Tomato plants in September sit in a strange spot. Days still feel like summer, but nights have cooled and the light is shorter, and the plant keeps throwing out flowers it has no chance of finishing. Most gardeners let it ride until frost takes the whole thing down. That leaves a lot of fruit on the table.

Most of the advice on how to grow tomatoes covers the first half of the season, back when more of everything was the goal. September flips that. The work now is mostly subtraction – cutting off what will never finish so the plant spends what daylight is left on fruit that can.

Here are the top tasks to do in September to get the most out of your tomato plant before the season ends.

What to Do With Tomatoes in September

How urgent these tasks are come down to your average first frost date. Count backward from that date to decide what to tackle first.

1. Top the Vines

Pruning the growing tip off each main stem of your tomato plants and they will stop growing and ripen the existing fruit instead. The energy will go into swelling and coloring the fruit that's already set. Four to six weeks ahead of the average first frost is the window for this type of tomato pruning, which for much of the country, puts it right about mid-September.

Indeterminate tomatoes are the plants that need this pruning technique. Determinate tomato varieties wrap up on their own and tend to get set back by early topping.

Make the cut just above the highest cluster with a realistic shot, and leave enough leaf cover that the fruit underneath doesn’t scald. Use a sharp, clean pair of pruners. Home Depot carries the Fiskars classic bypass pruning shears that get through green stems without crushing them.

2. Strip Late Flowers & Fruit

It feels wasteful to pull blossoms off a healthy plant. It isn’t. A tomato flower needs roughly six to eight weeks to become ripe fruit, and cool nights stretch that out further. Any flowers opening now are a draw on the plant's energy resources, but produce nothing to show for it. The same goes for fruit that's no bigger than a marble.

Pinch off flowers and small fruit with your fingers as you walk the row. Go back through in a week or two to do another pass. Topping usually prompts a flush of side shoots that also waste energy. Pluck off any tomato suckers that appear as well.

3. Remove Diseased Foliage

Small round spots with pale centers on the lower leaves point to septoria leaf spot (Septoria lycopersici). Bull’s-eye rings inside a dark spot usually mean early blight (Alternaria solani). Both need wet foliage to spread and both overwinter in plant debris, so removing diseased foliage is vital to keep next year's garden healthy.

Late blight (Phytophthora infestans) is the one to move fast to remove. Greasy dark patches creeping in from the leaf margin, sometimes with white fuzz on the underside in damp weather.

Bag infected material instead of composting it and wipe your pruner blades between plants. It’s a containment measure, not a cure. But it's important to clean up diseased plants now to prevent issues next summer.

4. Keep Watering Evenly

September rain often arrives in bursts after dry stretches, and that swing is a common cause of splitting tomatoes. Fruit that's already at full size pulls water in faster than the skin can stretch. Watering tomatoes steadily at the root zone is the fix rather than more water overall.

A soaker hose handles this better than a wand and keeps the foliage dry, which is half the battle with leaf disease. Walmart stocks the Expert Gardener soaker hose that's cheap enough to buy two without putting much of a dent in your wallet. Tuck mulch over the top of it if there isn’t any down already.

5. Get Frost Covers Ready

Frost warnings rarely give more than a day or two of notice, and hunting for a tarp at dusk is how plants get missed and accidentally frozen. A floating row cover buys somewhere between 2 and 8°F (1-4°C) depending on weight, which is often the gap between losing everything and picking fresh tomatoes for another two weeks.

These Agfabric plant covers from Lowe’s are the light-duty option. Heavier grades hold more warmth, but cut more light. Old bedsheets work in a pinch. Run whatever you use down to the ground and weigh the edges with rocks or bricks to prevent heat escaping out the sides.

6. Harvest Mature Green Tomatoes

Green tomatoes that you pick ahead of a freeze ripens well, but only if they have hit maturity – full-sized with the skin shifted from flat dark green to pale whitish or yellow-green. Anything still small and dark won’t color up properly and is better off in a jar of relish.

Chilling injury sets in around 50°F (10°C) out on the vine and wrecks flavor before you ever pick. Clip each fruit with a short stub of stem attached. Sorting by ripeness helps a batch finish together. Hold them between 55 and 70°F (13-21°C). Add a banana to the box to speed up ripening.

7. Save Seeds From the Best Plants

This one’s easy to skip and easy to regret, but saving tomato seeds is a great way to save money next year and grow more of your favorite crop. Squeeze seeds and gel from a fully ripe fruit off the best plant in the row into a jar, add an inch (2.5 cm) of water, and leave it loosely covered on the counter.

Three to five days on, a film forms across the top and the viable seeds have sunk to the bottom of the jar. The fermenting process strips the gel coat, which carries germination inhibitors and can shelter seedborne disease. Rinse seeds clean and spread them to dry, then label and store in an envelope. Open-pollinated heirloom tomato seeds come back true; hybrids don’t.

Two tomatoes on the same vine can have completely different futures. One has finished growing and is only waiting on warmth and ethylene to turn it red. The other is still filling out and probably won't get the chance. Every trick below works on the first one and does almost nothing for the second.

Most of what gets written about growing tomatoes in the closing weeks comes down to a single move: take jobs away from the plant so it finishes the ones it started. That part is sound. Past it, ripening runs on ethylene and temperature, and temperature is the variable a gardener can still nudge in late September.

Which Tomatoes Will Ripen?

Size and shade tell you almost everything. A tomato that has stopped swelling and gone from dark green to a pale, nearly whitish green has reached what growers call mature green. That one finishes ripening on its own, whether on the vine or indoors, and the flavor holds up fine. A hard, matte, undersized tomato is still in the middle of growing. Fruit at that stage tends to rot before it turns.

The calendar backs the eye up here. Pollination to full size runs something like six to eight weeks, so a blossom that opened in early September was never in the race. Pinching those off costs nothing. Whatever survives that triage is the real crop, and it's usually a smaller pile than it looks from the driveway.

Three Moves That Work

Three to four weeks ahead of the average first frost date is when this becomes useful. Earlier and you're ending the season by hand. Later and there's nothing left to work with.

1. Snap Off the Top

Take the growing tip off each main stem, then strip the flowers and marble-sized fruit underneath. It feels harsh. A plant only has so much sugar to hand out, and every blossom opening in late September is a claim on sugar that could be finishing a tomato instead. Amazon sells a classic bypass hand pruner if the stems have gone woody, though a thumbnail handles soft new growth. One caveat: this suits rangy indeterminate vines. Determinate types set a fixed crop and can lose yield when they get cut back heavily.

2. Water Less

Advice to shut irrigation off completely turns up everywhere, and it overshoots. Once fruit stops getting bigger, it's good to cut the amount you water tomatoes in half – that is shown to raise sugar content consistently across trials.

Going bone dry is a different animal. Plants swing back sharply when water returns, and split tomato skins and blossom end rot follow. So taper it down instead. The payoff here is flavor more than speed, which is useful to know before rebuilding a watering schedule around it.

3. Trap Heat at Night

Color development wants 68-77F (20-25C). Push past 85F (29C) and the plant quits making lycopene altogether. Drop under 50F (10C) and green fruit collects chilling injury instead of color. September nights sit right at that lower edge in a lot of places, which is where a cover earns its keep.

A floating row cover from Home Depot goes straight over cages and buys back a few degrees. Throw it on before sunset rather than at bedtime, while the ground is still radiating the day's warmth. Clear plastic holds more of it and has to come off by mid-morning. Fruit already showing a blush responds to all this far more than hard green fruit does.

The Spade Trick, and Why It Probably Doesn't Do What You Think

Here's one floating around. Sink a spade into the soil about 6 inches (15cm) from the stem, sever the outer roots, and the plant supposedly panics and rushes everything to ripeness. It's a satisfying story. The trouble is that a tomato past mature green ripens on its own ethylene, more or less independent of what the roots are up to, and there isn't much research pointing either way on the technique. What root cutting reliably produces this late in the season is a wilted plant. The gentler tug-the-base version probably does even less.

If the Frost Wins Anyway

Pick before the first hard night rather than after it. Green fruit that sits through a 40F (4C) night comes indoors already compromised. Hang a wireless min-max thermometer from Walmart out in the bed and you'll know what the plants are getting, which is rarely what a countywide forecast says.

Clip tomatoes with a short stub of stem attached; a torn shoulder is an open door for rot. Then sort the harvest by color so like ripens with like, and hold it at 55-70F (13-21C). A cardboard box in a spare bedroom is close to perfect. The refrigerator strips flavor out of anything not fully ripe, and a sunny windowsill overheats by afternoon.

Anything still hard and dark green when the vines come down is headed for the fryer or the relish jar. That isn't the worst ending for a September that got away from you.

If you’re growing heirloom tomatoes this summer, then it’s a simple September garden job to save tomato seeds so you can grow free plants next year. What’s more, harvest tomato seeds and you won’t only save money but create plants that are perfectly suited to the growing conditions in your garden or greenhouse. Save your own tomato seeds every year and you will create stronger, happier, healthier plants. And you know what that means: you'll grow even more tasty tomatoes, year after year!

One average-sized tomato typically carries a hundred or more seeds, so you don’t need to sacrifice much of your precious crop. Strong tomato seed – and this method magically separates the strongest seeds to harvest – remains viable for five years, too.

You can only save seeds from heirloom or open-pollinated tomato varieties (those that are pollinated naturally by bees) but this encompasses most of the tomatoes we all love to grow at home from Brandywine beefsteaks and San Marzano plum tomatoes to smoky heirloom Black Cherry and tangy Green Zebra. Don’t bother saving seed from F1 hybrid tomato varieties as it won't produce the same plant.

Here’s how to save tomato seeds and store them safely to enjoy free plants and abundant harvests next year.

1. Pick a Perfect Tomato

Select your strongest, most productive tomato plant, and pick the very best tomato you can find that’s fully mature and slightly overripe.

2. Extract the Seeds

Slice the tomato in half then scoop out the seeds and their jelly-like pulp into a glass jar. With smaller tomatoes, you can simply squeeze the seeds straight into a clean glass jar. Label each jar if you’re saving a few different tomato varieties.

3. Soak the Seed

Next you’re going to soak the seed. Fermenting tomato seeds in this way separates the seed from the pulp, which is vital as this gel inhibits germination. Pour water into the jar, aiming for a 1:1 ratio so there’s a roughly equal volume of tomato seeds and water. Lay a square of paper towel over the opening and secure with a rubber band around the jar rim to keep out flies without obstructing airflow.

Now wait a few days for the mix to ferment and the gel to break down. Keep the jar out of direct sunlight but in a warm spot where you’ll see it, because you need to remember to agitate the mix by giving it a gentle swirl every day. A kitchen countertop next to the kettle is perfect!

4. Separate the Seed from the Pulp

The mix is ready when, looking at the jar from the side, you can see it has started to separate with the pulp floating to the top and some seeds sunk to the bottom. This typically takes 4-5 days. A layer of mold or scum may also form across the surface when fermenting tomato seed, and that’s nothing to worry about. Pour in more water and, as the seeds settle, those that sink to the bottom are the heavy, viable seeds you want to keep. Those that float to the surface along with any scum or mold should be discarded.

Slowly tip the jar so the pulp and scum layer runs out but the viable seeds remain in the jar, or use a spoon to scoop that top goop out. Repeat the process of adding water to the jar, letting the heavy seeds settle and pouring off the top layer, to clean the remaining seeds. For a final rinse, tip the seeds into a fine-mesh sieve and hold under running cold water, rubbing seeds with the back of a wooden spoon to remove any last bits of gel if needs be.

5. Dry the Cleaned Seed

Tip the seed onto paper towel and pat dry, then put on a non-stick surface such as a glass chopping board or a glazed plate. Leave them to dry for 2 weeks out of direct sunlight but in a warm spot with good airflow, gently separating any clumps after a couple of days.

6. Store Seeds Safely

Once seeds are fully dry, put them in a paper envelope and store in a dark, cool, dry spot. A tin in a frost-free garage is ideal, and adding a sachet of silica gel to your seed tin will hoover up any damp and prevent seeds molding. If you're a keen tomato grower and saving seed from lots of different varieties, a seed storage box with separate compartments like this 64-Slot Seed Organizer Box from Walmart makes it easy to sort seed, and it effectively blocks moisture to retain 98% seed viability.

Easy! And now you have a store of tomato seed that you know is well suited to the exact growing conditions in your garden or greenhouse, for a bigger, better crop next summer. Keep growing tomatoes and harvesting and storing seed for a few years and, especially if you have the room to grow a few plants, you can evolve the variety to suit your tastes too. You’ll find one plant produces particularly tasty tomatoes, grows extra-long trusses of fruit, or brings a heavy harvest in a relatively compact space, and by selecting those seeds you can bring that beneficial trait to the fore. And then you have the exact right tomato to grow in your garden space and you’re not just growing heirloom tomatoes but your very own heirloom tomatoes.

You'll no doubt save far too many seeds, but tomato seeds make great little gifts. Write growing instructions on the envelope, pop it in a terracotta pot along with a couple of coco coir soil pellets such as these from Amazon and tie with a ribbon to give to family and friends at Christmas.

Can I Save Seed from Shop-Bought Tomatoes?

Most tomatoes sold in grocery stores are produced from F1 hybrid tomato varieties, so it's not worth saving the seed. Grow your own heirloom tomatoes from seed next year, then save the seed from the harvested fruit. A great place to start your journey is with Burpee's Rainbow Blend of heirloom tomato seedswhich has a colorful mix of six varieties including yellow 'Golden Sunburst', orange 'Djena Lees Golden Girl', red 'Bonny Best, pink 'Brandywine Pink', purple 'Black Krim' and green 'Evergreen'.

Every tomato patch hands over a second harvest at the end of the season, and almost nobody uses it. Spent tomato vines hold minerals the plant spent all summer collecting, and they hold enough structure to be built with. Sending them to the curb in a bag wastes both. What narrows the options is disease, not the material itself.

Good end of season tomato plant care starts with sorting the vines. Late blight (Phytophthora infestans) and powdery mildew (Pseudoidium neolycopersici) do the most damage during the season, though both need living tissue and die along with the plant. What lingers on dead stems is early blight (Alternaria linariae) and Septoria leaf spot (Septoria lycopersici), and a cold heap carries either one straight through to spring. One rule runs through all of it: only clean material gets a second life.

1. Burn the Dry Vines and Save the Ash

Vines have to be bone dry before they burn cleanly, so stack them somewhere sheltered for a few weeks first. Check local burn regulations before lighting anything. Plenty of counties restrict open burning outright, or allow it only in certain months. A contained burn can from Walmart keeps embers off dry grass in a way a loose bonfire pile can’t.

What is left is the mineral fraction of everything the plant pulled up all summer. Garden ash behaves much like wood ash, carrying potassium, a good deal of calcium, and enough liming effect to move soil pH in a single season. Spread it thin, no more than a five-gallon bucket's worth over 1,000 square feet (93sqm) of ground already sitting close to neutral. Keep it off blueberries and anything else that wants acid. Skip the potato bed altogether, because higher pH is what favors scab.

2. Char Them Instead if You Want Biochar

Burning and charring are not the same operation, and the difference matters here. Complete combustion leaves nothing but mineral ash. Pyrolysis – burning with the oxygen choked back – leaves biochar, which holds the carbon skeleton and the pore structure that makes it worth putting in soil.

Stems this thin do not give up much. One whole season of vines might char down to a few handfuls. This works best as an add-on when woodier material is going into the same burn anyway, like prunings or spent stakes. Crush the finished char and let it sit in compost or a bucket of diluted fish emulsion for a couple of weeks. Raw char pulls nutrients out of soil before it starts giving any back.

3. Bury Them Deep... Just Not under Next Year's Tomatoes

Burial beats a cold heap outright. Soil biology is faster and more thorough. Dig a trench 12 inches (30cm) deep, lay the chopped vines in, and cover it back over. Chopping matters more than it sounds. A bypass lopper from Amazon run through the thick basal stems turns a tangle into something that packs flat and breaks down evenly.

Placement is where this goes wrong. Never trench tomato debris under ground slated for tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, or potatoes next season. Early blight and Septoria both persist in soil and old debris. Two to three years away from solanaceous crops is the standard rotation. Brassica and allium beds are both fine. Beans work too, and the nitrogen they fix offsets some of what the decomposing stems tie up.

4. Weave the Sturdiest Stems into a Trellis or Wreath

Clean vines only, and only ones still supple. Main stems on an indeterminate tomato plant turn properly woody by September, and pulled fresh they bend without snapping. Give them an hour in the sun to lose a little water first, then coil the longest ones into a ring and tuck the loose ends back through themselves.

Expect one season out of it. Those stems are pithy and go brittle as they dry, so a woven trellis is a summer object rather than a permanent structure. Wreaths last better indoors where they stay dry. Green stems shrink as they cure, so weave tighter than looks right and bind the coil at three or four points with jute. Loose rings fall apart by November.

5. Lay Them Down as a Path Liner

Walkways between beds are the easiest place to absorb a lot of bulk. Lay the vines flat down the middle of a path, overlap them, and cover the lot with wood chips or straw. They block light well enough to hold weeds back through fall and winter. By spring most of what is underneath has flattened into a mat.

One trade-off comes with it. Damp mats of vines and chips are the shelter gray field slugs (Deroceras reticulatum) hunt for over winter, so keep it on the path itself and off the bed edges. Skip any path bordering next year’s nightshades for a separate reason. Rain splash onto lower leaves is exactly how early blight gets started in the first place.

6. Steep Clean Foliage into a Pest Spray

This one carries more caveats than the rest. Tomato foliage contains tomatine and related alkaloids. The old kitchen method steeps two cups (475ml) of chopped leaves in a quart (950ml) of water overnight, then strains and dilutes it before use. Gardeners have used it on aphids and small caterpillars for generations. Hard evidence is thin – the whole practice is anecdotal rather than trial-backed.

Two rules are not optional. Use foliage only from plants that showed no symptoms all season. Tomato mosaic virus survives in dried debris for up to two years and travels by simple contact. A sprayer full of infected leaf water is about the most efficient way to spread it that anyone has invented. Never put it on other nightshades. Keep the finished solution away from pets and children, and run it through a dedicated pump sprayer from Home Depot rather than one that also handles herbicide.

Heavily diseased plants get none of this. Bag them, leave the bag in full sun for a few days so the tissue and whatever lives in it die off, then put it out with household trash. Everything else in that pile is just material nobody has sorted yet.

Summer may end in September, but vegetable gardening doesn’t have to. The soil is still warm from the summer, air temperatures are dropping, and many cool-season veggies actually perform better this time of year. Now is the time to plant crops that mature quickly for a fall harvest and those that are hardy and will establish over winter, providing an early spring harvest.

Here are some of our favorites to plant in fall along with some tips for healthy plants and an abundant harvest. And if you’re new to growing veggies, check out our comprehensive guide to starting a vegetable garden.

1. Spinach

Spinach thrives in cooler weather and tends to bolt in summer heat, so now is a great time to grow it. Start with seeds, and you’ll have baby greens in as little as 30 to 40 days. You can harvest the older leaves too, as long as you pick them before you get freezing temperatures. If you have a lot of time left in the season, sow seeds in weekly succession for a staggered harvest.

If you have a milder winter in your area, you can also overwinter spinach for a spring harvest. Use a light row cover and mulch around the plants to keep them warm enough to survive and provide a harvest of mature leaves in early spring.

