halo around it. That’s what I’m getting. I’m spraying. It’s not staying under control. I don’t know exactly what the black black spots are. Um I would keep an eye on them. If you use an antifungal, it’s not going to hurt to spray now. You know, you don’t have to go crazy and spray the entire garden and spray every plant, but if the tomatoes have something on there, I would hit them with the uh baking soda spray or any kind of antifungal you want to use. All right, just trying to see where I left off here. Now, the questions and everything are rolling in. Uh, I have a raised bed with squash, but I put a watermelon and cantaloupe at the end. I heard they may crosspollinate. Is that true? Um, I don’t think that it’s true. Uh, it doesn’t matter. Things can crosspollinate this year, but it doesn’t affect the formation of the fruit. So, you could do sweet peppers, hot peppers next to each other. They could cross-pollinate. You’re not going to get a sweet hot pepper this year. The seeds are what carry the cross-pollination. So the seeds that you collect this year and plant next year would have characteristics from both plants. So there’s nothing to worry about for cross-pollination unless you’re collecting the seeds. Little ants are in my squash flowers. Are they going to prevent the bees from pollinating? Should I get rid of them? Actually, ants will do some pollination for you, so they’re not going to hurt anything. If you have ants that are problematic and digging into the soil, disturbing your roots, causing issues, I have a video um making a borax, B O R A X. Just check out my channel, Borax Ant Bait, that will kill them off. So WK I just saw this to continue. Nothing seems to be growing well in my garden this year except my long beans, sweet potatoes. I did not add new soil. I did not till my soil this year. Could that be the reason? Probably not. I mean it could be a fertilizing issue, but I don’t think so. So, I mean, anytime you can put down grass clippings for mulch, adding compost, just lay it on. That’s fine. Tilling is not going to make a difference to be honest with you. Um, I would just go with the water-soluble fertilizer. If you’ve added in new products like bag soil that has a lot of shredded wood in it, that can take nitrogen from your plants. That can cause an issue. But, you know, without really seeing more, I don’t know exactly what’s going on with your garden. But, I would still say the same thing. water- soluble fertilizer. If you’re really stressed about it, I would use the chemical water solubles that have a 2412 or 2412, something like that, NPNK. It’s really high in nitrogen. In that case, I would use it at full strength. It’s going to give the plants a a lot of nitrogen, and that’s going to help them grow. Typically, I recommend if you’re going to use that, your garden’s doing okay, do it at half strength. You just don’t need all that nitrogen. But that’s a case where the chemical fertilizers, the fertilizers people make, scientists make, chemists make have great value for emergencies. You know, go ahead and use them. Using them, really using them is not going to harm your garden. But if you’re using them once, twice, three times a year, it’s definitely not going to cause any harm. You just hear too much hype about chemical fertilizers being a problem. Compost is the key. All right, trying to find out here where I left off. Robert asks, “Do you prefer land race peppers from previous year gardens or do you buy new seeds?” So, it could be a typo. I don’t know what land race means and I’m trying to fill in the blanks, but I just use my seeds from each year. I don’t harvest seeds from the peppers. Um, sometimes if you grow a plant, it’s nice and strong. You collect the seeds. Over time, you can get a plant that does really well in your area. But I just use the seeds. I don’t buy new seeds. Um, I do buy new seeds when I find new varieties. I can’t help but buy seeds. But a pack of seeds kept in the house ziplockc bag can last three years, 5 years, and even longer. So you can use old seeds, waist knot, you’re in Southern uh California, you can sew a whole lot. I just don’t live out that way. Um, I mean, you can direct you can sew anything now in your climate and let it grow. Cool weather crops are going to get beat up. You can’t do those till later. Um, but peppers, eggplant, we were talking about, warm crops that are going to be affected by the fall cold that’s rolling in in our areas. You’re not going to get that right away. So, there’s just so much you can grow. Can I direct direct seed baby bok choy? You can, but not in the heat. Bak choy seeds goes to flower really quickly in the warm soil. Bok choy pock choy baby bok choy is a cool weather crop. It likes really 40 50°ree nights, 60°ree days. Direct seed that in the fall or when your temperatures are coming down. I actually recommend all your pock choys and bok choys to direct seed. When you try and seed start them, I always found they flower and they they bolt too quickly. They definitely should be direct seeded. Should I pull out waning cucumbers before I reed with more cucumbers or should I put the starts there? So, if the cucumber plants that you’re replacing are dying out and just not producing, just yank them out. You know, get rid of any issues with them and and get rid of them. But if your plants are still producing, you can, you know, go to the side, drop in some seeds, let them start and grow. This way, that