2. Kale

Kale is one of the most cold-hardy of all veggies, so definitely consider planting it this fall. In fact, cooler temperatures produce sweeter and more tender leaves. You can sow seeds, but kale won’t grow as fast as spinach, so consider getting transplants, depending on when you’re starting and your winter climate.

You can harvest baby leaves and also let the plants mature. They’ll still be harvestable well into fall and even into winter, depending on the climate and weather. If your winters are mild, kale needs no protection. Use a cloche or fabric to protect plants in colder winters if you plan to keep harvesting past the first freeze.

3. Radishes

Radishes both like cool weather and grow very quickly, among the fastest maturing of all vegetables. You can sow seeds for radishes in September and have a harvest in as soon as three weeks. Sow seeds in succession to get a few harvests out of the season.

Because they mature so quickly, you probably won’t need any cold-weather protection for your radishes. If some are still going as temperatures drop significantly, use a floating row cover and mulch to protect roots.

4. Winter Salad Greens

Sow seeds for a few types of cool-season leafy greens for a fall salad garden. Arugula and mesclun are good options. You’ll be able to harvest baby leaves within a few weeks. Sow seeds in succession for a continuous fall harvest of salad greens.

Depending on your weather and if you provide some protection, like row covers, you can continue growing these greens throughout fall or even into winter. Cloches, row covers, and cold frames can significantly extend the season. Also, consider growing greens in containers, which can be more easily protected.

5. Garlic

Planting garlic now allows it to establish roots over winter. You’ll get your harvest next summer, so this is one to plant if you don’t need instant gratification. Plant cloves of garlic pointy side up several inches apart. Cover the soil with a good layer of mulch to protect the cloves and roots from cold and frost heaving.

Your garlic will be ready to harvest next summer when the foliage begins to yellow and die back. Be sure to get good quality cloves to plant. Grocery store cloves don’t always work.

6. Hardy Onion Sets

As with garlic, you can plant onions now for next year’s harvest. Look for hardy onion varieties that are meant to overwinter. Plant the sets root side down in prepared soil with plenty of space for each one based on the expected mature bulb sizes.

Add mulch over the plants to protect them from cold winter weather. If you have more extreme winters, you might also need a row cover. Depending on the variety you choose and your climate, the onions will be ready to harvest next spring or early summer.

7. Broad Beans

Broad beans, or fava beans, can easily be overwintered in gardens with mild winter weather. Sow seeds directly outside, but be sure to choose a variety that has some cold hardiness. Your autumn-sown seeds should give you an early spring crop next year.

Use mulch around plants for some protection, and provide some type of vertical structure as it grows, especially if your garden gets a lot of wind. If your winter weather is borderline or you expect an unusual cold snap, use a row cover or cloches to protect young plants.

Tips for Fall Vegetable Gardens

To make the most of your fall plantings, take time to prepare the soil first. Remove any spent summer crops and weeds. Add compost or other organic matter to lighten and enrich the soil. Break up any soil that has become compacted and ensure it drains well.

After sowing seeds or putting in transplants, remember to water regularly. Generally, you can ease up on watering in the garden in fall, but your seedlings and young plants will be thirsty, so keep them watered if it doesn’t rain. Water container plants more frequently.

Never assume fall and winter weather will be consistent or predictable. Check weather often, and provide protection if you expect early frosts and freezes or an unusual cold snap. Use row covers, old sheets, cloches, or containers that you can move for protection and warmth.

September is a transition month, but it doesn’t have to be the end of growing vegetables. Extend your season with quick-growing veggies and use the winter as a time to establish plants like garlic and onions. Good preparation and an eye on the weather will allow you to keep your vegetable garden going long after summer ends.

If you’ve been enjoying ripe tomatoes off the vine all season, then suddenly the merriment stops, there is cause for concern. Tomato plants can be finicky and if something is lacking in its care or the environment, the plant holds back. If your tomato plant is flowering, but not fruiting, there are a few common reasons why and ways to fix it before the season ends.

Keeping your tomatoes healthy with proper care should help get production back on track. But at this time of year, the specific causes can vary. I'll walk you through several reasons why a tomato plant flowers, but has no fruit. Then I'll share how to solve these issues before the growing season comes to a close.

Follow these tips now to resolve these issues and ensure you get a big harvest of tomatoes before fall weather arrives.

How to Turn Tomato Flowers Into Fruit

After reviewing possible causes of no fruit set, there are a handful of tasks you can do right now to fix problems before the season ends to ensure you still get a huge harvest.

1. Keep Plants Cool

If your weather is consistently hot, above 88°F (31°C), your tomato plants may be heat-stressed and cause flowers to drop off before setting fruit. But you can cool the temperature by as much as 10 degrees by adding a shade cloth to your garden.

You can use a light-colored sheet, a window screen, row cover fabric or a shade cloth, like this one from the Home Depot, that allows a percentage of light to come through and also provides UV protection. Attach it to the side facing west and also lay some fabric across the top of your plant to shade the midday sun. You can leave it up until the heatwave passes or put it up each afternoon.

If you don’t have mulch around your tomato plants, you can do that now to conserve moisture and cool the soil. Use wood chips, straw, grass clippings, or chopped leaves and apply a 2 to 3 inch (5-8 cm) layer. Also, be sure you are watering consistently so the soil does not dry out.

2. Water Well

If the temperature is moderate, make sure you are watering tomatoes properly. Tomatoes need 1 to 2 inches (2.5-5 cm) of water a week. Two or three deep waterings are better than daily shallow watering. Deep watering encourages deep roots and shallow watering encourages roots to stay near the top of the soil where they dry out faster.

The soil should stay moist, but not wet. Drip irrigation puts water right where it is needed and avoids a lot of runoff. Content Editor Laura has used this easy-to-use drip irrigation kit from the Home Depot in her garden for years.

If you are hand-watering, avoid splashing water onto the lower leaves. If that is a problem, remove the lower leaves to prevent soil-borne diseases.

3. Feed With the Right Food

Continue to fertilize your tomatoes, but lighten or remove the nitrogen from the mix. At this point in the summer, your plant doesn’t need to grow stems and leaves, it needs to concentrate on fruit set and ripening.

If you aren’t already, use a liquid tomato fertilizer with a higher middle number (phosphorus) than the first number, or nitrogen, such as 1-3-1. This tomato-specific fertilizer from Burpee is a good option. Apply it every two weeks according to the product instructions.

4. Hand-Pollinate Plants

In case of poor pollination, you can do the job yourself and hand-pollinate tomato plants. Since tomatoes are self-pollinating, both the male (anthers) and female (stigma) parts are within each flower. So all you need to do is throw a little jiggle its way to release the pollen.

To do this, you can gently toggle the flower cluster back and forth as you walk by each morning or simply aim a fan in the plant’s direction. You also can take a paintbrush and move the pollen from the anther to the stigma. Another option is to tap a vibrating electric toothbrush behind the flower. Do this every day for several days to make sure the job gets done.

5. Catch Problems Early

Monitor for common tomato diseases and pests that strike at the end of summer. White flies, aphids, caterpillars and diseases such as verticillium wilt and fusarium wilt affect tomato production.

When necessary, use organic controls such as insecticidal soap and neem oil, both of which are available on Amazon, or a blast of water to repel pests. Caterpillars can be removed by hand. Unfortunately, there is no cure for wilt diseases. The best defense is to grow disease-resistant tomato varieties to prevent problems.

Keeping your tomatoes healthy with proper watering, fertilizing, and monitoring for pests and disease should help get the tomato production back on track. Pollinating the plants and using a shade cloth in the afternoon also can ensure you will once again enjoy ripe tomatoes until the end of the season.

My kitchen garden and veg beds look a bit crumpled around the edges. Beans have gone a bit stringy this last week, and my favorite butterhead lettuce has turned bitter. Pulling out spent zucchini vines feels like conceding the season: it’s not over yet, though. Soil that’s still this warm is a precious commodity, so why not put it to work?

Salad greens sit near the top of any list of easy vegetables to grow, and in late summer they get easier still. Seeds that might sit sulking for a week in April can be up in three days at the moment. Sow before the month is out, and there’ll be pickings by mid-September, with more coming clear through to the first hard frost. The bed need not be empty first, since these new crops can go in wherever a crop came out.

So treating these empty gaps as lost space is a wasted opportunity. Warm August soil can accelerate germination, root development, and subsequent nourishment. By growing fast-maturing crops in the warm, vacant pockets left by cleared peas or early potatoes, you’re fast-tracking your next harvests. You can dodge peak summer pest cycles, enjoy early maturing flavors, and fill salad bowls straight through to late fall.

Fast Salad Crops to Grow in August

Before you rush to fill those gaps, think about the condition of the earth, and the general light and drainage. The spent crop has left a space, sure – but what gets left behind will be lumps and root holes that fine seed has no chance in. So before you sow these crops, rake the space until the surface resembles coarse sand. An inch (2.5cm) of compost forked into the top 3 inches (8cm) can help restore a little of the goodness. It will also hang onto water better than sun-baked ground. Skip the deep digging, though: none of these crops will root far enough down to notice.

While warmth is appreciated in the earth, baking heat can be problematic. Lettuce and spinach flatly refuse to germinate once the soil is baking, and corn salad is no better about it. Water the furrow before the seed goes in (rather than after), since watering over the top washes fine seed into clumps. Add some sifted or aged compost or a fine potting mix, such as Espoma Organic Land & Sea Compost from Amazon, which restores critical nutrients and moisture for late summer plantings. Anywhere that puddles in a downpour will need a raised row.

Regional climate differences will have some bearing on sowing success. Gardeners in USDA hardiness zones 3-6 need to move quickly to ensure crops reach maturity before daylight drops below 10 hours a day. Growers in zones 7-10 face 90°F (32°C) heat spikes, so an overhead shade cloth can help to keep seedbeds under 75°F (24°C). Direct sowing is usually better than plugs for these fast crops, as transplant shock can waste precious growing days. Don’t forget to keep the seedbed damp to prevent surface crusting once you get these fast-growing crops in the ground…

1. Arugula

Nothing else in the salad bed moves this fast. Arugula (Eruca vesicaria) germinates in 3-4 days in warm ground and gives a picking of baby leaves inside 3 weeks. The August advantage is flavor as much as speed: summer-sown rocket leaves are fiercely peppery. Cooler nights soften it back toward something usable. Wild rocket has a narrower leaf and more heat. You can buy Organic Arugula Seeds from Eden Brothers for a nutty kick that matures in 28-40 days and also flourishes in large pots.

Thriving in zones 3-10, arugula prefers full sun and requires rich, moist soil with a pH between 6-7. Flea beetles are the biggest threat, so cover with a lightweight mesh. Plant alongside carrots or bush beans, which won't crowd its shallow roots. Protect dense growings from downy mildew with some Arber Biofungicide Spray from Walmart. Cut outer leaves for harvesting. One sowing can carry on for 6-8 weeks.

2. French Breakfast Radishes

Radishes (Raphanus sativus) are the usual recommendation for a child's first crop, and the reason is timing. They take 3-4 days to germinate, and less than a month to be ready to pull. Little else in the garden moves that fast. Sow the French breakfast type instead of a globe. Crops come up tapered with a white tip, and stay milder in warm weather than the round sorts do. Snatch up packs of French Dressing Radish Seeds from Burpee for crunchy pink and white gems that mature in 25-35 days.

Thinning is the step nobody bothers with. Crowded radishes make tops and nothing below. Pull one at 20 days to check. An inch (2.5cm) between plants should do it. The thinnings can go in the bowl too, since the tops taste like mild mustard. Suitable for zones 2-11, radishes just need light, well-draining soil. Uneven watering can cause roots to crack or turn woody, so maintain consistent moisture.

3. Mizuna and Tatsoi

These Japanese greens, both forms of Brassica rapa, behave almost identically. Mizuna throws up feathery, deeply cut leaves with a faint mustard bite. Tatsoi makes a flat, glossy rosette that shrugs off frost. Both give baby leaves in 3 weeks and full heads in 6 weeks. You can buy Tatsoi Spoon Mustard Seeds from Eden Brothers for hearty Asian greens that mature in as little as 30 days, and Mountain Valley Seeds Red Streaks Mizuna from Amazon for a vigorous red and green leaf in 45 days.

Reliable in zones 4-9, they thrive in full sun or partial shade. Tatsoi is impressively cold-hardy, surviving to 15°F (-9°C). Flea beetles are the only problem, but throw a floating row cover over the bed at sowing time, and it won’t be an issue. The Hortifan Plant Cover from Amazon is great for repeat use. To harvest, shear baby leaves an inch above the ground or let the rosette mature for a single-harvest cooking green.

4. Corn Salad (Mache)

Corn salad (Valerianella locusta), or mache, rewards a little more waiting. Its seed sulks in hot ground, so the end of the month works better than the start. Performing best in zones 5-9, mâche requires soil temperatures below 68°F (20°C) to break dormancy, making late August and early September the sweet spot for sowing. What it gives back is cold tolerance: the small rosettes of soft, nutty leaves even keep going under snow. Buy minty sweet Ohio Heirloom Seeds Lamb’s Lettuce (Macha) from Amazon for frilly rosettes of nutritious leaves that mature in 40-45 days.

It tolerates poor soils well, but benefits from light, moist ground in full sun to partial shade. Pair with slow-growing winter brassicas or garlic, and avoid overwatering once established. It requires little feed and is largely ignored by late-season pests. Harvest the rosette with a knife just below the crown. Nothing else here will still be standing in February.

5. Land Cress

The sticking point with watercress is that its feet have to stay wet. Land cress (Barbarea verna) gives the same hot, peppery hit and grows in ordinary ground, which is why catalogs also sell it as upland cress. Either does fine in a pot sat in a saucer of water, topped up daily, but land cress gives you another option with veg bed gaps. Buy Tomorrow Seeds Upland Cress from Walmart for a zippy, vitamin-rich fresh green leaf machine that’s perfect for small spaces and containers.

Hardy in zones 5-9, land cress thrives in full shade where other greens struggle. It behaves as a biennial, often overwintering to produce spring greens before going to seed. Plant alongside moisture-loving herbs like mint or chives. Keep soil wet to maintain its crisp, peppery bite. Usable pickings follow within 5 weeks. Cut sprigs from the outside, and it regrows.

6. Spinach

Half-empty rows can often be the story with August spinach (Spinacia oleracea), as the seed can stop germinating reliably once the ground warms past a certain point. The fix is to cool the ground first to under 75°F (24°C). Place a shade cloth, like the Coolaroo 70% UV Block Shade Cloth from The Home Depot, over the bed for 4-5 days ahead of sowing, and you’re golden. After that it behaves, with baby leaves in around 30 days, then repeated cuttings from the outside right through fall.

Thriving in zones 3-9, spinach needs neutral-to-slightly alkaline soil (pH 6.5-7.5). Plant alongside radishes or strawberries to maximize space efficiency. Stick to deep watering to encourage strong taproots to withstand cold snaps. You can buy lush and hearty classic Heirloom Bloomsdale Long Standing Spinach from Burpee for a late summer fiesta of nutty goodness that is slow to bolt but quick to mature (40 days).

7. Red Mustard

Deep purple over green, with veins darkening almost to black as the nights cool, is not a color combination the salad bowl often sees. Red mustard (Brassica juncea) earns its place on looks alone. Then there is the heat, which is close to horseradish and builds as leaves get bigger. Suitable for zones 4-10, it thrives in full sun and adapts well to most soil types if drainage is good. Try Red Giant Mustard from Eden Brothers for lush leaves that are bolt-resistant and take only 40 days to mature.

Baby leaves are ready in about 3 weeks, while plants left to size up can survive cold snaps that flatten everything around them. Excellent plant partners include onions, garlic, and rosemary, which help to deter brassica-loving pests. Harvest frequently using a cut-and-come-again approach, leaving the central growing point intact to ensure a steady supply of fresh, spicy foliage until heavy frosts set in.

8. Claytonia

Claytonia perfoliata makes small heart-shaped leaves on tender stems, each one eventually holding a little cup with a white flower at the center. Thriving in zones 4-9, claytonia prefers cool, damp, partially shaded conditions, making it ideal for tucked-away garden corners or under taller crops. Soil should be rich in leaf mold or compost and kept moist. Buy MYS Miner’s Lettuce Claytonia From Amazon for a rich vitamin load at a bargain price that should flourish well into winter.

This fast-growing salad green is ready in 40 days and is super-hardy, carrying on under a cloche long after the rest has stopped. It germinates better once the ground cools, like mache, so treat it as a late-August job. Plant with mâche or winter pansies in cold frames. Snip stems gently near the base to encourage multiple harvests, and allow a few plants to flower at season's end for free self-sown crops next year.

Need more ideas for getting the most from your plants, indoors and out, and looking for the best seasonal expert advice delivered straight to your inbox? Sign up for the free Gardening Know How Newsletter!

Whether you are growing pumpkins for Jack o’ lanterns, fall decor, fairs, or food, now is the time to push that extra oomph to ensure a bountiful autumn harvest. August may be a challenge in your area due to excessive heat, drought periods, or an increase in bug and disease activity. That is why it is important to keep up with consistent watering, proper feeding, and insect scrutiny this month.

The vines should have ample fruit set by now so it’s important to support their development in the final stretch rather than coaxing more fruit or leaves. Decreasing nitrogen fertilizer and ramping up the potassium will focus plant energy on the developing fruit.

Growing pumpkins doesn’t need to be overwhelming, but following a few tried-and-true suggestions will keep your pumpkins from withering on the vine or becoming a bug buffet.

What to Do for Pumpkins in August

Here are four tasks to perform in August to keep your pumpkins on the right track to maturity and harvest.

1. Water Deeply

Water pumpkins deeply once or twice a week. They need from 1 to 2 inches (2.5-5 cm) per week. Pumpkins are 90 percent water, so keeping up with consistent watering will ensure your pumpkin vines are hydrated and can carry nutrients from the soil to the pumpkins.

Water will prevent leaf wilt and stress, but often wilting pumpkin leaves occur on hot afternoons then perk up in the evening. If they don’t perk up by morning, there is cause to suspect vine borers.

Always water from below and keep the water from splashing on the leaves to prevent fungal diseases. Drip irrigation is ideal. Content Editor Laura has used this easy-to-install drip irrigation kit from Home Depot for years and loves it.

Cleaning up the vines and removing them to the trash at the end of the season also will help prevent fungal spores from overwintering in the debris. To keep the fruit dry and rot free, place a thin board, shingle, tile, or stone under developing fruit. Also, carefully rotating the pumpkins every week or two keeps them developing evenly.

2. Reduce Nitrogen Fertilizer

The pumpkin vines are already set with fruit by now. They do not need more vegetative growth, but they do need a potassium boost to support strong stems and fruit quality.

If you have been fertilizing pumpkins regularly, reduce the nitrogen from now on and supplement with a fertilizer that's higher in potassium, like this one from Espoma on Amazon. Or you can sidedress the pumpkin patch with compost to enrich the soil.

About 4 to 6 weeks before you expect to harvest, stop all feeding so the pumpkins focus on ripening.

3. Monitor for Insects & Disease

Squash bugs, squash vine borers, and powdery mildew are still a threat to pumpkins in late summer. Check the undersides of leaves for orange to red squash bug eggs or the grayish adults. Pick off these common pumpkin pests when you see them and drop them in a bowl of soapy water. They will be slower in the early morning. Lightly squash the eggs or remove them with masking tape.

Vines that stay limp likely have a squash vine borer tunneling inside the vines. Inspect the limp vine for an entry hole with frass below. If there is only one entrance, you may be able to save the vine by removing the larva.

Using a clean blade, make a vertical cut an inch or two (2.5-5 cm) from the entry hole. If you see the larva, remove it, kill it, and cover the cut with soil. With any luck new roots will grow at the nearest node. If unsuccessful, remove the failing vine so the borers do not pupate in the ground to emerge next year.

Powdery mildew thrives in humid, shady conditions and is characterized by a white, powdery substance on the leaves. Keeping water off the leaves helps with prevention. But once the problem starts, you can’t cure it. However, you can stop it from spreading.

Remove the leaves that are most infected with the mildew and increase air circulation. There are organic and chemical controls available, but they work better when used as a prevention. You can use a sulfur-based fungicide now, according to label directions, to stop the spread. This copper fungicide from Bonide on Amazon is another good choice.

Powdery mildew doesn’t usually kill the vines, but it is unsightly. If powdery mildew is a problem every year, you might consider starting a spray program before it starts or at the initial onset until the humid weather subsides. Some resistant pumpkin varieties are available, too.

4. Stop New Fruit Production

To stop any new pumpkin production that probably won't mature by fall anyway, pinch off new female flowers and new growing tips at the end of main vines. Female flowers have a bulbous growth below the petals. Pruning pumpkins this way redirects energy to the existing squash.

Any new fruit that sets after mid-August should be removed as well. This forces the plant to focus its energy on ripening the existing fruit and encourages bigger pumpkins. Though you may be sacrificing more squash, each pumpkin will be larger.

Pumpkins are a popular and fun plant to grow, and providing consistent water, feeding, and vigilant care right up until pumpkin harvesting time will ensure your squash make it to the finish line.

Tomato plants spend August pushing out side shoots faster than anyone can keep up with. Most of those suckers end up on the ground, forgotten by evening. Something else happens when one goes into a jar of water instead. Tomato stems carry the cells that become roots along their whole length, so a cutting never starts from scratch the way a seed does.

Anyone who has learned to grow tomatoes from seed knows the wait involved, since a spring transplant needs six to eight weeks before it is anywhere near ready for the garden. A rooted sucker skips nearly all of that. The tissue is already mature. It flowers on its own schedule rather than growing up first.

Which Shoots Are Worth Taking?

A tomato sucker sits in the crotch where a leaf branch meets the main stem, angled up at roughly forty-five degrees. Left alone it becomes another branch, and that branch will carry flowers of its own by autumn. Two things get cut by mistake here – the thick vertical stalk running up the middle, and the horizontal leaf branch itself. Neither one should come off. At 4 to 6 inches (10-15cm) a sucker holds enough stored energy to support itself without carrying so much leaf that it wilts before roots arrive. Smaller than that tends to be weak. Much bigger and the cutting spends its first week in shock.

Parent choice matters more than size, though. A clone carries whatever the parent has. A vine already spotted with early blight or curling from virus hands those troubles straight down to the new plant. That is a rough way to spend eight weeks. Pick from the healthiest plant in the row, ideally one still putting on fresh growth, snip just below a node with something clean and sharp, then strip every leaf off the lower half of the stem.

Water or Soil?

Rooting tomato cuttings in water is the method most people reach for, mostly because the roots are visible. A jar on a bright windowsill works well, kept out of direct sun, with only the bare stem submerged and the leaves held clear of the surface. Any leaf touching water will rot and foul the jar. Fresh water every couple of days prevents that. A clear jar makes progress easy to check. Roots usually show in seven to fourteen days, and once they reach an inch (2.5cm) the cutting is ready to pot up. I'm a big fan of this propagation station from Amazon, which turns the whole process into a work of art.

Rooting straight into moist potting mix skips a step. Water roots and soil roots are not quite the same structure, so cuttings moved from jar to garden often sulk for a few days while they adjust. Push the stripped stem two inches (5cm) into damp mix. Keep it shaded and evenly watered. A gentle tug after ten days will say whether it has taken. A tray of 4-inch nursery pots from Amazon can handle a dozen at once, about the right number to lose a couple and still come out ahead. Rooting hormone is optional at best on tomatoes. If you do want to use it, go with this one from Amazon.

Getting Them Through the Heat

A rootless cutting in August has no way to replace what it loses. Afternoon sun is the main threat for the first two weeks. Morning light with shade from noon onward is about right, whether that comes from the east side of a building or from a panel of shade cloth from Home Depot stretched over hoops. The same goes for a cutting set in the ground rather than a pot.

Humidity helps as well. A clear plastic bag propped over the pot for a few days keeps the leaves from drying faster than the stem can supply them, though it has to come off once new growth appears. Keep the mix damp rather than wet – cuttings rot about as easily as they root. Once the plant is pushing fresh leaves, a week of gradually longer sun gets it ready for a permanent spot.

Racing the First Frost

Timing is the honest catch here. Rooted cutting to ripe fruit runs somewhere around eight to ten weeks in decent conditions, which puts an early August start into fruit by mid October across much of the country. Cherry tomatoes and the smaller plum tomatoes ripen fastest. Their fruit sizes up in a fraction of the time a big slicer needs, and a plant loaded with twenty small tomatoes beats one holding two green softballs.

Cold is manageable up to a point. A frost cover from Walmart thrown over the row buys several degrees on the nights that would otherwise end things. Anything growing in a pot can move to a porch instead. Tomatoes picked at the first blush of color finish ripening indoors, so a late flush never goes to waste.

The whole thing costs a jar and some patience. There is something quietly satisfying about eating fruit in November off a shoot that was headed for the compost pile in August.

As you read and learn about a specific plant’s pruning needs and preferences, you may develop some pruning anxiety. With such specific pruning rules, you may feel like you need a diagram next to a plant to prune it properly.

But not all plants are fussy about pruning. Many plants are much more laid back. One of my favorite forgiving plants to care for are tomato plants. But even though growing tomatoes and pruning them the right way is easy, there are still some important guidelines you need to follow for the best results.

Pruning tomatoes the proper way and at the proper time can increase your yields, make harvesting easier, and keep plants pest and disease-free. Here’s how to prune tomatoes for healthy plants and bigger harvests.

Should You Prune Tomato Plants?

The answer to this question is actually a personal one. Some people assert firmly that pruning tomato suckers improves the production and health of a plant by improving airflow, which can reduce the spread of disease. Others claim that pruning tomato suckers damages the plant unnecessarily, opening it up to disease without providing considerable benefits.

Your tomato plant won't instantly grow three new stems in the place of every stem you cut, but it will reward your pruning efforts with a bounty of delicious fruit. Regularly pruning tomato plants will help the plant produce more fruit.

Plants need foliage to create energy from photosynthesis, but the growth and development of foliage uses up a lot of the plant’s energy that could be used for fruit production. Cutting off tomato suckers redirects the plant’s energy away from growing new stems in favor of producing more fruit. Pruning off extra stems also means that your plants will produce less tomatoes that are bigger in size.

It is possible to get overzealous when pruning tomatoes and wind up with an over-pruned plant. First you need to understand which types of tomatoes benefit most from pruning and then I’ll walk you through how to prune tomatoes the right way for the best results.

Pruning Different Types of Tomatoes

When it comes to cutting back tomato plants, there are some things you need to know. Tomato plants fall into two categories: determinate and indeterminate.

Determinate Tomatoes

Determinate tomato plants are shrub-like. They grow to a certain height, then stop growing up and instead fill out and grow bushier. Determinate tomato plants also go to flower and fruit all at once.

‘Patio’, ‘Roma’, and ‘Celebrity’ are a few popular varieties of determinate tomato plants. Because they fruit in a shorter time span and grow as more compact plants, determinate tomato plants need less pruning.

When you first plant a determinate tomato, you should prune off any tomato flowers that form before the plant is 18-24 inches (45.5-61 cm) tall. This will redirect the plant's energy from flower formation to developing strong roots.

As the plant grows, prune out any crossing, crowded, damaged, or diseased stems and foliage to keep the plant open, airy, and free of pest and disease. Removing tomato plant leaves that grow just beneath the flower sets will send more energy to fruit formation.

Indeterminate Tomatoes

Indeterminate tomato plants are more like vines. They grow long stems that continually bear new fruit sets. You can save space in the garden and focus on fruit production by growing indeterminate tomato plants vertically up poles, arbors, trellises, or fences.

They can be trained and trimmed easily to grow as single stemmed, heavy fruit-bearing plants by removing excess tomato plant leaves and sucker stems that form along the main stem.

Many heirloom tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, and ‘Better Boy’ tomatoes are popular varieties of indeterminate tomato plants. In late summer, they can be top pruned to redirect the plant’s energy into ripening its last fruits.

When pruning tomato plants, or any plants, focus first on removing foliage, fruits, or stems that show any sign of disease or pests. Then sanitize your tools and wash your hands to prevent the spread of any common tomato diseases or pests that may have been present.

How to Prune Tomato Plants

If you have decided that pruning tomatoes is the best course of action for your gardening goals, you need to make sure that you do it the correct way to help reduce the chances of disease.

1. You want to start pruning tomato plants when they get to be about 1-2 feet (30-60 cm) tall. Any smaller than this, and the plant may not recover from the shock of being pruned.
2. By the time your tomato plant gets to be this size, the plant will have branches coming off the main stem. Where these branches meet, you will see an additional branch growing. This is called a tomato sucker. Using a sharp, clean pair of pruning shears, snip these small sucker branches off.
3. The best time to prune tomato plants is in the early morning on a dry day. This will allow for the wounds from the pruning to heal cleanly and will reduce the chances of the plant being infected by disease.
4. If you choose to prune tomato plants, make sure that you use irrigation methods that water tomato plants at the soil level (like this soaker hose from the Home Depot) rather than from above (like sprinklers). This will prevent soil splashing up onto the tomato plant and the tomato plant's wounds, which can introduce disease pathogens.

Essential Tomato Pruning Tools

Bare stems with fruit still hanging on them make an alarming sight in the middle of August. The plant looks like it is dying. Peppers left behind start scalding in the sun without any canopy over them. Something is wrong, though the plant is rarely as far gone as it appears.

Most trouble with growing peppers this late comes down to four causes, and they leave different fingerprints. Where the shedding starts, what the fallen leaves looked like on the way out, and what the weather has been doing will narrow it down fast.

1. Heat

Peppers stop cooperating when days push past 90F (32C) or nights stay above 75F (24C). Pollen turns tacky at those temperatures and pollination fails. Pepper blossoms drop before they ever set fruit. Leaf loss follows as the plant sheds what it cannot keep hydrated through the afternoon. Wind through a hot spell makes it worse by stripping moisture faster than roots replace it. The tell is the order: flowers go first and foliage follows, not the other way around. A stretch of shade cloth from Home Depot over hoops takes the edge off a heat spike without cutting light enough to matter.

None of that is fatal. Plants that shed flowers through a hot spell start setting again once nights cool. That means early September across most of the country. Resist the urge to tidy up in the meantime. New fruit comes off wood the plant already has, and cutting peppers back hard in August leaves less of it to work with. The leaves still hanging on are shading fruit that would scald without them.

2. Water Swings

Erratic watering does more damage than watering lightly. Roots that go from saturated to bone dry and back lose fine feeder tips every cycle. The plant balances that loss by dropping leaves, lowest first, while the top stays green. Container peppers get hit hardest. A pot can swing from wet to dry in a single hot afternoon, where peppers in open ground shrug off a missed day. A soil moisture meter from Amazon pushed down near the root zone answers the question faster than poking a finger in the surface.

The fix is rhythm rather than volume. Water deeply on a schedule the plant can rely on. Mulch keeps the top few inches from swinging between extremes every day. Here is the confusing part. Overwatering yellows pepper leaves exactly the way drought does, since roots in saturated soil cannot pull oxygen either. Dig down and squeeze a handful. Soil that holds its shape and glistens is too wet, and soil that will not clump at all has gone past dry.

3. Nutrients

A heavy crop is a hungry crop. Peppers pull nitrogen out of older foliage and move it into ripening fruit. The lowest leaves pale first. They yellow, then they let go, while everything above them looks perfectly healthy. That gradient from the ground up is the signature. It tends to show right as the first fruit starts turning color. Nothing is diseased here, and the plant is doing exactly what you asked of it, just at its own canopy’s expense.

Feeding peppers lightly helps, but you should leave it at that. Too much nitrogen this late pushes soft growth that will not ripen before frost. High-nitrogen fertilizer is itself a documented cause of blossom drop, which turns one problem into two. Peppers draw heavily on potassium while fruit sizes up, which is the argument for leaning that way rather than skipping the feed altogether. Something balanced or potassium-leaning at half strength supports fruit already set without redirecting the plant back into leaf production. This one from Amazon is a good bet.

4. Disease

Two diseases spot pepper leaves in August, and the shape of the spot tells them apart. Bacterial spot begins as water-soaked flecks on the undersides of older leaves, darkening to brown or black inside a narrow yellow halo, with angular edges where a vein stops them. Cercospora, the fungal one, makes rounder lesions with pale tan centers and dark rims. Gardeners call it frogeye. The name explains itself once you have seen one. Either way the centers dry and drop out, the leaves go shot through with holes, and defoliation runs from the bottom up until the fruit is sitting exposed. A copper fungicide from Amazon slows both, so the diagnosis can wait until after the first spray.

Handling matters as much as spraying. Both travel on splashing water and on hands moving through wet plants. Stay out of the row until the foliage dries and water at soil level from here on. Neither has a cure once a plant is far gone. Pull the worst ones and keep the debris out of the compost. Clean seed and a resistant variety are the real answer next spring.

The bottom of a tomato goes tan, then dark, then flat and leathery. It looks like something contagious tearing through the plant. Blossom end rot is not a disease at all. No fungus or bacterium started it – the plant just could not move enough calcium into that tomato while its cell walls were going up.

Anyone who has spent a season or two growing tomatoes might know the pattern, since the first flush tends to take the worst of it. What matters now is the crop already hanging out there. Some of it is worth saving. Some of it is costing the plant energy for nothing.

What Is Blossom End Rot?

Blossom end rot isn't a disease. It's actually a lack of calcium. Calcium builds the glue holding cell walls together. It travels one direction only – up from the roots through the xylem, riding along with water. Soil moisture that swings from soaked to bone dry and back again stalls the delivery. Farthest from the stem, the blossom end is where it runs out. Cells there collapse, the tissue dries into a dark leathery patch, and the scar stays for the life of the tomato. Peppers and squash do the same thing under the same conditions, a decent clue that no pathogen is involved.

Most garden soil already holds plenty of calcium. The popular fixes miss for exactly that reason. Foliar sprays cannot deliver it. Calcium sitting in a leaf has no route into a tomato, and the skin will not take it in from outside. Then there is Epsom salt. It's made of magnesium sulfate and has no calcium in it whatsoever. In fact, the extra magnesium competes for uptake at the root. Don't try it!

Calcium nitrate applied around the drip line is a good bet. You can find it on Amazon. This is best for preventing blossom end rot in future fruit.

Toss It

Some tomatoes with blossom end rot are a lost cause.

A green tomato with a sunken black patch across the bottom third is finished – dead tissue stays dead. It will never fill out or ripen evenly. The plant goes on pouring sugars and water into it regardless. Pulling those off frees all of that up for what is still coming. Think of it as triage rather than loss.

Take them at the stem with a snip or a clean twist. They can go on the compost pile without a second thought, since nothing infectious is involved. The only reason to bin the mushy ones is that secondary mold has usually moved into the open tissue by then. That mold is a squatter, not the cause. Either way, the plant is better off without them.

Pick It

A tomato that has started coloring up with only a small dry patch underneath is a different case entirely. The lesion stays where it is. Damage at the blossom end does not creep up to the shoulders, whatever it looks like from below. Everything above the patch is normal in every way that counts. Half a tomato is still a tomato.

Bring those in a couple of days early and let them ripen on the counter, out of direct sun, because sitting on the vine only gives the soft spot more time to work outward.

Cut generously, an inch (2.5cm) past the dark edge. The rest slices, cooks, or freezes like any other tomato. There is no toxin here and nothing to catch. Canning is the one real exception – damage of this kind can push pH higher than clean fruit runs, and extension guidance keeps it out of the canner for that reason. Fruit ripened off the vine also runs slightly less acidic, one more reason the canner is the wrong destination for these. Fresh use and freezing carry no such worry.

Leave It on the Vine

Undamaged fruit stays put. The fix from here is water rather than anything sold in a bottle. Aim for a deep soaking that wets the whole root zone, on a schedule the plant can count on. An inch (2.5cm) a week covers most gardens, and a hot stretch takes more. Guessing is where this falls apart – a soil moisture meter from Amazon pushed 4 inches (10cm) down settles it faster than a finger test. On the weeks that get away from you, an inexpensive hose timer from Walmart keeps the schedule from slipping. Containers dry out fastest, so they need checking more often than a bed does.

Mulch handles the other half. Two to three inches (5-8cm) of pine bark mulch from Home Depot over the root zone slows evaporation. It also steadies the soil between waterings. A hoe worked in close does the opposite, since chopped roots cannot take up water they never reach. High-nitrogen feed can wait until the plant has recovered. Anything already half grown is past the window where this happens, so it will stay clean.

New tomatoes sitting on a plant with steady water usually come in perfect. That is the reward for treating the cause instead of the symptom.

August is when a tomato garden stops being a project and starts becoming a serious workload. Plants sag under the weight of fruit, harvests outpace your kitchen, and the gear that seemed optional back in June suddenly is not.

It’s typically best to buy your tomato growing gear early in the season, when the plants are small and the summer still looks manageable. By the time a vine is six feet of tangled growth loaded with fruit, the gap between what is on hand and what is needed becomes obvious fast. Luckily, that gap doesn't cost much to close.

The tomato growing tools that earn their place this late are not glamorous. They hold plants upright or help move fruit from the garden to the kitchen. Here are the essentials you should snap up now, if you didn’t buy them at the beginning of the season.

Essential August Tomato Tools

Most of the tools you need for growing tomatoes in August remain useful for years. Late-season tomato problems are often mechanical rather than mysterious. Plants fall over. Fruit gets bruised on the walk indoors. A countertop fills faster than anyone can eat through it. Here are the tools you need to help solve these common issues.

1. Heavy-Duty Tomato Cages

The flimsy tomato cages sold every spring are the first thing to fail. An indeterminate tomato in August weighs far more than that wire was built to carry. A plant that goes over in a storm snaps stems and drops fruit onto wet soil where it rots. Damage at this stage in the season does not grow back. Fruit on the ground draws slugs besides.

A square tomato cage from Home Depot in heavy-gauge steel holds a mature plant without leaning and the wide openings make picking easier than a cone cage ever did. Fitting one over a grown plant takes patience, but still beats staking a collapsed vine after the fact. Anything already flopping can be tied to a stake driven at least 12 inches (30 cm) deep.

Another great alternative is to use modular tomato cages – Senior Editor Liz swears by this trellising method. You can easily install modular cages even when plants are large and full of heavy fruit. Just snap them together around the plant.