plant is still going to produce a little bit more for you, then die out, then you remove it. It’s really up to you. It’s not too late for pumpkins in West Texas. You can plant them. If you’re worried that the cold, the frost is going to come in and damage your longer growing pumpkins or melons, look for shorter um to harvest varieties. Gardening really is Nancy who is a perk member um an experiment. like you collect the information, but until you go out in the earth, plant and grow, take notes, track, you’re not going to really be able to um that’s not true. You’re going to be able to improve your garden no matter what, but you’re not going to be able to kind of tweak your garden to your unique zone unless you really experimenting and taking notes and seeing what does well, when you can plant stuff, when it’s too late to plant. I mean, that’s how you learn. Good morning, JK. I’m having a problem with slugs eating my sunflowers. Any suggestions for reducing them other than beer traps? Beer traps are a lot of work. I um recommend not a specific brand, but like Sluggo, you want baited slug and snail pellets. Um they’re either baited with sulfur or they’re well they’re baited so they eat them but they have sulfur in it or they have iron phosphate. They come to the baits they eat it shuts down their stomach digestion whatever they die off but I like the baited snail and slug pellets with either sulfur or iron phosphate in them. You can find them just about anywhere. I just planted some more carrots. So, I do recommend planting carrots about now. They will germinate, get off to a great start. You don’t want them in a place that’s baking with the sun. So, put a shade cloth over them, but they can go into the ground. Now, when is it safe to direct sew lettuce seeds in South Carolina? Who I mean, you’re close to me. I wouldn’t really d I’m not going to direct seed any of my lettuce till about mid August here in Maryland zone 7 and that’s just so that it doesn’t bolt and that means you know it gets too hot at flowers it doesn’t grow well but you can drop a shade cloth over the area you want to grow that will cool the soil maybe start a little bit uh earlier that goes back to the experiment I mean you know I’m thinking you know mid August for question is lime used to protect leaves against different insects. It can be. I don’t really use lime, but people do do that. Um, lime is very alkaline, sits on the leaf, the insect crawls through it, gets on them, and it can dehydrate them. It can mess them up. It can also be a way to stop fungal issues from growing because it changes the pH on your leaf. However, lime can also damage your leaf. If you have a lot sitting on there, it gets wet. It can be an issue. So, anytime you add a spray or a dust to your garden, test it out. Wait 48 hours. See if it causes any damage. Can you ex uh Tiny Purple is also a perk member. Can you suggest a variety of potato to attempt to plant right now? So now it’s hard to get seed potatoes, but you can put another round in. They may not get as big, but you’ll be able to harvest them. Um red pontiacs are great. Yukon Golds are great if you can find them. But I would go to the grocery store. your red potato, your uh yellow potato. If they say you go to organic store, they might tell you what they are. Look for the Yukon Golds uh and the red Pontiacs. Those are great potatoes to grow. Nick, any reason why you don’t plant or talk about okra? Well, I did plan it and it’s in my last video. I don’t I mean it’s just some stuff I just may not talk about, but in the video I’ll send the link out again. Hold on. That link will take you to my 18 plants to plant in July. And I planted okra. So my okra is doing well. Okchra loves the heat. It’s a great warm crop. I like eating it raw off the plant. So, we gave okra its spotlight. I do pickle most of the cucumbers. Um, you know, with a 50% acidity vinegar. Theoretically, you can leave your your um jarred pickles out, you know, your pickle products out. I don’t like doing that. Um, I put them in a refrigerator. We have two refrigerators. We eat them pretty quickly, but I leave them out for 3 to 5 days after I pickle them, let them stay at room temperature, go through the process, and then I put them in the refrigerator. All right, JT also perk member. Sorry, I missed what you said about peas. Can I direct sew peas for the fall? I direct sew peas at the beginning of June, but I think it was too hot. So, yeah, I’m sorry about the commercials. I don’t have control over that. Um, yes, you can direct sew peas now. I’m going to direct sew mine, you know, probably in the beginning of August, middle of August, but you can definitely do it now. You can try and grow peas when it’s warmer. You can use shade cloth. You can put them in a shadier part of your garden, but it is worth experimenting. Is there an easy way to kill or deter Japanese beetles? Seven dust chemical works really well to kill them. I’ve also used in the past the Japanese beetle bags. It does attract them. It doesn’t bring more from, you know, miles away to your property. It just takes them all into one place. They fall in the bag, kills them off. Uh my second round of corn I covered with insect netting and something chewed multiple quarteriz holes into the netting to eat the corn. Squirrels or raccoons can be really devastating. I’m grew corn again after not growing it. Raccoons came in, tore it down, they get inside, they shear