2. Potassium-Heavy Fertilizer

Fertilizing tomatoes in August isn't very important – or so the thinking goes. But plants still setting fruit draw hard on potassium and container tomatoes in particular have run through all their nutrients by midsummer. A plant that quits flowering in the heat needs reserves ready for September, because a second flush is usually there for anyone who feeds it.

Espoma Tomato-tone from Amazon is a 3-4-6 mix, which puts potassium ahead of nitrogen. That's important where fruit quality is concerned. This mix includes calcium, too. Blossom end rot is nearly always a watering problem rather than a soil calcium shortage. Steady moisture corrects more cases than any product would, though. Granular feeds go in around the drip line rather than against the stem, then get watered in.

3. Sharp Bypass Pruners

Harvesting tomatoes by hand can tear the vine. Twisting a stubborn one may snap the branch it grew on. An August plant is carrying too much fruit to spare the stems. Lower leaves need removing now as well, since foliage touching the soil gives early blight a route up the plant. Tomato suckers are worth pinching out too, since a plant this size gains nothing from more foliage.

A pair of bypass pruners from Lowe's makes clean cuts that seal quickly, unlike the crushed stubs left behind by anvil-style tools or bare fingers. Wipe the blades between plants to prevent spreading diseases. That takes seconds and slows whatever is already loose in the patch.

4. Harvest Basket

Shirt hems and buckets both fail when you have a hefty tomato harvest in August. A shirt holds a limited number of tomatoes before something drops and a solid bucket lets the bottom layer get crushed under whatever lands on top of it. Ripe fruit bruises easily, too. Anything bruised has to be used the same day.

The Fiskars harvesting basket from Amazon has a colander side, so a load can be rinsed with the hose and drained before it reaches the counter. The flat bottom sits rather than tips, which sounds minor until a full load goes over. Rinsing outside turns a two-trip job into one and soft spots show up under the water.

5. Water Bath Canner

A big glut of ripe tomatoes always seems to land all at once. A short row of healthy plants puts out more in two weeks than the average household can eat in a month and freezer space runs out long before the vines do. Tomatoes are acidic enough for water bath canning, which is the simplest way to preserve your vegetable harvest. New lids are single-use, though the jars themselves will last decades.

A Granite Ware water bath canner from Amazon holds seven quart jars and comes with the rack, which matters more than it sounds. Lifting hot jars out of boiling water without one is how people get burned.

USDA guidance calls for added acid in every jar, usually bottled lemon juice or citric acid, since many modern tomato varieties sit close to the safety line. This step is not optional for safe consumption of canned tomatoes.

6. Frost Cloths

Your local first frost date is an average of past years' first frosts, not a promise. One cold night in late September can end a plant still carrying thirty green tomatoes and the forecast rarely gives more than a day or two of real warning. Anything still green when it happens will ripen indoors in a paper bag, though it never quite matches vine-ripened taste.

A floating row cover from Home Depot draped over the plants ahead of a cold night traps enough warmth to carry them through the cold snap. It goes on before dusk and off in the morning, since trapped heat can do as much harm as cold. Using frost cloths can extend your tomato harvest for two or three weeks, which is enough to separate a decent growing season from a great one.

August is upon us, which means that my annual panic over my green tomatoes refusing to turn red has begun in earnest. Every morning, I make my way outside and inspect them closely, searching for the slightest hint of blush. A tiny patch of pink? A warm orange glow? Any sign that my beloved tomatoes are finally ready to become the pasta sauces, salads, and summer lunches I have been imagining since I planted them.

You guessed it, folks: none whatsoever. Instead, they remain stubbornly green and completely uninterested in my plans – and nobody shares my pain, as I am far more invested in this tomato harvest than anyone else in our house. My four- and two-year-old children have already informed me (several times) that they will never, ever eat a tomato, and my husband’s taste preferences are apparently not much more adventurous.

I am the only person eagerly waiting for that perfect moment when I can finally pick my tomatoes and turn them into something delicious. This year, though, my husband (who, as well as being an avowed tomato hater, is also a professional gardener with two decades of experience under his belt) has shared his secrets with me. Finally.

Why We Shouldn't Panic Over Green Tomatoes

As it turns out, green tomatoes are not necessarily a sign that something has gone wrong. In fact, this summer’s extreme heat could be the reason they appear to have pressed pause.

Yes, while tomatoes love sunshine, they have a surprisingly specific comfort zone when it comes to ripening – specifically temperatures around 70°F to 75°F (21°C to 24°C). This is the sweet spot when it comes to efficiently producing the pigments that create their familiar red and orange colors. And so, when daytime temperatures consistently climb beyond around 85°F to 90°F (29°C to 32°C), the plant can temporarily slow down pigment production.

"That means your tomatoes might look perfectly full-sized, plump, and ready, but they will remain stuck in the 'mature green' stage until conditions become more favorable," my husband explained.

Considering he is the most zen man in the world (the joys of working outdoors), it's hardly surprising that my husband’s first piece of advice for my annual green tomatoes anxiety was to "stop panicking and give them time".

Thankfully, he knows me. He knows that, as someone who has been emotionally checking the same tomatoes every day, this is easier said than done. And so, to help soothe my torrid thoughts, he shared a few things I can do to help my tomato plants focus their energy on ripening the fruit they already have.

Shop Tomato Cooking Essentials:

1. Strip & Pinch

If you want to coax your green tomatoes into turning red, the first thing to do is to remove some of the lower leaves. By stripping away leaves near the bottom of the plant, you can improve airflow and allow more light to reach the developing fruit.

You can also pinch out the main growing tip of the plant. This stops it from putting energy into producing new flowers and encourages it to concentrate its remaining resources on ripening the tomatoes already growing.

2. Don't Let Them Bake

My instinct has always been to assume that more sun must equal faster ripening, but my husband says green tomatoes (and red ones, too) are at risk of sunscald, which appears as pale, leathery patches on the skin.

"A tomato doesn’t need to be baked to ripen," he reminds me. "If you notice a tomato showing even the faintest hint of color, pick it and bring it indoors. You can leave it ripening on a kitchen counter, where conditions are often much more suitable."

3. Water Consistently

Inconsistent watering? Apparently a cardinal sin if you're trying to shift your green tomatoes into the red zone.

Regular watering at the base of the plant helps support healthy growth and can reduce problems such as fruit splitting and blossom end rot, where the bottom of the tomato becomes dark and sunken.

"The aim is consistency," my husband says pointedly (almost as if he's been watching me and sighing when my back is turned). "Not a dramatic rescue mission every few days when the soil looks desperate."

Shop Watering Essentials:

My husband’s final piece of advice was perhaps the hardest one for me to accept: this is usually just a temporary pause, and patience (as ever) is a virtue. "Once temperatures drop and conditions become more comfortable, tomatoes often get back to the important business of ripening," he says.

I suppose I have to admit that, while my husband may not enjoy eating tomatoes, he sure does know how to grow them; reluctantly, I have to admit he might know what he’s talking about. And if a few particularly stubborn green tomatoes should still refuse to cooperate, even after all of this advice? Well, I have a backup plan. Green tomato chutney.

Wish me luck...

Now I'm using old cardboard boxes to mulch my vegetable patch this summer, my plants are flourishing despite the heat, I spend far less time watering and weeding, and I don’t have to deal with cat poop. It took an hour to do, and didn’t cost me a penny. And even though I only mulched this raised bed a week ago, I've already saved more time than it took to lay the cardboard. So from now on, I’ll be making cardboarding an essential part of growing vegetables in my garden – and yes, I do think this brilliant DIY gardening trick deserves a new word.

As a gardening editor, I get to read piles of garden articles and my feeds spill with greenery and gardening hacks. I read an article about using cardboard boxes to smother weeds and start new beds; then I read another about using cardboard as a mulch to lock moisture in the soil, and I was intrigued.

You see, my veggie bed was in dire need of help this El Niño summer. Exposed and south-facing, my garden had withstood 8 weeks with zero rainfall and was reliant on my irrigation which, 2 weeks into a hosepipe ban, had become more erratic than ever. I'd been so busy that, in my vegetable patch, weeds had grown so tall they were flowering and seeding. And the one area of bare earth? My cats had adopted it as their favorite poop spot.

I had a bunch of cardboard boxes waiting to be recycled, so I decided to give this eco-friendly, biodegradable mulching idea a go. And honestly, laying a cardboard mulch is the best thing I’ve done all summer. As well as the expected benefits, the cardboard layer means I can (literally) throw buckets of water onto the veggie bed without worrying about washing soil away, so it (literally) takes me a minute to irrigate the entire patch. Earth has already accumulated around the necks of holes cut to accommodate plants, creating pools that hold water so more gets to the roots where it's needed. My free mulch looks pretty good, too.

I'm sharing exactly how I did it, because I reckon you should, too – honestly, it's been a game-changer for growing vegetables in a hot summer.

1. Pull Out the Worst Weeds

While the cardboard will quickly smother seedling weeds, I pulled all the perennial weeds such as thistles and nettles, as well as annual weeds that had grown big. Because my garden is next to a hay field, all sorts of seeds blow in, and my bucket was soon filled with an A–Z of weeds. I even discovered a self-seeded poppy.

2. Flatten and Prep Boxes

I flattened the boxes and removed all the packaging tape and address labels from the cardboard. I didn't want chemicals from these leaching into the soil, or plastic that wouldn't break down, and removing them also made the cardboard more porous.

3. Lay the Cardboard on the Soil

I laid sections of cardboard on the soil surface, cutting holes to fit around the plants and doing my best to overlap the edges by a couple of inches. Because this is a raised bed, the cardboard didn't need weighing down to keep it in place; if my veg patch was a bed in the ground, I'd put a few stones along the edges of the cardboard stop the wind getting beneath it.

4. Water Thoroughly

I threw a fair few gallons of water onto the cardboard, both to hydrate the bed but also to wet the cardboard so it softened, molded itself closer to the soil surface and all the sections stuck together where they overlapped.

Before and After

Here’s a photo I took before I started, with the weeds out-competing my poor veggies for moisture (the shame!):

Here’s a photo I took an hour later, once I’d finished.

Is the Cardboard Mulch Working?

Definitely. The good news is that since I mulched my vegetable patch with cardboard, the plants are doing better than ever, though I'm spending far less time watering. I haven’t seen a single cat poop, either, and I can't tell you how happy I am about that.

In the week since I laid the cardboard, the corn has started fruiting.

The cucumber has thrown out several new stems.

Even the artichokes – which I thought the heat had killed off – have started shooting from their bases.

I’d really recommend using cardboard to mulch vegetable beds. In my garden, the cardboard mulch is doing a great job of suppressing weeds and it’s saving me so much time watering in this heatwave weather. Even when the top surface of the cardboard looks totally dry, when I lift a corner the soil below is still nice and moist. All the worms seem super-happy, too. The cardboard will slowly break down to improve the soil structure and next year, I won’t have to bother cutting around the plants either, as I’ll be cardboarding before I sow, leaving a criss-cross of gaps.

I already add shredded cardboard to my compost heap but using it as a mulch, too, works wonders. As I practise no-dig gardening in this bed, the cardboard doesn't cause me any issues and, in spring, I'll simply lay my usual layer of compost mulch over the top. I'll be trying this mulching method on my shrub border, too, laying cardboard before I tip over a layer of compost, to beef up its weed suppressing and water conserving abilities. As gardening tips go, laying a cardboard mulch has been a real game-changer for me.

More Biodegradable Mulches

Just in case you’re wondering, the self-seeded poppy survived the cardboarding process!

The soil is still warm. August feels like the tail end of the growing season, which is exactly why the beds get abandoned early. Six vegetables sown now mature fast enough to fill a harvest basket before frost arrives.

Midsummer gardens start looking tired around now, and it's tempting to let the beds coast into fall. Warm soil speeds up germination, though. Shortening days work in favor of anything grown for leaves or roots. Plenty of crops planted in August will still hit maturity while the weather holds.

Match days to maturity against the average first frost date, then pad that number a little. Cold weather crops handle a light freeze without complaint. Several of them taste better after one. Anything tender has to finish before cold sets in for good, so the fast growers go in first.

Fast Crops Worth Sowing Now

Seed packet advice assume decent conditions. Fall hands out shorter days plus a cooling seedbed, so adding a week or two to that number keeps expectations reasonable.

Soil that is above 85F (29C) will stall germination on a few of these. A soil thermometer from Walmart settles that question in about half a minute.

1. Bush Beans

Most gardeners file beans under summer and leave it there. Bush beans (Phaseolus vulgaris) go from seed to picking in roughly 50 days, though, so an August sowing lands comfortably ahead of frost across a lot of the country. Germination in warm ground can happen inside of three days. Beans will not tolerate freezing, at all. The countdown matters here more than it does for the hardier crops. Pick young and pick often.

2. Radishes

Three or four weeks is the whole run from sowing to pulling, which barely counts as a commitment. Radishes (Raphanus sativus) slot into gaps between slower crops. Fall roots come out milder than spring ones — the heat that turns them sharp and woody is on its way out by then. Sow a short row every couple weeks instead of the whole packet at once, or everything sizes up together and half of it splits before anyone gets around to pulling it.

3. Carrots

Timing gets tighter here, since even the quicker carrots (Daucus carota subsp. sativus) want 60 to 70 days. Southern gardens have room for that. Northern ones are cutting it close unless the bed gets covered later on. Germination is the fussy part — seed sits shallow and dries out fast under an August sun, so the top inch (2.5cm) has to stay damp for a good stretch. A length of shade cloth from Amazon over the row takes some pressure off the daily watering. The cover comes off once the seedlings are through.

4. Beets

Two harvests come off one planting, since the greens are worth eating long before the roots size up. Thinning plants go straight into a pan. Beets (Beta vulgaris) want 50 to 60 days for a decent root. After that they hold in the ground through several frosts, sweetening while they sit. Crowding happens no matter how carefully the sowing goes — what looks like a single seed is really a cluster. Thin to about 3 inches (8cm) once the seedlings are up.

5. Broccoli

Seed started this late will not head up in time anywhere north of the Gulf. Transplants are the practical route for broccoli (Brassica oleracea var. italica). Nurseries stock them for exactly that reason. Heat stress on a young plant causes buttoning — a tiny useless head, then nothing. Shade during the first week after setting out is closer to mandatory than optional. Cabbage loopers (Trichoplusia ni) are still working in late summer and can strip a young plant fast, so netting goes on early rather than after the damage shows. Side shoots keep coming after the main head is cut.

6. Kale

Frost improves kale (Brassica oleracea var. sabellica). Not much else in the garden can claim that. The flavor shifts from harsh to mild over a single cold snap — cold triggers sugar production in the leaves, a rough antifreeze. Plants set out now have time to bulk up first. Harvest from the bottom leaves upward and the same plant keeps producing into winter in milder zones. That last part is reason enough on its own.

Getting the Timing Right

Counting backward from the average first frost date is the whole method. Take the maturity number and add ten to fourteen days for the fall slowdown. Count back from there. Anything landing past the date needs either a shorter crop or some help.

Help is cheap. A floating row cover from The Home Depot thrown over the bed on a cold night holds a few degrees. A few degrees is often the difference between losing a bean planting and getting another two weeks out of it. It's a hedge against a bad week, not a season extension in itself.

Frost dates are averages anyway — the first hard freeze can turn up well ahead of schedule, so watching the forecast through October pays off. Plant a little more than seems reasonable, and the fall table tends to take care of itself.

The right plant care in August has a huge impact on the flavor and appearance of tomatoes, as well as how long your harvest lasts for. We’re approaching peak tomato harvesting period this month, so how you look after your plants directly affects the quality as well as quantity of fruit. Start redirecting the plant’s energy on fruit formation and ripening, rather than needlessly growing more foliage, and you will be rewarded with tons more tastier tomatoes.

Without appropriate, targeted care in August, your tomatoes may split, develop unsightly black spots on their bases, and plants might fall prey to fungal disease and red spider mites that put an abrupt end to your harvest. With the right care, however, plants will stay happy, healthy and continue to produce plump, flavorful tomatoes for many weeks to come.

None of these 5 steps are a difficult part of growing tomatoes so get this essential August tomato care right and you can look forward to your best harvest yet. Understanding why you’re doing each task is a key part of keeping tomato plants producing all summer. Why? Because then you’ll be able to tweak each care task to perfectly suit your growing conditions and tomato varieties, whether you’re raising cherry toms or beefsteak tomatoes, outdoors or in a greenhouse, in any zone. Here’s everything you need to know for tip-top August tomato plant care so you can enjoy your best crop yet.

1. Strip Off Lower Leaves to Reduce Disease

First on the list of what to do with tomato plants in August is to strip off some of the lower leaves of indeterminate tomatoes. These plants will be dense with foliage by now, and removing some at stem bases allows better airflow, which in turn reduces the risk of disease. It also allows sunlight in to ripen fruit, and allows you to spot any developing issues faster.

This seems like a fairly drastic task but, as long as you don’t strip off leaves any higher than the halfway point of the plant, you’re doing more good than harm. I start by stripping lower leaves at soil height at the start of August, then take off another layer every week, gradually raising the leafless height to halfway as peak harvesting time is reached. This gradual strip doesn’t shock the plant, and reveals tomatoes just as they need the ripening sun.

Why bother? Well, late tomato blight, when fungus-like organism Phytophthora infestans infects plants and causes both leaves and fruit to rot, is a big risk at this time of year, particularly for outdoor toms. Indoors, leaf mold – which brings similar symptoms to the leaves, often with a grey-brown mold on the undersides – is the harvest slayer to avoid. For both, good airflow around the plants is the very best prevention, and stripping off lower leaves is the number one way to achieve it.

If you want to add another layer of protection, then make a simple, effective anti-fungal spray with baking soda for your tomato plants. Removing lower leaves from the plants also makes it much easier to irrigate without wetting the leaves, further reducing the risk of disease.

There’s no need to strip leaves from determinate tomatoes, though do remove any leaves touching the soil to reduce disease risk.

2. Prune for a Full, Flavorful Harvest

Channelling plants’ energy into growing fruit rather than foliage now is the difference between a basic crop and a bumper harvest so, if you're wondering how to get a good tomato harvest, get your hand pruners at the ready! Remember, indeterminate tomatoes are vines, and they’ll keep growing – and growing – until the frost kills them, so if you want lots of fruit you need to curtail that growth, and redirect that energy into fruit production.

Keep cutting or pinching off any shoots that grow in the junctions between the main stem and leaf stalks. This stops plants wasting energy on growing fresh stems and foliage.

In mid-August, or when a plant has around four or five trusses of tomatoes, pinch out the main growing tip of indeterminate tomatoes. All you have to do is use hand pruners to snip off the uppermost few inches of the main stem, or simply snap it off with your hands. This halts the vine’s upward growth, redirecting its energy into ensuring existing tomatoes grow.

Depending on your zone, the variety you’re growing, and whether or not you can be bothered to ripen green tomatoes off the plant, you can also snip off newly-formed flower trusses at the end of August as there’s unlikely to be enough time for them to develop fully before the season ends.

Cherry tomatoes typically take around 45-60 days to grow from flower to full-sized ripe fruit; beefsteak toms can take up to 90 days. As well as cold weather slowing growth, temperatures above 86°F can slow development, too. So, keep your eye on the thermometer and gauge whether or not it's worth remove any new flower trusses to concentrate the plant's energy into existing fruit.

3. Water Consistently for High-Quality Fruit

How consistently you water your plants now will directly impact the quality of your crop. Erratic watering can cause tomato skins to split, and lead to dark, flat patches at the base of fruit, called blossom end rot. While blossom end rot is caused by a lack of calcium, it’s very rare that soil or compost lacks this element – the problem almost always lies in a lack of consistent water which the plant needs to transport calcium to where it’s needed.

Aim for consistent, steady watering to keep a fairly even level of moisture in the soil. Shading your tomato plants from the harsh midday sun will dramatically reduce evaporation, so this is another way you can help even out soil moisture levels. If it’s easier to rig up more general shade, then using a shade cloth that blocks 30-40% of rays will still allow enough sunlight through to ripen fruit.

Once most fruits have set and are ripening, if the weather isn't too hot, slightly reducing watering will concentrate sugars and flavor. Never reduce irrigation so much that leaves wilt, and it's also important to lessen the volume of water given rather than reduce frequency, so moisture levels remain consistent.

4. Feed Weekly, But Know When to Stop

If you're wondering when you should stop feeding tomato plants, you're not alone as this is a common query. And knowing when to stop fertilizing plants is just as important as knowing when to start, and one of the most critical pro growing tips for a long-lasting tomato harvest.

Until the uppermost clusters of fruit are full-sized, you should continue feeding your tomato plants once a week with a high-potassium tomato fertilizer such as Espoma Organic Tomato! Food, available from Amazon. However, as soon as you start redirecting the plants’ energy to ripening fruit that’s already set, especially if you halt the upwards growth of indeterminate plants by pinching out the tip of the main stem, it's vital not to over-fuel. Too much food can cause fertilizer burn, excess foliage and actually slow fruit production

So, from mid-August, gradually reduce the strength of the feed, tapering off so you don’t abruptly stop this supply of nutrients.

5. Watch Out For Spider Mites

All the hot, dry air of this El Niño summer has created ideal conditions for red spider mites. These sap-sucking critters can ruin a harvest, but are easily controlled if you spot them in time and act quickly.

Don’t rely on being able to see the mites themselves as they're tiny. Instead look out for:

• Moving dots. While the mites are minute, you may spot what looks like moving specks of dust. And don't expect them to be red! At this time of year red spider mites are often a yellowish green, only turning red – and becoming more visible on leaves – in fall.
• Damaged leaves. If there’s an infestation, leaves will first become stippled, where individual cells have been sucked dry, then turn mottled, pale and eventually die and drop.
• Fine silky webs around stems or leaves.
• A build-up of white cast skins and egg shells on the undersides of leaves.

The quicker you act, the better, as high summer heat speeds egg hatching from around 55 days to 7, and a female spider mite can lay 10-20 eggs a day. Remove infected leaves and wash the plant with a jet of water. Coat all surfaces, but particularly the undersides of leaves with a neem oil spray.

Do double-check if the neem oil is already diluted: if you have raw neem oil, mix 1-2 teaspoons into a quart of warm water, before using. To help the oil and water combine, add half a teaspoon of mild liquid dish soap to the water first.

Spray plants once a week for three weeks to catch any newly-hatching mites and break the lifecycle. Sprayed leaves are more easily scorched by the sun, so consider shading if necessary.

Tomato plant care in August is all about directing energy towards producing a plentiful harvest, and keeping plants disease-free so that process can continue for as long as possible into fall. Stripping lower leaves, tactical pruning, consistent irrigation, well-timed feeding and controlling pests will all help your plants happy and healthy, so they can keep providing you with a flavorful harvest week after week. And that's more than enough reward for the time it takes to complete these simple late-summer tomato care tasks.

One indeterminate cherry tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) in decent soil can hand over a couple of pounds (1kg) a week once it hits full stride, and two plants will bury a small family. The crop sets its own deadline, too. A cherry tomato goes from perfect to split overnight when a storm follows a run of hot, rainless days.

Most advice about growing cherry tomatoes ends at the harvest. The real work starts there. The plant has no interest in whether the kitchen has caught up, so the response has to move in two directions at once – what is already picked, and what the vine does from here.

Eight Moves for a Runaway Harvest

A few of the moves take an afternoon, and others take five minutes with a pair of snips like these from Amazon. Start with whichever side is more important that week.

1. Pick at the First Blush of Color

Tomato cracking is a plumbing problem, not a disease. The fruit pulls water in faster than its skin can stretch, so one heavy rain on the back of a dry spell splits half a crop overnight. Picking earlier sidesteps that. It works because a cherry tomato seals itself off from the vine the moment real color appears, and what happens after that happens without the plant. Then you can turn green tomatoes red by just leaving them out on the counter. If your cherry tomatoes are producing heavily, walk the rows every other morning rather than holding out for full color. If any slip past you, cracked tomatoes are perfectly fine to eat.

2. Keep Them Out of the Fridge

Refrigeration costs more than it saves. Somewhere below 55F (13C) the aroma compounds start breaking down and the texture goes mealy, which accounts for most of what is wrong with a supermarket tomato. A counter does better. Ripe ones keep several days in a single layer, stem scars down, somewhere out of direct sun. Green fruit picked ahead of a storm colors up in a paper bag with a banana tucked in for ethylene – a gas naturally emitted by bananas that speeds up ripening. Anything that doesn't turn red pickles beautifully.

3. Freeze them Whole on a Sheet Pan

Freezing tomatoes whole is the easiest way to go: no blanching, no peeling. Wash and dry a batch, then spread it in one layer across a sheet pan from Amazon. Freeze them solid before bagging so they stay loose rather than welding into a brick. The skins slip off under a warm tap later. Straight from frozen, they collapse into sauce quicker than they can fresh.

4. Roast them on a Tray

Soft ones and anything that sat a day too long belong here. Halve them and toss with olive oil and salt, then hold a low oven around 300F (150C) until they slump and go jammy at the edges – a couple of hours, unhurried. A full tray reduces to about two cups as the moisture leaves and the sugars pull together, and what comes out is far darker than what went in. Freeze it flat in portions – it thaws into sauce, or lands on bread as is.

5. Dry the Smallest Ones

Drying tomatoes is a great choice for the littlest specimens. Less moisture inside means less time on the trays, and they finish evenly instead of toughening outside while the middle stays damp. Halve them cut sides up and run a food dehydrator from Amazon at about 135F (57C) until they feel like leather rather than brittle chips. An oven set as low as it goes will manage it, at the cost of the kitchen for most of a day. Jars come next, shaken daily for a week; water beads on the glass mean another round of drying.

6. Save Seeds from the Best Plant

Only open-pollinated plants are worth saving from – hybrid seed comes back as something nobody planned. To save tomato seeds, squeeze the pulp of a few good ones into a jar with a splash of water, then leave it alone. A pale film forms across the top within a couple of days. That film is doing the work: the ferment strips off the gel coat that blocks germination and knocks back several seedborne diseases. Rinse, then dry the seed flat on a plate. Kept cool and dark, they will still come up even several years later.

7. Top the Vine

Indeterminate types climb until frost stops them, adding flowers that have no chance of finishing. Pruning tomatoes by cutting the growing tip roughly a month ahead of the average first frost redirects what remains into what is already on the vine, and it opens the canopy in the bargain. Determinate plants set their whole crop at once and need none of this. Thin the lowest leaves while the snips are out, since airflow near the soil tends to be poor by late summer.

8. Up the Potassium

Nitrogen at this stage buys foliage. Fertilize your tomatoes with a blend where potassium leads, such as Tomato-tone from Home Depot at 3-4-6, supports fruit quality instead of another flush of leaves. Water counts for just as much. Deep and regular beats a splash whenever someone remembers. Uneven moisture is behind the splitting, and behind most of the blossom end rot that gets blamed on soil calcium. A harvest like this is a good problem. Keep the water steady and the plant will go on handing fruit over right up to frost.

Cherry Tomato Essentials

That tub of yogurt at the back of your fridge may have a second life in your garden, according to a surprising bit of advice making the rounds online. Yogurt does hold calcium and protein, which are two important nutrients tomatoes need to thrive. Though whether a tomato plant can use any of it is a separate question.

The claim that a spoonful of yogurt plopped into your watering can boost tomato growth turns up regularly in gardening forums, usually framed as a good calcium source for tomatoes. The logic runs that dairy is rich in calcium – and tomatoes often suffer from calcium problems – so giving plants a dose of dairy fertilizer can provide plants with what they need. But this theory isn't exactly accurate.

But yogurt isn't exactly useless in the garden. Use it alongside a proper tomato fertilizer and it could potentially give plants a little extra oomph. I'll walk you through the truth behind the claim that yogurt is a good fertilizer for tomatoes, how to try it out for yourself, and some precautions to take before using yogurt in your garden.

Why Gardeners Are Using Yogurt on Tomato Plants

Calcium is the main claim behind using yogurt as a tomato fertilizer. Blossom end rot ruins fruit every summer and a lack of calcium is often named as the culprit, so a tub of yogurt in the fridge is perhaps the nearest source on hand. Plain yogurt carries a fair amount of calcium by food standards, which makes the connection feel obvious.

The rest of the appeal spreads wider than just that one mineral, though. Yogurt is also a good source of protein and protein means nitrogen for plants.

Lactose is a sugar that soil microbes will eat readily, which can improve soil. Then there are the live cultures in yogurt, mainly Lactobacillus delbrueckii subsp. bulgaricus and Streptococcus thermophilus, which fit the popular notion of feeding soil biology as well. The tub was headed for the bin regardless.

Does Yogurt Tomato Fertilizer Really Work?

The case for yogurt as a calcium source for tomatoes falls apart once you really look at the numbers. A tablespoon (15 ml) of yogurt carries roughly 20 milligrams of calcium. A tomato in full fruit moves vastly more than that throughout a single season and the soil in which it grows is almost certainly holds a surplus already. So a spoonful of yogurt fertilizer doesn't make much of an impact.

Arithmetic isn't the real trouble, though. Calcium in dairy arrives bound to casein, which means soil microbes have to dismantle it before roots can reach any useful nutrients. Warmth and time do that work on their own timetable. Nobody decides when the nutrient turns up or whether it does so while the plant still needs it.

Blossom end rot is rarely a result of a shortage of calcium in the first place. It's more often a delivery failure. Uneven watering of tomato plants interrupts calcium moving into developing fruit, creating blossom end rot. Yogurt doesn't address the mechanism blocking the calcium, it only addresses the nutrient itself.

Best Type of Yogurt to Use

If you still want to try out this homemade tomato fertilizer anyways, choosing the right yogurt is key. Plain yogurt is the only version that belongs near a garden bed. Nothing else on the dairy aisle qualifies. A tub of yogurt is cheap and choosing nonfat leaves less greasy residue behind than the full fat stuff. Fruit, honey, added sugar – none of it should reach the garden.

Artificial sweeteners are the other thing to skip, since they bring nothing to the soil and nobody can say how the residues behave in a garden bed. Sugar-loaded yogurt causes a quicker problem, drawing ants, wasps, and rodents to the base of the plant. Flavored tubs also carry stabilizers nobody should pour on a garden.

How to Make Yogurt Tomato Fertilizer

Dilution does the safety work for yogurt tomato fertilizer. One tablespoon (15 ml) of plain yogurt stirred into a full 2 gallon (9 L) watering can is the strongest dose you should use. Stir it well so nothing settles into a lump, then pour slowly around the drip line of your tomatoes, roughly 6 to 8 inches (15-20 cm) from the stem.

Follow with a can of plain water to carry the yogurt fertilizer below the soil surface, since dairy left sitting on top can cause problems. Keep every drop off the foliage as well. Damp residue on leaves in warm weather invites fungal tomato diseases far harder to fix than any nutrient shortage.

How Often to Apply

Applying yogurt tomato fertilizer once a month through the growing season is plenty and, often, less is fine. This belongs with small experiments rather than scheduled feeding, so there's little to gain from building a routine around it.

Anyone curious can run it properly. Treat one plant with the diluted mix, leave a matching plant untreated beside it and compare at season's end. That beats the anecdotes floating around online and it costs a single tub of yogurt.

What you should never do is replace a scheduled feed of traditional tomato fertilizer with only yogurt. A plant that doesn't receive real fertilizer and only yogurt just isn't being fed properly.

Mistakes To Avoid

Dolloping on a dose of yogurt fertilizer undiluted is a big problem for tomato plants. A blob of dairy on warm soil goes sour and draws flies. It can also set into a crust that sheds water instead of letting it through. Container plants suffer worst, since a pot holds little soil and none of the microbial diversity a bed uses to process organic matter.

Instead, if the goal is feeding the soil, a bag of Back to the Roots organic compost from Home Depot does that job properly.

Repeat applications of yogurt tomato fertilizer are the other trap. Residue accumulates and a spot treated over and over starts to smell bad and stays damp.

Signs to Stop Using Yogurt

A sour smell around the base of the plant means the residue is fermenting instead of breaking down cleanly. White or fuzzy growth across the soil surface signals the same issue. Scrape off what you can and flush the area with plain water.

Insects and animals can cause problems, too. Fungus gnats drifting around the stem are a sign something's wrong, but fruit flies more so. Soil turned over at night by raccoons or rats is the surest signal, since something has found the smell interesting. And a plant that looks worse than before the experiment started has already answered the question.

What to Use Instead

Fruiting tomatoes want steady nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium, with an emphasis on the last two once flowering starts. Plants also need calcium and magnesium in amounts no kitchen leftover supplies. Espoma Tomato-tone 3-4-6 with 8% calcium from Amazon covers all a tomato needs in one product and yogurt simply can't compete.

Watering does more for blossom end rot than any additive from your fridge. Deep, even soakings in a steady rhythm with a few inches of mulch to hold in the moisture keep calcium moving into the fruit. All in all, save the yogurt for your breakfast. Invest in a good organic commercial tomato fertilizer or homemade compost instead.

Peppers hit an odd stretch in midsummer. The plants look their best right when the strain is heaviest, carrying a full load of fruit while the soil dries out by noon. Plenty of gardens quietly stop setting new pods in July, but the drop in production doesn't turn up until August.

The good news is that growing peppers in July comes down to a short list of jobs rather than a rescue mission. None of them take long. What they share is a focus on steadying the plant instead of pushing it. Even moisture matters more right now than any feeding schedule, and peppers coming off at the right point keeps the plant making more of veggies to eat.

Consistent care in July will set up your pepper plants for a huge harvest and continued healthy growth. Here are the most essential – but easy-to-do – tasks to check off your list before August arrives.

1. Fertilize for Fruit, Not Foliage

Nitrogen did what it needed to do in June. By July it starts working against your pepper plant, pushing leafy growth at the expense of flowers and leaving a big handsome pepper bush with very little hanging on it.

Plants already carrying fruit want less nitrogen and more phosphorus and potassium, which is why Lilly Miller Morcrop 5-10-10 tomato and vegetable food from Amazon matches the stage the plants are actually in.

Side-dress plants lightly instead of generously – work roughly a tablespoon per plant into the soil about 6 inches (15 cm) out from the stem, then water fertilizer in. Reapplying every three or four weeks is plenty.

After fertilizing peppers, it takes time for the results to appear. So there's nothing to judge the next morning and a heavy hand in midsummer heat can cause fertilizer burn that are already under pressure.

2. Water Deeply & Consistently

Blossom end rot in peppers usually isn't from a calcium shortage in the soil. It's actually a delivery failure. The plant can't move calcium into developing fruit when the ground swings from soaked to dust and back to damp after watering.

Water pepper plants deeply two or three times a week. They prefer that over a daily splash. Water plants on roughly the same schedule week after week. If you're unsure, a finger pushed 2 inches (5 cm) into the bed settles the question of whether or not you need to water again. If soil is dry at that depth that means water now.

Wet foliage is what leaf disease waits for, and is part of why a heavy-duty soaker hose from Home Depot beats a sprinkler. Water for 30 to 45 minutes along the row of plants so moisture soaks down at root depth with nothing landing on the plant.

Add mulch to hold in moisture and protect from heat. Use straw or shredded leaves at 2 to 3 inches (5-8 cm) deep and the soil quits cooking by mid-afternoon.

3. Protect From Scorching Sun

Pepper flowers don't form or develop into fruit when days climb past 90°F (32C) and nights hang above 75°F (24°C). Pollen turns sterile, the flower drops, and the plant carries on looking perfectly healthy while setting nothing at all. It's a common reason a July pepper plant seems to quit for a few weeks, and the fruit already on board will keep sizing up through it, which hides the problem for a while.

Shade in the 30 to 40 percent range, run from late morning through the worst of the afternoon, can pull leaf temperature down enough to keep pollen viable. A panel of 40% sunblock shade cloth from Walmart hung on hoops or tied off between stakes does the job and comes down once the forecast eases. The plants keep enough light to carry on growing. It's a filter, not a lid.

4. Support Growing Peppers

Pepper stems are brittle and a branch loaded with fruit tends to split from the main stem during the first hard storm that comes through. That single break can take a third of the harvest with it. A plant that's already leaning has waited too long for support.

Stake pepper plants with supports driven 8 to 10 inches (20-25 cm) deep beside the main stem. 4-foot bamboo stakes with garden twine from Amazon are perfect for this job. Tie with a figure-eight so the stem isn't cinched against the stake and leave the tie slack so the trunk can continue to thicken through August. Attach ties loosely at two or three heights to support the whole plant.

5. Pick Early & Often

Peppers left to fully ripen on the plant send a signal that the season's work is done, so flowering slows to match. Sweet peppers picked at full size while still green will push the plant to set another round of fruit.

Picking sweet peppers early is fine. A green pepper on the counter is the same pepper it would have been in the garden, just minus a couple weeks of waiting. Harvesting hot peppers is the exception, since capsaicin keeps building as they color up.

Harvest peppers by cutting at the stem with pruners instead of pulling, since a tug can take the branch with the pepper. Check every two or three days once the fruit starts coming.

Pick anything that's split or showing soft spots, even if it's nowhere near ready. Damaged fruit draws common pepper pests and gives the plant no reason to keep working.

It’s a common myth that growing vegetables requires a lot of time, effort, expensive tools and even a greenhouse. Of course, it's perfectly possible to raise a garden of fussy veggies that need daily care, but there is a far easier way to grow your own: choose low-maintenance vegetable varieties that flourish even if you miss a day or two of care. Whether you're a beginner gardener or just short on time, selecting easy, speedy vegetables to grow will bring you tasty harvests in return for very little effort.

We're very familiar with ornamental plants that practically grow themselves, but vegetables? No plants can be completely neglected when you're growing vegetables, but some are far more forgiving than others. One of the most time-consuming chores is watering, and while all veggies need water, some types and varieties are naturally better at coping with hot weather, dry spells, and those days when you just don’t have the time – or will – to water.

These are fast-growing, heat-tolerant vegetables so can all be sown in July. The warm soil in summer will help seeds germinate quickly, so plants produce a good harvest before the growing season ends. That makes these vegetables a great choice for children to grow, too – or if you simply want to experience the childlike joy of an uncomplicated homegrown harvest. Here's our pick of easy-going veggies you can still sow in July.

1. Zucchini 'Black Beauty'

Zucchini is a classic summer veggie, known for its abundant production and mild, versatile flavor. ‘Black Beauty’ is one of the most dependable cultivars and, even in hot, dry weather, it still produces heavily. The large leaves shade the soil, keeping it a little cooler and helping retain moisture, enabling the plant to bounce back after a missed watering or two.