off the, you know, the outer layer of the corn, they eat the baby corn. It’s just been a mess. But squirrels and raccoons are will chew and dig. I only had female flowers on my spaghetti squash, so I tried cross-pollinating with male zucchini, and that didn’t work. Not really. I mean cross-pollination can work in related zucchinis and squashes. It the timing has to be exactly right. Like the male flower has to open, the female flower has to open, the pollen has to be ready to go from insect to the female flower. Um, so you know, usually you just kind of wait it out and the plant adjusts with male and female flowers, but nothing specific. Question: All my grow bag veggies are doing great, but for some reason, my tomatoes are flowering and growing a little bit, but haven’t gotten bigger tomatoes yet. What should I do? If in general things are going well, that means you’re taking care of them well, you know, and it’s usually the same answer I give. If a plant is struggling and the watering has been consistent water-soluble fertilizer, there’s nothing wrong with hitting them with a water soluble to give them a boost and get them growing. And I would do that. I wouldn’t, you know, do it every week, but give them a big drink of any water soluble right now. See if they respond. My pre-started spring peppers got woody, so I put more seeds out. I hope they grow fast mid as mid October first frost. I’m about to put in some watermelon, cucumbers. Yeah, watermelon, cucumbers, and pumpkins should do fine. Not sure what you mean by the peppers got woody. I mean, pepper plants, the bush itself will become woody. It’s it’s a perennial plant in many areas. If you put seeds out and your first frost is October, they’re probably not going to make it. The peppers just take really long time to sprout, grow, and form. You may get some things, but it may not be the best harvest. Favorite water-soluble fertilizer. I’m affiliated with them, and it’s Agro Thrive. It’s a great organic, water soluble, doesn’t smell like fish emotion. Animals don’t come and dig in the area after you use it. Check out any of my videos for a link in a in a discount. And that’s what I predominantly use is organic aggroth, but I do have the chemical types for struggling plants and emergencies. um plants get greatly damaged, I hit them with that 24% nitrogen water soluble, get them back on track and then I go back to my organic ways. Too late for sweet potatoes. I mean, they need like a 100 plus days. You might get something. I mean, if you I mean, July, August, September, I mean, come September cools down maybe, but I I think it’s a little bit late for sweet potatoes. All right. So, July, really the warm crops here in Maryland, if you want to plant some of the cooler crops, get them started, you’d have to put a shade cloth down. Um, in August I’ll be putting out broccoli seeds and cauliflower seeds and get them growing and they’ll do okay with the heat for four weeks, five weeks. But my goal is to have them, you know, to a nice size and then the cool weather starts rolling in. But really, July is mostly about putting in the next wave of your warm weather crops. And just remember, they’re going to grow really quickly and germinate quickly. So, if you have beat up plants, get some new seeds in now, and I think you’ll be happy. And you could do watermelon, cantaloupe, pumpkin, as we said, cucumber, zucchini, squash for sure. Okchra can go in now. Um, I have put in carrots, turnipss, um, bush beans can go in now, pole beans can go in now. And you know, in many areas, you can still plant them even August 1st. They just grow that quickly. Pamela, I have a volunteer squash or pumpkin something. Are the fruits safe to eat? They should be. I don’t know of any squash or pumpkin that is toxic. Um, and you know, you’ll probably be able to see what it is as the the the food starts or the fruit starts to form, but I think you’re safe. There’s nothing that works for me to keep the That’s funny. The autocorrect is always the best to keep the squash pine boards, but the squash vine bore from killing my squash every year. I’m on my fifth year of gardening. I get one round of squash and the bors take them out. Definitely plant your squash in succession. Let’s just say May 1, plant a couple, you know, the third week of May. Plant some third week of June and then plant some now. That’s four. That’s a lot. Don’t overplant. Don’t plant more than you can tend and care. But the idea is that you’re planting at different points and you’re going to plant through the life cycle of the vine bore. The vine bore usually goes away. They don’t like going after small plants because the plant’s not big enough to to host the the vinebore um offspring basically. So, just keep planting. You know, you really have time to put in more squash now and you could plant again August 1st. Thanks, Chris, for the comment. I don’t think it’s too late for the little pumpkins. you know, you need like I just planted my pumpkins um maybe a week, 10 days ago um because I want them to mature in orange come October. So, you need usually 90 days. So, you got July, August, September, some of October. If your frost isn’t really rolling in to later October, you have time for um pumpkins and the little ones are going to produce much more quickly. What do I use for squash bugs? I am actually using a squash bug trap I made now. I inspect my plants, remove the eggs. Uh, but I made these cardboard tubes