Ideal for zones 3 through 10, zucchini ‘Black Beauty’ seeds are available from Burpee. And it couldn't be easier to grow Black Beauty zucchinis. Sow seeds in soil in full sun, and make sure there is plenty of space between plants – while this variety only reaches a foot high, it can spread 5-7 feet (though this stem growth doesn't need to be over soil). Water deeply once or twice a week and your zucchinis should be ready to harvest about 50 days after sowing seeds, making this one of the best vegetables to sow in July. Harvest regularly while the fruit are still small (6-8 inches) for the best flavor.

2. Cucumber 'Armenian Dark Green'

‘Dark Green’ produces long, crisp cucumbers with no hint of bitterness. This is an excellent variety for a salad and for slicing to eat raw with dips, and is suitable for zones 2 through 10. The plants thrive in the heat of mid and late summer and grow readily and easily without too much intervention from you. The root system runs deep, so occasionally missing a watering won’t phase this cultivar.

Armenian Dark Green Cucumber seeds are available from Eden Brothers. Make sure you sow seeds in a spot with full sun and, if possible, provide a support for the vine to climb. While you can grow cucumbers along the ground, a trellis or fence keeps fruits out of the dirt and saves space. Water as consistently as possible and harvest the cucumbers when they are between 12 and 18 inches long, about 65 days after sowing the seeds.

3. Bush Beans 'Contender'

Growing bush beans is straightforward, and 'Contender' is a particularly forgiving variety as it will tolerate some dry periods. Forgetting to water this plant might slow production of tender, stringless bean pods, but it won't stop it altogether. ‘Contender’ is appropriate for zones 3 through 9.

Contender Bush Bean seeds are available from Eden Brothers. Direct-sow seeds for this bush bean in full sun, in the ground or a large container. Water regularly, but don’t worry if you do so imperfectly. Compared to other types, this variety continues to thrive in hot weather, and the beans should be ready in about 50 days after sowing. Harvest beans regularly to encourage more production.

4. Carrot 'Red Cored Chantenay'

When you're considering vegetables to sow in summer, don't discount carrots. 'Red Cored Chantenay' develops shorter roots than other cultivars, which makes it easier for new or time-pushed gardeners to get a good harvest, as the short length means they are less likely to turn out misshapen. This variety also has tops that tolerate heat well. An heirloom carrot variety, it has a sweet flavor and is great for eating raw and for cooking.

Red Cored Chantenay Carrot Seeds are available from Walmart. To grow carrots, sow seeds in place, either in the ground. Because of its shorter roots, this is also one of the best veggies to grow in containers for a productive kitchen garden on your patio. Suitable for zones 3 through 10, ‘Red Cored Chantenay’ does best in full sun or some dappled shade and with soil that stays consistently moist, especially in the seedling stage. While you’ll still enjoy a good harvest even with a little neglect, the best carrots develop with regular and consistent watering.

5. Okra 'Clemson Spineless'

Okra is an unsung hero of the garden, but if you learn how to cook this tasty veggie, you’ll benefit from a fast-growing plant that’s easy for beginners and busy gardeners to grow. The flowers are so pretty, too, and because the fruit pods grow vertically upwards, this is an attractive plant to have in your garden. It's a heat-lover, too, so this is one of the best vegetables to start from seed in July.

Even among other heat-loving okra varieties, ‘Clemson Spineless’ is extremely drought and heat-tolerant, thriving even if you neglect it a little or if the weather becomes unseasonably hot and dry. Clemson Spineless Okra seeds are available from Botanical Interests. Sow these okra seeds in a spot with full sun and water as regularly as possible. Grow okra and within 30 to 60 days, you’ll have tender young okra fruits to harvest. Okra is suitable to grow in zones 2 to 10, but hotter weather is best.

6. Pole Beans 'Rattlesnake'

Pole beans differ from bush beans in that they grow on a vine, and ‘Rattlesnake’ is a colorful variety of pole bean with pods striped in green and purple. Suitable for zones 4 through 10, this cultivar grows quickly, so you still have time for a good harvest this year.

It also forgives inconsistent watering better than other varieties, still providing a heavy yield, and Rattlesnake Pole Bean seeds are available from Eden Brothers. Sow seeds in full sun next to a support the vine can climb like a trellis, arbor, fence, or even patio banister. While it appreciates regular moisture, this pole bean will bounce back after short dry spells.

7. Black-Eyed Cowpeas

Cowpeas are easy to grow, and grow fast, with pods maturing in about 60 days after sowing. That cowpeas are often used as cover crops between growing seasons to maintain soil health and enrich it with nitrogen shows you how what a low-maintenance vegetable this plant is. But you can also grow this veggie for an edible harvest. Cowpeas grow in areas and conditions that are tough for other vegetables, and naturally form upright, bushy plants, so this is a great option for beginners and busy gardeners who want to be more hands-off.

Black-Eyed Cowpea seeds are available from Eden Brothers and you can grow cowpeas in zones 5 through 11 as they handle the heat of midsummer very well. You can harvest fresh pods or leave them to dry to use later. Sow seeds for cowpeas in full sun and water regularly until they get established. Then you can largely leave them alone, and the plants will still thrive.

Successful vegetable gardening isn’t about doing everything perfectly. Start with these forgiving varieties of tasty veggies and simply provide as much consistent care as you can. The plants will thrive and give you a good harvest, even when your care is imperfect.

Cyclospora has been all over the news this summer. An outbreak has affected thousands of people across more than thirty states, with investigators pointing to commercial lettuce and salad greens. The parasite behind it, Cyclospora cayetanensis, spreads through fresh produce that has picked up traces of human waste somewhere along the way – which raises an obvious question for anyone who grows their own food. Can homegrown vegetables carry Cyclospora?

The reassuring part is that the trouble rarely starts in the backyard. A home vegetable garden sits at the low-risk end here, because it skips much of the commercial supply chain – the industrial farms and shared packing equipment a bagged salad passes through before the shelf. You decide what water touches the leaves and what goes into the soil.

But while a homegrown salad beats a store-bought one right now, it's not totally risk-free. Check your gardening practices and follow these simple habits to keep your harvest clean and safe to eat.

How Cyclospora Spreads, and Why the Garden Is Lower-Risk

Cyclospora doesn't pass straight from person to person. An infected person sheds it in their stool, and the parasite needs at least 1–2 weeks to mature in the environment before it can infect anyone else. That lag is why contamination travels through water and soil rather than a quick touch. Raw produce is the usual vehicle, and it's the uncooked crops that keep turning up. Leafy greens lead the list. Fresh herbs like basil and cilantro make the list too, along with soft fruit like raspberries.

A store-bought salad has already been through shared irrigation water and packing equipment and a long refrigerated haul by the time it hits the bag. Pick your own, and you skip nearly all of that. Cooking shuts the door the rest of the way – according to NYC Health, Cyclospora is killed at around 158°F (70°C), so a stir-fry or a pot of soup poses almost no risk. Raw food is where the care needs to go. Salad and berries never meet heat, so the real job is keeping the parasite out of the bed to begin with.

How to Protect Home Vegetables from Cyclospora

Cyclospora is spread through food or contaminated water, so the risk in a vegetable garden is not just about hygiene – it can also come from unsafe manure, contaminated water, or poor sanitation practices. Community gardens can be a little higher risk if shared water, tools, compost, or hygiene standards are weak, but the same food-safety rules apply in home gardens too.

1. Only Use Water From a Clean Source

The biggest garden risk is irrigation water drawn from a creek or pond that could be catching sewage overflow or septic seepage. Stick to tap water or a tested well. A two-gallon watering can filled at the tap, such as this Expert Gardener design from Walmart, keeps surface water off your leaves.

If you collect rainwater in a barrel, know that rooftop runoff can carry other biological contaminants, including from bird droppings. For edible crops, this water should not be treated as automatically safe unless the system is well maintained and the water is used in a way that avoids contaminating produce. However, it's well worth using a rainwater barrel to water ornamental beds. This RTS Home Accents ECO Rain Barrel from Amazon holds 50 gallons.

2. Check Composting Practices

If contaminated vegetables went into a home compost pile, the pile could be exposed to Cyclospora, and with slow/cold composting, pathogens may not be destroyed. Hot composting that reaches and holds high heat is what breaks pathogens down, and a Reotemp compost thermometer from Amazon shows whether the pile is getting there. A cold pile that never heats up should stay clear of food crops.

Never use raw human waste – sometimes called night soil – in the garden. It can be a direct route for the parasite to reach your crops. Even if you have a composting toilet, it's not automatically safe to use it to grow food, so don't risk using it anywhere near vegetables that grow directly in the soil.

3. Wash Your Hands!

This one is less about the produce than the person handling it. A gardener who's picked up the parasite can carry it into the plot without realizing. Soap and water before you harvest, and again before anything hits a cutting board, shuts that door. It's simple insurance for a habit you half-do already.

4. Rinse Crops Under Running Water

Rinse everything thoroughly under running water before it reaches a plate. There's no need to use soap or produce washes. Scrubbing firmer produce with a brush, like this OXO vegetable brush from Amazon, lifts more off the skin than a quick splash.

Rinsing lowers the risk but won't fully remove Cyclospora, which clings tightly – so treat it as one layer, not a guarantee.

5. Keep Harvested Crops Off Dirty Surfaces

Once picked, keep produce off the ground and away from tools or anything that's touched soil or untreated water. A clean basket or bowl beats resting the harvest on a potting bench. Those last few feet are easy to overlook, and a common spot for clean produce to pick up what it just dodged.

6. Store and Chill Promptly

Get tender crops into the fridge soon after picking. Greens and herbs hold up far better cold than sitting out, and berries too. Chilling won't kill Cyclospora – it just slows spoilage and keeps other bacteria from multiplying while the produce waits. One more thing: hold off on washing until you're ready to eat, since produce stored damp breaks down faster.

Extra Cover: Cook or Peel What You Can

Washing is the everyday line of defense, but heat and a paring knife go further. Cyclospora can't survive proper cooking, so anything that goes into a hot pan or the oven stops being a risk – handy for crops that work either raw or cooked, like kale or green beans. Peeling helps too, lifting off the surface layer where the parasite would sit. Neither does much for a fresh salad, so sourcing and a good rinse still carry the load for raw produce.

Spot the Symptoms

Cyclosporiasis usually surfaces about a week after exposure, and the giveaway is watery diarrhea that can come and go for weeks if untreated. Appetite tends to fade alongside it. Cramping and bloating are common, nausea comes and goes, and the tiredness lingers. Healthy adults often ride it out, but it tends to relapse, part of why it's treated rather than waited out.

A course of the antibiotic trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole usually clears it, so anyone with persistent watery diarrhea – especially with signs of dehydration – should see a doctor and mention the outbreak, since diagnosis needs a specific stool test that isn't run by default.

Frequently Asked Questions

Did you think the time to sow seeds for veggies was long over for this year? Many gardeners make that assumption, but there are several crops you can sow in July for a fall harvest. This is one of the best times to get a second round of vegetables for the season. The warm soil speeds germination, while the cooler temps of early fall are ideal for many crops.

A harvest of fall vegetables requires careful selection. Now is the time to sow seeds for quick-growing and cool-season veggies. Sowing now allows plenty of time for both options to grow into bountiful fall harvests.

Here are some of the best options for summer seed sowing and pro tips to help you get the most out of them.

1. Radishes

Radishes are among the fastest and most forgiving of all vegetables to grow. Depending on the variety, they can go from seeds to harvest in 25 to 40 days. You can probably get a few additional radish harvests this year if you start now. The later rounds will be even sweeter and crisper, as they develop and grow in cooler weather.

Sow radish seeds in beds, raised beds, or containers, as long as they are at least six inches (15 cm) deep. It’s important to keep the soil consistently moist as they grow to avoid cracked roots. If your July is very hot, wait until the end of the month to sow radish seeds. Find a wide variety of radish seeds from Burpee and try a few unique types you might have never tried before like Martha Washington's 'Early Scarlet Globe' radishes or watermelon radishes!

2. Carrots

Here’s another great root to start now for your fall harvest. Carrots started now will mature just as the first frosts of the season hit. This hit of cool triggers the starches in the roots to turn into sugars, giving you a very sweet fall crop. Carrots mature in 70 or 80 days. Park Seed offers a great selection of carrot seeds that will make a great addition to your veggie garden.

Raised beds are best for carrots, so they can develop full roots in good soil that is free of rocks. You don’t want to transplant them, so place the seeds where you want the carrots to grow. Keep the soil moist and thin the seedlings as they develop.

3. Beets

Yet another tasty root for fall harvests, beets can be sown now in the heat of midsummer and harvested between 50 and 70 days later, depending on the variety. They grow and develop best as the weather begins to cool. You can use raised beds, garden beds, or big containers to grow beets.

Thinning seedlings is particularly important for beets. Overcrowding interferes with root development. Make sure the soil stays consistently moist, or you risk woody roots. While waiting for the roots to mature, you can harvest and eat the greens. Burpee has some great heirloom beet seeds available including the unique and beautiful Chioggia beet!

4. Bush Beans

Bush beans are an example of a quick-growing veggie you can sow in July. They won’t do well in cold fall weather, but if you start now, you’ll get a good harvest before the first frost. Keep harvesting the beans as they develop to encourage ongoing production.

Bush beans germinate well in warm soil, and they grow fast, maturing in 50 to 60 days. You can grow bush beans in beds or in large containers as long as you can keep the soil moist. It’s especially important to water deeply while the plant is flowering. Heirloom Blue Lake bush bean seeds from Mountain Valley Seed Company on Amazon are high-yield and great for home gardens.

5. Kale

Kale is one of the most iconic of fall veggies. It can grow well into fall and even early winter, depending on your location and climate. While greens are known for being a little tough and bitter, kale sweetens nicely as it matures in cold weather and especially after a frost. Grow it in beds or large pots.

If you’re sowing seeds for baby kale, you can start harvesting after about 30 days. Botanical Interests has Red Russian kale baby greens seeds that are ready in 25 days! For mature kale, you’ll need 55 to 70 days. Keep harvesting the outer leaves as the kale grows. Keep soil moist and use mulch if necessary.

6. Spinach

Spinach also thrives in the cool weather of fall, and it grows fast, maturing in 35 to 50 days. You can harvest baby spinach in as little as 20 to 25 days. Because it’s such a fast grower, sow seeds every one to two weeks for regular fall harvests.

The heat of July can be a little tough on spinach, so start with varieties that don’t bolt readily and keep seedlings shaded in hot weather. Bloomsdale long-standing (bolt-resistant) spinach seeds can be found at True Leaf Market. Water regularly to keep the soil moist and cooler.

7. Brassicas

All of your brassicas can be planted now, including kale of course, but also broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, and cauliflower. They take between 80 and 100 days to mature, depending on type and variety.

The brassicas thrive in cooler weather, but they might need some help staying cool if your July and August weather is too hot. Keep the soil moist, use mulch, and use shade cloths as needed. Another option is to sow these seeds indoors now and transplant them outside when the weather has cooled a little.

Pro Tips for Maximizing Your Fall Harvest

Master gardeners get more out of their fall harvest with succession planting. Sow seeds every week or two instead of all at once. This staggers and extends your harvest time.

Sowing seeds in the heat of summer can be risky. Keep the soil moist and use a light mulch to keep it cooler. Consider using a shade cloth during particularly bad heat waves. Pull weeds as seedlings sprout and thin out crowded seedlings.

At the other extreme, if you get a cold snap in fall, use row covers to protect the more delicate vegetables. For most of these crops, a light frost actually enhances the flavor.

July isn’t the end of your growing season. For many fall crops, it’s just the beginning. Sow fast-growing, cool-weather plants now for fresh produce and an extended harvest this season.

Pick a handful of basil at seven in the morning and again at three in the afternoon from the same plant and taste them side by side. The morning leaves will undoubtedly taste better – sharper, more perfumed, the flavor sitting right up front. The afternoon leaves will likely be flatter, a little grassy, and missing whatever it was that made them worth growing. But nothing about the plant changed, only the clock did.

There is chemistry behind this change and it’s important to understand why flavor is so different depending on what time you harvest vegetables and herbs. Knowing how to harvest vegetables at the right hour turns out to matter about as much as knowing when plants are ready to pick. Water moves through a plant on a daily cycle. So do its sugars and the volatile oils that carry aroma, though not all of plants’ flavor peak at the same time.

Pick plants at the right point in the cycle and you’ll taste the difference. Harvest at the wrong time and the flavor will fall flat. I’ll share the best time of day to harvest some common vegetables and herbs for the peak flavor.

Why Flavor Changes

Overnight, a plant refills. With the sun down, transpiration more or less stops while the roots keep pushing water upward. So, by dawn, the cells are packed tight and under pressure. Pressure is what you're hearing when a cucumber snaps rather than bends.

Harvest a head of lettuce at first light and it will stay crisp in the fridge for days. Cut the same head at noon and it goes limp much quicker, having never had the chance to fill back up before harvesting.

Volatile oils follow their own schedule, too. In herbs, the compounds that carry aroma build up through the cool hours and start burning off as leaf temperature climbs, which is exactly what you're smelling when you brush past a rosemary bush on a hot afternoon. That perfume in the air is the flavor that has already left the plant.

Sugars run the opposite direction, accumulating through the day as photosynthesis does its work, which sets up a small conflict worth being aware of.

Plants That Change Flavor the Most

There are herbs that shift in flavor more depending on the time of day you harvest them. Basil carries its character in essential oils that thin out under direct sun, and mint, oregano, and thyme behave the same way.

Cut them early in the day when the oil content is at its peak. A pair of Fiskars micro-tip snips from Amazon makes clean cuts that don't crush the stem tissue, which can make herbs lose even more flavor – a mashed stem bleeds oils you were trying to preserve.

Then there are the leafy greens. Heat turns lettuce bitter. Warmth nudges the plant toward bolting and the milky latex sitting in those ribs results in bitterness in your salad.

Cucumbers pull a similar trick under stress, concentrating cucurbitacin. Corn is its own separate headache. Sugar in a harvested ear starts turning to starch right away and an ear picked in the heat of the afternoon does this quicker than one picked in the cool of the morning.

The Best Time to Harvest Veggies & Herbs

The best time to harvest herbs and vegetables is in the early morning, once the dew has dried, but before the sun has any real heat in it. Somewhere in that window – an hour or two after sunrise – is ideal.

The plant is at full turgor, the oils are still where they belong, and the tissue itself is cool enough that it won't start breaking down the moment it's off the vine. But wet foliage is something that needs to be avoided, too, since water sitting on cut surfaces invites rot in storage. So wait for dew to dry.

Get the harvest out of the sun quickly. A Fiskars harvest basket from Walmart lets produce be rinsed and drained in the same container into which it was picked.

For a big morning's harvest, a basic cooler chest from Target parked in the shade holds everything at temperature until it goes inside to your fridge. Field heat is the enemy here. Every degree a vegetable or herb carries into the kitchen means respiration eating its sugars.

Evening after the heat has broken makes a reasonable second choice for the best produce picking time. It’s better than harvesting at noon by a wide margin, and much better than not picking at all.

The Worst Time to Harvest Veggies & Herbs

Mid-afternoon on a hot day is the worst time to harvest. The plant has been losing water for hours, the leaves are slightly wilted even if they don't look it, and the volatile compounds have been cooking off since mid-morning.

Anything picked then arrives warm, soft, and already expending its own sugars to stay alive. Refrigerating produce slows that down, but it doesn't reverse anything. Once an herb's oils are gone, no amount of careful storage brings them back.

There is one complication, though. Because sugars build up through the day, some crops like carrots, certain tomatoes, and sweet corn can taste measurably sweeter when picked in late afternoon or early evening than when harvested at dawn.

Growers who care about sugar content sometimes pick at that time, accepting the wilt and cooling the harvest fast to compensate. But for the average garden, morning still wins, since crispness and aroma are what a home cook notices most.

Tomatoes ‘sweat’, in their own way. On a hot, muggy afternoon the plant is pushing water out through its leaves nonstop, and down where the foliage sits jammed against damp soil with nothing stirring, that moisture has nowhere to go. So it hangs around. Warm, dead-still air against a wet leaf – that's the setup fungal spores are hoping for, and usually where things go wrong.

The fix takes less work than it sounds. A good chunk of growing tomatoes well through a humid summer comes down to airflow, and airflow comes down to which leaves stay on the plant. Strip off the right few and the whole thing breathes easier. Add one cheap trick down at the soil line and a lot of the disease pressure that wrecks a crop never really gets going.

Why the Bottom of the Plant Is Key

A lot of tomato disease starts low and climbs. Those bottom leaves sit right over the dirt, and the dirt is where fungal spores ride out the winter. Then the rain comes, or the hose, and every drop hitting the ground flicks a little back up onto the nearest leaf. Early blight (Alternaria solani) and Septoria leaf spot (Septoria lycopersici) both get around exactly like this – a few spots low down, some yellowing, then up the plant. Clear off that bottom tier and the splash lands on nothing.

Airflow is the other half. Let a tomato bush out on its own and it becomes this dense, shut-in tangle, the inside of it staying damp hours after the outer leaves have gone dry. Spores are fine with that. Thin it out, get some air moving through the middle, and the leaves dry off quicker once the rain or the dew lifts – and a dry leaf is just a lot harder for anything to get into. None of this means pruning your tomato plant bare, though – it just needs room to breathe.

The 3 Leaves to Snip

Not every leaf is earning its keep. Three kinds in particular cause more trouble than they're worth once the humidity sets in, and they're the ones to go after first. A clean cut close to the stem does it, and a pair of bypass pruning snips from Amazon makes flush cuts easy and spares the stem.

1. The Lowest Leaves

Start low and work your way up. Anything in that bottom 6 to 12 inches (15 to 30cm) is either touching the soil or hanging just over it – first to catch whatever splashes off the ground. And those are old leaves anyway, shaded out, not pulling their weight, stuck in the worst possible spot on the plant. Snip them flush to the main stem. Once the plant is established and setting fruit, a bare lower stretch of stem does it no harm.

2. Yellowing or Spotted Leaves

Any tomato leaf going yellow or growing spots has more or less run its course – and if those spots turn out to be disease, it's now a launch pad for more. Don't wait for pruning day to deal with them. Remove them the moment you spot them. A yellow leaf down low is often the first tip-off that something fungal has moved in, and getting it gone fast is cleanup and early warning rolled into one.

3. Crowded Interior Growth

Deep in a big plant, leaves stack on leaves and almost none of them get real light or air. That congested inner growth is where humidity hangs around the longest. Thinning a few of those interior leaves, along with any small suckers crowding the center, cuts a channel for air to move straight through. You want a plant with daylight showing through it in gaps, not a solid green wall.

The Secret Skirt Trick

Here's the part many people don’t bother with. Once those lower leaves are gone, lay a skirt around the base of the plant – a ring of mulch or a fabric barrier over the bare soil. It seems too basic to count for much. What it actually does is drop a physical wall between the soil, where the spores live, and the leaves above, so when water hits the ground there's nothing left to splash back up.

Straw works for this, so does shredded bark, and even newspaper under compost will do. Grab a couple bags of shredded mulch from Home Depot and a row is covered without much fuss. Want something you're not redoing every season? A roll of landscape fabric from Walmart does the same job and lasts years. Either way there's a bonus – the cover slows evaporation, so the soil underneath stays damper and more even, roots getting a steady drink while the leaves stay clear of the muck. There's one catch, though. Keep the mulch an inch or two (2 to 5cm) off the stem. Bank it right against the stem and it traps enough moisture to start rot.

The plant looks like it's doing everything right. Big yellow flowers cover it, new ones opening every morning, the whole thing sprawling and green. Then the little fruits behind some of those flowers start to swell, reach maybe an inch or two (2 to 5cm), and go soft, yellowing at the tip before they drop. It leaves nothing to harvest – just a run of false starts.

That collapse almost always traces back to one thing – pollination that didn't take. The basics of how to grow zucchini get a plant to the flowering stage without much trouble, but flowers on their own don't make fruit. Pollen has to move from the male blooms to the female ones, and in a hot summer that hand-off often just doesn't happen. The good part is that it's an easy gap to close by hand.

Why the Baby Fruits Just Quit

A female zucchini flower comes with a tiny fruit already attached, sitting right behind the petals before it has even opened. That little fruit is basically on standby. If enough pollen reaches the flower while it's open, the fruit gets the signal to keep growing. If it doesn't, the plant cuts its losses – the fruit yellows, softens, and drops, since there's no sense pouring energy into something that won't hold seed.

Heat is where it usually goes wrong. Each zucchini flower gives you one morning, maybe, and then it closes for good – so the window was tight even before the weather got involved. Now push things past 90F (32C). The pollen starts to give out, losing the viability it needs to do anything, and the bees that would've been working the patch mostly clear off until the heat lets up. Fewer visits, weaker pollen, and a lot of those morning flowers close again having never really been pollinated.

Telling the Male Flowers From the Female

It's easy to see the difference between male and female squash blossoms, once you know the tell. Look at the stem right behind the flower. A male flower sits on a plain, slim stalk – nothing behind the petals but stem. A female flower has what looks like a miniature zucchini bulging at its base, right where the bloom meets the vine. That bulge is the unfertilized fruit, and it's the whole giveaway.

There's a timing quirk worth knowing, too. For the first week or two, a young plant will often put out male flowers and nothing else, no females anywhere, and every summer this sends somebody into a mild panic. Nothing's wrong. The males just show up first, getting the pollen ready for whenever the females decide to open. Once both are opening on the same morning, you're in business – that's when hand pollination actually does something.

Hand Pollinating, Step by Step

Hand pollinating squash and zucchini requires no special gear – just a minute of your time, and maybe a soft artist's brush from Amazon if you want it tidy. Morning is the time, before the heat climbs, while the flowers are actually open and the pollen hasn't dried out.

1. Start with a male flower that's wide open, the anther in the middle loaded up with pollen. Snap it off the plant, stem and all.
2. Now strip it down – pull the petals back and off, until what's left is basically a pollen-tipped wand on a stem.
3. Find a female that's open (baby fruit behind the petals, remember) and touch that anther to the middle of the flower, brushing it lightly over every side of the stigma. A couple seconds does it, with no need to be precious about it.
4. Move on. One male flower usually carries enough pollen for two or three females, so work down the row while you're out there.

No males open that morning? A soft brush or a cotton swab covers the same ground – swipe it around inside a male flower, then carry that pollen over to whatever females are open. Cotton swabs from Walmart are cheap enough to use once and toss.

Getting the Bees to Do It for You

Hand pollination is a stopgap, useful but not something anyone wants to do forever. Better to get the bees doing the work again. Flowers blooming near the zucchini pull double duty here – a bee already out working the yard for nectar will swing through the squash blossoms on its rounds. And it's the mix that matters, not the count. Different bloom shapes, different colors, and you pull in a wider range of insects than any single kind manages on its own.

Cut back on the broad-spectrum insecticides, too, or just skip spraying entirely while flowers are open and bees are on them – plenty of those products wipe out pollinators right alongside whatever pest you were chasing. Set out a shallow dish of water with a couple stones poking up for landing spots. Bees need to drink, and one that drinks in your garden tends to stay in it. None of this amounts to much alone. Together, it's the difference between attracting bees for steady fruit and standing out there every morning playing bee yourself.

Keeping It from Happening Again

When heat is the real problem with your zucchini, the fix is shielding the plants through the worst of it. In a stretch of extreme temperatures, a bit of afternoon shade takes the edge off enough to keep pollen viable and bees active into the morning. A length of shade cloth from Home Depot rigged over the bed during a heat wave handles that without much effort, and it comes right back off once the weather breaks.

Timing helps as well. A deep watering early in the day keeps plants from stacking drought stress on top of heat stress, and a plant that isn't struggling holds onto more of its flowers. Beyond that, watch the forecast – when a run of 95F (35C) days is coming, that's the week to be out there in the morning with a brush, instead of hoping the bees push through weather they'd usually sit out.

July is when backyard tomatoes either take off or quietly fall apart. The plants are big by now, heavy with green fruit and pushing hard through the hottest stretch of the year – which is right when small problems snowball into season-enders. Blossom end rot sets in, skins split, and a fungal spot creeps up the lower leaves before anyone notices. Most of that traces back to a few tasks that get skipped in the heat, not to bad luck.

The good news is that ten minutes of attention now pays off for weeks. Anyone already comfortable with growing tomatoes knows the vines are forgiving up to a point, and midsummer is where that forgiveness runs thin. A little pruning, steady water, a nutrient nudge at the right moment – these are the moves that keep fruit setting through August instead of stalling out in a tangle of leggy growth and cracked skins. None of it takes special skill. It just takes doing it before the plant forces the issue.

What Your Tomatoes Need in July

The plants aren't asking for much in July, but the little they need, they need on time. Skipping a step doesn't show up right away – it shows up three weeks later as cracked fruit or a vine half-taken by blight. Ten minutes now buys a lot of tomatoes later, and better-tasting ones at that.

1. Low-Leaf Haircut for Airflow and Blight Prevention

When pruning tomatoes, start at the bottom. Those lower leaves touching the soil, or hovering just above it, are the first place blight and early leaf spot get a foothold – rain splashes soil-borne spores up onto them, and from there the trouble climbs. Stripping the bottom 6 to 12 inches (15 to 30cm) of foliage off each plant opens up airflow right where things sit stagnant and humid. It looks a little brutal the first time. The plant won't miss them.

Those low leaves aren't doing much photosynthesizing anyway, shaded out by everything above. Pulling them lets air move through the base and dries the zone out faster after a storm, which is half the battle with fungal trouble. Do it on a dry morning so the wounds seal before evening humidity settles back in. A clean cut or a clean snap, either works – just don't leave torn stubs that invite rot.

2. Consistency With Deep Watering

Tomatoes hate surprises when it comes to water. Deep, consistent soaking is what heads off blossom end rot and split tomatoes both, and the two problems actually share a cause – erratic moisture. When a plant goes bone dry and then gets flooded, the fruit swells faster than the skin can stretch, and it cracks. Calcium uptake stalls during the dry stretches too, which is what triggers that sunken dark patch on the bottom of the tomato.

The fix is boring, but it works. Water tomatoes deeply and less often, right at the base. A couple of long soakings a week beats a daily sprinkle that only wets the top inch (2.5cm). A drip line or soaker hose from Amazon takes the guesswork out of it, running slow and low so moisture sinks down to where the roots are. Mulch over the top of that and the ground holds even between waterings. That last part is honestly reason enough to mulch.

3. Midsummer Sucker Pruning

Tomato suckers are the little shoots that pop out in the crotch between the main stem and a branch. Left alone, especially on indeterminate types, they grow into whole secondary stems that eat energy the plant could be putting into fruit. Midsummer is prime time to stay on top of them, since the vines are growing fast and throwing new suckers weekly. Pinch them out while they're small – thumb and forefinger, no tools needed.

There's a limit to this, though. Determinate tomatoes set most of their crop at once and shouldn't be sucker-pruned much at all, since every growing tip counts toward the harvest. On indeterminate tomatoes, a light hand beats a heavy one in the heat. Strip too much foliage and you expose fruit to sunscald, those pale leathery patches that show up on shoulders baking in full sun. Take the obvious suckers, leave enough canopy to shade what's ripening.

4. Mid-Season Potassium Boost

By July, the early fertilizer is mostly used up and the plant is heading into its heaviest fruiting stretch. This is where a potassium boost earns its keep – potassium drives fruit development and flavor, and a mid-season side dressing keeps production from tapering off early. Skip fertilizing tomatoes with the high-nitrogen stuff now. Nitrogen at this stage just pushes leafy growth at the expense of the tomatoes already forming.

Side dressing is simple. Scatter a low-nitrogen, higher-potassium feed in a ring a few inches (7 to 8cm) out from the stem, scratch it into the soil surface, then water it in. Something along the lines of a tomato-specific granular fertilizer from Amazon does the job without much fuss. The plant picks it up over the following weeks, right as the fruit load peaks. Do it once now and most gardens won't need another round before the season winds down.

5. Reinforcing the Rigging

All that fruit has weight, and July is when supports start giving out. A cage that held fine in June leans under a fully loaded plant, and once a stem kinks or snaps, that whole branch of developing tomatoes is finished. Walk the row and look for strain. Maybe a stake has worked loose, or a tie is starting to bite into a thickening stem. Better to catch it before a storm rolls through and lays everything flat.

Loosen any ties that are cutting in and re-secure with something soft. Strips of old T-shirt work, or these adjustable plant ties from Amazon that don't dig into the stem as it thickens. Add a stake where a plant is outgrowing its cage, and tie in the heavy trusses so they're not hanging off a single joint. Ten minutes of reinforcement now saves a snapped main stem later, and there's no coming back from that one.

6. Snapping Off Key Growing Tips

This one's aimed at the tail end of the run, but it's worth knowing about now. Toward the close of tomato season – usually mid to late summer, depending on climate – snapping off the growing tips of indeterminate plants tells them to quit making new growth and ripen what's already there. Any flower cluster that opens past a certain point won't have time to mature anyway, so the plant does better funneling that energy into the fruit already hanging.

It's called topping, and it can be the difference between a pile of green tomatoes at first frost and a properly ripe haul. Cut or pinch the top few inches (7 to 8 cm) off each main stem, just above the highest cluster worth keeping. Everything gets redirected downward. In shorter-season areas it's close to essential; in long, warm climates there's less urgency, though it still helps concentrate flavor late in the year. Miss July, and tomatoes coast. Get it right, and they produce like they’ve got something to prove.

The idea is appealing: you let your plants “make friends” in the garden by planting different plant species close to each other so that they can offer identifiable benefits to one another. Often, the goal is to keep insect pests at bay. Sometimes one plant benefits; sometimes the benefit is mutual. And sometimes – all too often – the “pairing” doesn’t work well at all and pests overrun the protected plant.

It’s frustrating when companion planting doesn’t live up to its hype. But what’s a gardener to do? There’s a smarter strategy we’re excited about that scientists suggest will do a much more efficient job of keeping those insect pests from your favorite plants. We call it scent clustering, and we’re here to tell you about it.

Say Hello to Scent Clustering

In traditional companion planting, gardeners are urged to match a pest-repelling plant with a plant to be protected – and do this repeatedly throughout the garden. If you're new to the concept, then it's worth picking up a copy of The Old Farmer's Almanac Vegetable Gardener’s Handbook from Amazon.

The idea is to have the aromatic plants that pests don’t like scattered individually throughout the garden, close to the plants to be protected. Think of them as dancing, two by two, around the ballroom of the garden.

Scent clustering abandons this “one-on-one/two-by-two” approach. Instead, we can create a protective “wall” against insect pests by grouping tough, aromatic plants together. Experts suggest that this makes a more effective barrier against insect pests than interspersing them throughout the garden.

Why Scent Clustering Deters More Pests

Have you ever noticed that the corner of the garden with two or three fragrant plants has a stronger, more compelling scent than an area with only one? In my garden in France, I have a rose bed filled with only fragrant cultivars, and recently added a jasmine vine on the fence behind it. The combined scent seems three times as powerful as the roses alone.

Grouping aromatic plants also amplified the effect of the scent – and it can be much more effective at deterring pests. Clustering strongly scented plants together may create a stronger "chemical landscape" that can help mask crop scents or confuse pests. Part of this is attributable to VOC communication.

As highlighted in this scientific study, plants release Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) in response to insect attacks. This VOC release is a way that plants communicate with neighboring plants. When insect-damaged plants communicate their situation, the undamaged plants nearby increase their own defenses – like aromatics – as if they were being attacked themselves.

Best Plants for Scent Clustering

Fragrant plants are the Amazons of the garden. They add beauty and joy but also bring the muscle to fight off insect pests. In addition to keeping pests away with their scents, aromatic herbs and flowers attract beneficial insects. Fragrant and aromatic plants release essential oils with volatile organic compounds. The VOCs communicate with other plants but also confuse insects, making it hard for them to find food.

Some plants have scents that bugs really cannot stand. These aromatic plants include: garlic, green onions, parsley, orange nasturtiums, chives, lavender, rosemary, basil, marigolds, and alliums. Others that make the list as effective for scent clustering are wormwood, scented geranium, santolina, and tansy. Creating a “wall” of the strongest aromatic pest confusers like yarrow, anise hyssop, onions, garlic, and mints in gardens helps keep pests away.

Shop Companion Planting Seed Bundles

Where to Position Scent Clusters in the Landscape

Generally, scent clusters of aromatics work best as perimeter planting. If you group them too near the vegetable garden, they can interfere with your crops' growth. Instead, create a pest-repellent hedge or aromatics around orchards and vegetable patches.

It also works well to plant pungent aromatic herbs near pathways in the garden. Their effectiveness increases when they spill over onto paving. The warming paving warms the foliage too, releasing the fragrant plant oils.

Succession Planting to Keep Scent Clusters Going

Now that you’ve identified your strongest aromatics and installed them in mixed clusters in the garden, the last thing you want is to have that “wall” crumble as the shortest-lived plants die back. As you lose plants, the scent diminishes, and the effect on insect pests also goes down.

The key to keeping the scent clusters going is succession planting. You may have already started with succession planting in the vegetable garden. Basically, this means you don’t just sow and forget. Instead, you sow rounds of seeds one after the other, to keep new crops coming in all summer long. This works especially well for crops like lettuce that grow fast and can get eaten fast. Instead of ending up with hundreds of heads of lettuce at once, you end up with a smaller amount that ripen sequentially.

You can use succession planting for your aromatic herbs as well. Whichever ones you decide to plant, just keep sowing the seeds every week or every other week to keep the herbs coming.

Plenty of lettuce quits the moment summer heat settles in, bolting tall and turning bitter before the salad season really gets going. But a few varieties were bred to hold their nerve, and those keep cutting well past the bolt.

Come July, the lettuce patch tends to be the first corner of the garden to fall apart. Leaves that were sweet and crisp back in May go bitter, the plants shoot up tall, and a flower stalk pushes from the center. Heat is the trigger. That whole stretching-and-flowering routine is bolting, and once it starts there's no going back.

Not every lettuce bolts that fast, though. The different lettuce types vary a lot in how much warmth they'll take before they turn, and a handful were bred specifically for it. Pick one of those, hand it afternoon shade and steady water, and you can keep cutting salads while the spring crop bolts and dies back.

When Heat Turns Lettuce Bitter

Lettuce is wired for cool weather. Once daytime temperatures stay in the 80s (around 27-32C), the plant takes it as a cue to reproduce, so it throws up a thick central stalk headed for flower. That's the bolt. Long summer days nudge it along too, which is why the closer you get to midsummer, the faster a susceptible variety goes.