that are actually collecting squash bugs at night. I bang them out, I kill off the squash bugs. That’s working really well. Or insect dust on the stem away from the flowers can help. Organic spinad seven dust if you want to use that. However, I find squash bugs are pretty resistant to dust. So, I’m always hunting them and killing them off. But check out my channel on the squash bug trap, the experiment that I’m doing, and it’s working really, really well. What can I plant in the month of July zone six? I had pumpkin squash growing, but a groundhog ruined my garden last week. Ate all the leaves of the plant. Well, they’re the groundhog’s probably going to come back, so you want to try and figure out how to do that. Um, you’re a little bit cooler than us. A shorter day pumpkin, shorter day melons. You can definitely plant zucchini, squash, cucumbers. That can all go in the ground now. You have plenty of time for that. I mean, there’s a lot. Beans, as I was saying. I would check out the video that I just put the link in there. Or 18 plants you can direct sew in July. That’s the name of the video. Um, there’s just a lot All right, where are we at? Oh, it’s almost 11:40. All right, we’re going to wrap up at quarter of Let me just see if I missed your question, please, you know, put it back out there. And again, if you like this format, you want to join Perk members, you just find the join button on the my YouTube page. Um 3.99 a month. I do this format five times a month. It’s a smaller group. I stay out for a full hour and be glad to answer all your questions. Trying to find here where I left off. Oh, there’s so many questions. So Shandandy says not to start lettuce seeds until September in in South Carolina. Uh and you know I will default to people that you know grow in that area. If you want to start sooner, you definitely want to be in a shadier area or you want to be using shade cloth. Julie, thanks for asking people to click the thumbs up. Also a perk member. Squash vine bugs. I just talked about Joe Blue Circle is a new perk member. Please perk members welcome Joe. Blueberries are still producing. You know, interesting thing about blueberries is you have early season, mid-season, and late season producing blueberries. So, I have a mix in my 16 plants. I am still harvesting now. There’s not much left. Um, but it was a good year. I’m trying to put a blueberry video out. Um, but I’m just haven’t gotten to it yet. But blueberries did really, really well this year. What to do when plant when tomato plants go slimy from inside? I’d lost two plants. Is that blight? It’s not blight. Blight and issues usually you see leaf die off and browning and stuff like that. If they turn slimy, I feel like you had an insect or something get inside your plant. And I don’t know what to do about that. Um, I’ve never encountered it and this is kind of the first time I’m hearing of it. I don’t know if other people might have suggestions for you. Yeah, you can’t put pictures into the chat unfortunately. Why are my div.a cucumbers producing male flowers? It is supposed to produce all female flowers. Um, I don’t know the reason to that. um you know the diva if it’s producing all female flowers and that’s all it’s supposed to produce it’s not going to pollinate. However, the diva might be a cucumber that does not need pollination. So they generally have a greater percentage of female flowers and the fruit just grows doesn’t need to be pollinated. You harvest it but doesn’t mean that they won’t produce some male flowers but I don’t know the answer to that. Nancy, thanks for the perk member push question. How would you fertilize a huge garden? Mine is 40 feet by 30 feet. So, that’s a big question, Jenny. Um, there’s lots of ways to do it. I mean, using compost, if you have lots of compost in the spring, in the fall, you’re putting down a couple inches of compost everywhere, and that’s really enough fertilizer, to be honest with you. Where you’re putting plants into the ground, you know, you’re putting in your transplants, two or three tablespoons of an organic granular or a big shovel full of compost, mix it through, good to go. as your plants are growing, if you’re using a water-soluble fertilizer, you have to kind of hit them on routine. However, a garden and you know, you all have like those volunteer plants that grow out of the compost pile. They do amazingly well. We don’t water them, we don’t feed them, they do really well. So, a garden with lots of compost does really well. So, you don’t have to, you know, necessarily fertilize it the whole way. If you’re scattering organic granular fertilizer down, I don’t even follow the package. I just grab some handfuls, sprinkle it across the surface of the soil, but that’s a big question. So, I I mean, I can’t give you, you know, a ton of details that way. Darlene, I use the Aggro Thrive. That’s just the basic general allpurpose. They have another one that is higher in PNK. Either one is going to work. Um, I just use the basic If I missed the answer, I’m ordering some seeds from you and the first time trying to grow snap peas. Is it too late to start in Illinois? Can I use a grow bag? It is not too late in Illinois. You You’re going to be growing them into the fall, so it could just be a little bit too hot. So, grow bags are fine. I might plant a couple now and see how they do, but I feel like peas from germination need a good 70 days to produce. So, if your frost isn’t for 70 days, you certainly have time. If your frost isn’t for like 90 days and it’s really hot, you can wait a little bit longer. Peas can take some frost, the leaves and stuff like that. The pods themselves can’t, but I think you have time. I have nine weeks to my last frost date. Anything I can plant? Well, I mean, you can get ready for tons of cool weather crops, so there’s a lot you can plant. Wait, you have nine weeks to your last frost date. Maybe. Did you mean your first frost date? Um first frost nine weeks. You could I’m just trying to think. I mean, you could probably try and squeeze in, you know, a zucchini plant or something like that or bush beans for the warm crops. Um but in this case, I would read the packets. They’re going to germinate and grow more quickly. But I would check out whatever warm crops you want to plant. See how long they take to harvest. That’s usually from the day they germinate. They’re going to germinate more quickly. But your garden can be getting ready for um you know the cool crops. 113 days for average frost. Yeah, you have plenty of time for growing. All right, we uh I’m going to have to wrap up, so I’ll take a couple more questions. Again, this is the public garden grounds Q&A that I do every second and fourth Thursday of the month at 11:00 a.m. U for people that subscribe to my channel. Um, you should get notifications. If you like this format, check out perk memberships. $3.99 a month. I do this format five times a month and I do some other things and I stay on for a full hour. I’m just going to roll down here. RM, thanks for the book support. looking for some last questions. And if I did miss your question, there’s I I just can’t go back in the chat. There’s just too much going on. And if you didn’t put question really big in the front, I may have missed it. Thank you, JT. I appreciate it. Can we get rid of the yellow mushrooms that sometimes appear in pots with plants only by changing the potting soil? Probably not. Um, a lot of the mcelium of different mushrooms are mixed into your soil and it doesn’t take much for them to grow and expand with the right temperature. I mean, you can try and get rid of the soil and start again, but if there’s any kind of spores or remains of the mushrooms in the pot or whatever, they can come back. All right, I’m going to stay on for three more minutes. If there is a last question, put it out there and then I’m going to get back out to my garden. It rained ridiculously hot yesterday. You can’t really make a pepper plant flower, but bell peppers stop producing and your tomatoes stop producing and a lot of crops stop producing when it gets really hot and the soil heats up. So, you can use shade cloth to cool the soil. You can mulch over the pepper roots, keep them watered, certainly hit them with the water soluble, like I said, give them a nitrogen boost. But if the temperatures have been extreme, plants sometimes shut down for a while until the conditions get to their liking. But mulch can help cool them down, cool the roots down, and then shade cloth can help, too. Do I need to use shade cloth for cucumber, squash, or tomatoes in 10b? If your temperatures are staying in the mid 90s regularly, I would use shade cloth for sure. Can lowering the pH in the ground? Can lowering the pH in ground sustainable with a single application of acidifying agent? You can lower it, but then it usually corrects itself back up to the pH so you have to continue with it or just some structured way over the years. Maryland zone six, when should I start brassacas uh or Michigan? I would start them now actually. You know, you probably have a week or two, but you can start them now. Cuces, yellow leaves, poor fruit, too much or too little water. How should the soil be? So, I can’t answer the soil. Temperature, rain, all that can impact the plant. Lots of water can sometimes damage the roots. So, if it’s raining a lot, you have issues. You want consistent watering. I water my cucumbers three times a week. If the cucumbers look beat up and they’re bad, plant some new seeds now. They’ll grow. Nature will change and those plants will probably be better. For potatoes, um, make sure you wait till all the greenery dies off. But the biggest issue I found with potatoes is people don’t water enough. And if you don’t water enough, they don’t form larger potatoes. You can always up and feed them more with the water soluble or really prep the soil with more potassium and um, more phosphorus. I have tons of videos on growing peppers if you just want to spend some time and and look up peppers. cold water. I mean, maybe it was like ice water, but cold water is not going to shock your plants. Shakeloth really does make a huge difference. All right, we’re going to end with this question. Uh WK potatoes, when to plant potatoes in central Texas, zone 9. So, it is a little bit hot for them now. I mean, usually in Maryland, zone 7, I plant uh March 1st. You probably have a different frost going on, and potatoes can be planted several times through the year. I don’t know for sure. I would ask locally, but I’m feeling like you can plant, you know, peppers towards the end of August. It’ll cool a little bit there. you can get another wave. But, you know, it’s hard to say when to plant certain things in zones that I don’t grow in. All right, thank you guys so much for stopping by. I will see you all fourth Thursday, 11:00 a.m. for the next Garden Grounds. Take