As the plant stresses, the sap in the leaves goes milky and the flavor slides from crisp to flat-out bitter — sometimes before any stalk even shows. Germination drops off in the warmth as well, with seed often failing to sprout once the soil creeps past about 80F (27C), so a midsummer sowing may not come up at all. None of which is the end of it. It mostly comes down to which variety goes in the ground, plus a break from the afternoon sun.

6 Lettuce Varieties That Take the Heat

These are the ones that keep producing when the thermometer climbs. Most are loose-leaf or Batavian lettuce types, which run to seed slower than tight heading lettuce, and all turn up through the usual sellers.

1. Jericho

Bred in the Israeli desert, Jericho lettuce (Lactuca sativa var. longifolia) was made for exactly this problem. A tall green romaine, it stays sweet and crisp at temperatures that turn most romaines sour, and it's slow to send up a stalk even with the heat on.

Keep the moisture steady and it forms big upright heads. Take the whole thing or pull leaves a few at a time. Super Jericho seeds from the Home Depot make it easy to get.

2. Nevada

For raw durability, not much beats Nevada. A Batavian type — summer crisp on some labels — it's still Lactuca sativa var. capitata, with thick glossy leaves gathered into a loose head. It holds up to both heat and a sudden cold snap, and stays mild long after softer types would have soured. It regrows after a cut, too, so one planting goes a long way. You can find Nevada lettuce seeds at Walmart.

3. Buttercrunch

Most butterheads collapse in the heat. Buttercrunch is the exception that's kept it on seed racks for decades — a butterhead itself, Lactuca sativa var. capitata. An All-America Selections winner, it keeps that tender, buttery rosette later into warm weather than its relatives and resists bolting longer than most. It wants steady water and a bit of afternoon shade once things warm up. You'll find it nearly everywhere, including plenty of buttercrunch seed from Park Seed.

4. Black-Seeded Simpson

Black-Seeded Simpson (Lactuca sativa var. crispa) ranks among the fastest, most forgiving lettuces you can sow. The light, frilly leaves are ready in roughly 45 days, which lets you slip a harvest in ahead of peak heat and keep resowing through the season. It isn't the most bolt-proof name here, but the speed covers for that. You're eating it before it gets the chance to turn. Burpee has black-seeded Simpson seeds for a good price.

5. Red Sails

Color is what sets Red Sails apart, though the staying power is the bigger draw. The bronze-red ruffled leaves — another looseleaf, Lactuca sativa var. crispa — are slow to bolt and slow to sour, and that red pigment seems to screen it from strong sun. It's an All-America Selections pick too, a cut-and-come-again grower. Strip the outer leaves and it keeps producing for weeks instead of finishing at once. You can grab a packet of Red Sails seeds off Amazon.

6. Slobolt

The name does the explaining. Slobolt (Lactuca sativa var. crispa) was bred to resist bolting, and it holds for weeks after other loose-leaf types have shot up and gone bitter. The leaves come light green and soft, mild enough to eat young and cut again as they regrow. It sometimes turns up on store shelves less often than the others, so finding Slobolt lettuce seeds rom the Thresh Seed Co. store on Amazon is more reliable.

Expert Tips

Lettuce will hang on longer in summer if you take a little pressure off it.

• A bit of afternoon shade makes a big difference, especially once temperatures stay high.
• Keep the soil from drying out completely—lettuce hates that stop-and-start stress—and throw down some mulch if you’ve got it.
• Cut their leaves early in the morning while they’re still cool. They taste better, and the plant doesn’t seem to mind the harvest much.

I know what you're thinking. Vegetables? In July? Have I finally succumbed to the heat? Please, hear me out.

By July, many gardeners are convinced they've missed their window to sow vegetables for the year. After all, with temperatures soaring across much of the US, it's easy to assume the planting season is winding down.

But don't retire your trowel just yet, as July can actually be an excellent time to sow a surprising number of vegetables. Warm soil encourages rapid germination, and many heat-loving crops positively relish midsummer conditions? And better still, several can be harvested within just a few weeks.

A winning formula, as I'm sure we can all agree.

Plant These 7 Easy Heat-Hardy Vegetables in July

Of course, exactly what you can grow will depend on your local climate and USDA hardiness zone. Gardeners in hotter regions may need to provide extra irrigation or afternoon shade, while those in cooler northern states can often continue sowing well into late summer.

That caveat in place, then, these seven vegetables are among the most reliable choices for July planting across much of the US. Ready, set, sow!

1. Bush beans

Say it with me, people: bush beans. Bush beans are honestly one of the easiest vegetables to sow in midsummer. They love warm soil, germinate quickly, and many varieties will begin producing tender pods in as little as 50 to 60 days.

July is also ideal for succession sowing, allowing gardeners to stagger harvests and enjoy fresh beans right through to fall. Sow seeds directly where they are to grow and keep the soil consistently moist while seedlings establish.

Try something like these Gold Mine Bush Bean Seeds from Burpee if you want very high yields of crisp, ultra-sweet wax beans (and, quite frankly, who doesn't?).

2. Summer squash

If you're looking for quick results, summer squash is hard to beat. Zucchini and yellow squash thrive in hot weather and can start producing fruits in as little as six weeks.

Given enough sun, water, and space, these famously prolific plants often produce more than enough for even the most enthusiastic gardeners.

Just remember that regular harvesting is essential (some stricter gardeners may even call it a non-negotiable, but you are your own boss in my world), as it will encourage plants to continue cropping throughout the season.

3. Cucumbers

Cucumbers adore summer heat. When planted in July, they often grow rapidly thanks to warm soil temperatures and long daylight hours.

Direct sow seeds in a sunny spot and provide a trellis if possible, as vertical growing improves airflow and can help reduce disease issues.

Remember: consistent watering is essential, especially during hot spells, as drought stress can lead to bitter fruits (not ideal if you want a tasty sandwich or salad).

Shop Cucumber Seeds:

4. Swiss chard

Many leafy greens struggle in summer heat, but Swiss chard (the standout star of my own scrappy little vegetable plot) is a notable exception.

This colorful crop is considerably more heat tolerant than lettuce and can continue producing nutritious leaves well into the fall. Just take care to harvest outer leaves regularly and plants will keep producing fresh growth for months.

In warmer regions, some gardeners are even able to harvest Swiss chard through winter. Go for Bright Lights Swiss Chard Seeds from Burpee, and get ready to eat your very own homegrown rainbow.

5. Okra

For gardeners in the South, July and okra go hand in hand. This heat-loving vegetable thrives when temperatures climb and often performs best during the hottest weeks of summer (happily, it tastes amazing all year round).

Even gardeners outside traditional okra-growing regions are increasingly discovering its merits as summers become warmer. Sow something like these Clemson Spineless Okra Seeds from Burpee in full sun and harvest pods while they are still young and tender for the best flavor and texture.

And when you cook up a storm with them, be sure to invite me over for dinner. I'm a fiend for okra.

6. Black-Eyed Peas

Don't let the name fool you – southern peas, aka black-eyed peas – are some of the toughest vegetables you can sow in the heat of summer. In fact, they often perform better in July than they do in cooler weather, making them an ideal choice for gardeners in warmer parts of the US.

Yes, you guessed it; these drought-tolerant legumes germinate quickly in warm soil and typically begin producing pods within 60 to 70 days. As an added bonus, they also help improve soil health by fixing nitrogen, benefiting the crops you plant after them.

Give them a sunny spot, water while they're getting established, and they'll happily take the summer heat in their stride.

7. Beets

In cooler and northern regions, July is an excellent time to sow beets for a fall harvest. Warm soil encourages speedy germination, while cooler temperatures later in the season help roots develop excellent flavour.

Both the roots and leafy tops of these nifty little veggies are edible, making beets a particularly great crop for small-space gardens. Go hard or go home when you grow yours (and by grow hard, I mean plant something like these Detroit Supreme Beet Seeds from Burpee). You won't regret it.

Shop Vegetable Growing Essentials:

So there we have it, folks! If you thought July meant the end of vegetable sowing season, think again.

Honestly, with the right crop choices, you could still be harvesting homegrown produce within weeks – and setting yourself up for a productive late-summer and fall garden.

Roll on the homegrown goodies, I say!

I’ve been a gardening editor for longer than I want to admit, and I’ve been growing tomatoes from the start. My work has meant I’ve been lucky enough to visit goodness knows how many nurseries and talk to a gazillion professional growers, and I’ve hoovered up tips and tricks the whole time. So believe me, I’ve tried out way more than my fair share of professional hacks in pursuit of a perfect crop of juicy toms that keeps on coming all summer long.

And yes, as a regular Instagram scroller, I’ve tried out plenty of unprofessional tips too. Honestly, quite a few of both types turned out to be absolute hogwash. Some had the potential to be downright deadly (here’s looking at you, baking soda making tomatoes sweeter). But a few actually worked.

Heeding tomato care basics such as supporting and pruning tomato plants will bring you a decent initial crop of tomatoes. But here’s the thing: if you want to keep tomato plants producing plenty of tomatoes as the weather gets hotter, foliage and fruit become more susceptible to disease, and sap-sucking insects move in, you need some extra tricks up your sleeve. These days, I only raise six tomato plants each summer because I’m confident – thanks to my trial and error testing of all those hacks – that I can keep them producing bumper crops of toms for months on end. And just look how many tomatoes those few plants produce.

These are those expert tomato growing tips, so you too can harvest more than ever before.

1. Basil Supports Tomato Plant Health

You’ll hear all sorts of hype about companion plants when growing tomatoes, and mostly they’re used either to attract beneficial bugs or deter pesky ones. But there’s one companion plant that does things a little differently and it's an absolute must, because basil directly increases tomato yield by as much as 20%. Scientists have shown that basil releases volatile compounds that prime a tomato plant’s defense mechanisms. So, if a tomato plant is attacked by pests or disease, if it’s got a wingman basil plant growing next to it, it’ll react to that threat faster and more robustly.

Research proves that growing basil alongside a tomato plant helps it grow stronger roots, too, that allow it to cope better with drought and heat. Basil also helps to attract pollinators and deter pests, and even makes fruit taste sweeter.

There are around 150 types of basil and for the full benefit, it’s best to grow a few varieties. Greek basil (Ocimum minimum) is the variety used in the stress-reponse study and seeds are available from Amazon. Purple basil (Ocimum basilicum var. purpurascens) has an intense aroma so is particularly effective at repelling pests, and seeds are available from Eden Brothers. Lemon basil (Ocimum x africanum) is the variety used in the study that found basil can improve tomato flavor perception, and seeds are available from Botanical Interests.

2. Banana Peel is Full of Potassium That Tomatoes Need

You’re likely feeding your tomato plants every 10-14 days with a liquid fertilizer that’s high in potassium, like this Espoma Organic Tomato Feed from Amazon. Plants need many nutrients for healthy growth but broadly speaking, nitrogen promotes leaf and stem growth, phosphorus aids root development, and potassium helps flowers and fruit form; these are collectively known as the NPK ratio.

And as luck would have it, banana peel is super-high in potassium, and you can use it to give plants an extra boost with a mild, slow release of nutrients. Some people mix chopped-up banana peel into the compost at the base of planting holes when moving tomatoes outdoors. I choose to make a supplementary banana peel tea whenever the opportunity arises, steeping a couple of chopped-up peels in a quart-jar of water for three or four days, then pouring the strained tonic onto the soil, diluting first if it looks strong.

Banana peel also contains a small amount of calcium, which helps prevent blossom end rot (which causes those leathery black patches on tomato bases), and trace elements that support photosynthesis. Importantly, it doesn’t have any nitrogen, so won’t fuel leafy growth.

3. An Electric Toothbrush Improves Pollination

Tomato flowers need to be pollinated before they can set fruit. Happily, each flower contains both male and female parts so all that needs to happen is a little movement to shake the pollen free from the male anther cone and onto the female stigma. If you’re growing tomatoes outside then buzzing insects and the wind will naturally ensure this little jiggle happens. But, if you’re raising your toms on a kitchen windowsill or in a greenhouse, your plants could probably do with a little pollinating help.

Flowers can increasingly fail to pollinate as summer temperatures heat up, too. Once daytime temperatures are above 90°F or if it's over 70°F at nighttime – and remember, greenhouses can be far hotter than the air outside – pollen can become too dry or sticky to easily be distributed. Those flowers that dry up and drop off your plants? They're likely to be the blooms that failed to pollinate and, as the season progresses, you’ll see an increasing number of these on each truss.

Unless, of course, you employ an electric toothbrush to deliver that essential buzz. Hold the back, non-bristly side of the toothbrush head gently against the stem directly above each flower for a couple of seconds, when conditions are dry. Tomato flowers only have a 50-hour window for pollination so, to get full trusses across all your plants, you’ll need to do this every two days. You can buy super-cheap rechargeable electric toothbrushes such as this from Amazon, so don’t even consider using your own!

Shading plants in a greenhouse from the midday sun will also help pollination rates. Opt for 40-50% sunblock so plants still get plenty of sun to photosynthesize, with a shade cloth like this from Amazon, and position it so it only blocks the strongest overhead midday rays.

4. DIY Drip Irrigation is a Game-Changer

Let’s be honest, how regularly do you water your tomato plants? Most toms are on a rollercoaster ride between saturated and dry soil, and one of the most important things you can give a tomato plant while it’s fruiting is consistent moisture. Any big swings in soil moisture stresses plants, leads to blossom end rot, and cracked, split fruit. A dehydrated plant may also drop its flowers.

Drip irrigation systems are great, but there are lots of other, cheaper ways you can stabilize soil moisture between waterings or rainfall. I’ve DIYed drip irrigation systems from upcycled pop bottles, and you can see how I made them here.

I now also use clay LECA balls such as these from Amazon as pot-toppers to regulate moisture, and I DIY sunken water reservoirs alongside my bigger tomato plants to mimic how ollas (like these from Amazon) work. Mixing coconut coir such as this from Amazon into the soil is another way to help it hold onto an excess of water then release it slowly.

Yes, I water just as often, but the soil is delivered to my plants far more evenly and that means they’re far less stressed. It also means that I can go away for the weekend without having to ask my nosy neighbor to water my precious toms, so I'm far less stressed, too.

5. Stopping Feeding is as Important as Starting Feeding

We all know we need to feed our tomato plants to produce lots more fruit, and to start as soon we spot the first flowers. But when do you stop feeding? Because if you carry on feeding too long, you encourage the plant to pointlessly keep on growing rather than directing its energy into ripening the existing fruit.

You should stop feeding around a month before your first expected frost, or once nighttime temperatures start to dip below 50°F. At this point, snip off the top of the main growing stem(s) too, known as ‘topping’. This stops the plant growing upwards and forces it to direct all its energy into ripening its existing trusses of tomatoes.

For years, I’ve collected vintage gardening books, scouring thrift stores, flea markets and yard sales in my search for interesting tomes. The gorgeous illustrations, faded covers, poetic words and fancy lettering – even the scent of the old paper pages: these old books have a charm of their own. But, as well as being beautiful, I've discovered they’re also an amazing source of gardening tips that are still incredibly relevant to vegetable growers and gardeners today.

These old books are packed full of the type of gardening wisdom that used to be handed down the generations as family members gardened together side-by-side. So many of us move away from our roots these days, and this sort of inherited knowledge is easily lost along the way – which is why I find vintage books such a rich source of advice and guidance. Dipping into my vintage library is rather like having the voice of a kindly grandparent passing on their gardening wisdom and experience as you grow.

It's the expert tips about growing vegetables that I've found most useful – and I guess, back in the day when everyone grew their own supplies, a decent dinner rested on such expertise. I hope you find these old grow-your-own tips as useful as I have…

1. Water Seedlings From Beneath

'When your seedlings are well through and need watering, hold the box in a bath of water till moisture appears on the surface. Dip it in very gradually or you will disturb the soil.'
The ABC of the Greenhouse by W.E. Shewell-Cooper, published 1947 English Universities Press Ltd

I've tried this out myself with trays of tiny seedlings, and it’s a great way to irrigate seedlings. It drenches the roots without damaging the fragile plants or disturbing their roots. Sadly, I don’t have a vintage zinc bathtub to hand, so I use a large flexible plastic tub. Despite being less aesthetically pleasing, it works like a dream.

2. Twist Plant Ties to Cushion Stems

'The Wrong Method of tying' vs 'The Right Method of Tying'.
The Alphabet of Gardening by T.W. Saunders, published 1926 by W.H.&L. Collingridge

Since I spotted this tip, I always use this clever way of tying when I support plants such as tomatoes or runner beans with a stake. For a start, the twist means the tie stays put rather than sliding around, and this method holds the stem slightly more firmly for better support. But the really clever bit is that the twist acts as a little cushion, protecting the stem from rubbing against the support.

3. Shade Your Tomatoes

‘Strange though it may seem, heat is the great enemy of tomatoes under glass, especially those in a small greenhouse which may become like an oven on a July midday. For this, a little shade is a great help.’
The Vegetable Garden by E.R. Janes, published 1954 Penguin Books

Last summer in my greenhouse, I scorched my poor baby tomato plants to a crisp, so this tip is something I wish I’d read sooner. Burnt brown leaves, shrivelled flowers – it was a sad, sad scene of devastation. Learn from my mistakes and shade your greenhouse if you're growing tomatoes in a hot zone: treat your greenhouse with shading compound spray or fit a temporary fabric shade to protect your little toms from the sun.

4. Ripen Onions Faster

'The ripening of onions is hastened by bending over the tops with the handle of hoe or rake.'
How to Grow and Produce Your Own Food by Charles Boff, published 1946 Odhams Press Ltd

If you're growing onions, you'll know the frustration of waiting for them to ripen, and their tops to naturally fall over and brown before harvesting your crop. This tip is so simple to do, but so effective. It's particularly handy if you’re trying to harvest your crop quickly in order to clear space for another.

5. Encourage Dense Cabbage Hearts

‘A loose cabbage can be encouraged to heart-up by making a vertical cut in the stem and wedging this open with a piece of stick.’
How to Grow and Produce Your Own Food by Charles Boff, published 1946 Odhams Press Ltd

I have to admit that I haven't tried this trick yet, but I will be putting into practice soon in the community veg patch I help out at. We're growing cabbages at the community veg patch I'm involved with, and some are looking decidedly lack-lustre and floppy. This method looks pretty extreme, but it might just be their saving.

6. Banish Carrot Fly

‘When carrots are thinned out, soil should be pressed back around the remaining plants by treading or with the back of the rake. This is to discourage the destructive carrot fly which seeks to lay eggs in loose soil.’
How to Grow and Produce Your Own Food by Charles Boff, published 1946 Odhams Press Ltd

I've been growing carrots for years, and before I read this little gem of gardening expertise, I had no idea that carrot flies laid their eggs in loose soil. It’s a pest I’ve struggled with in the past, so lesson learned.

7. Remove Diseased Leaves Fast

'Whether tomatoes occupy the greenhouse alone or if they have to share it with many other plants, the greatest cleanliness should be practised. Diseased plants should go to the furnace – quickly. Dead leaves should be removed from the house’
The Vegetable Garden by E.R. Janes, published 1954 Penguin Books

Every now and again I give my greenhouse a good clean out, sweeping up the stray potting soil from the paving slabs and turning a jumble of flowerpots into an orderly stack. But the hygiene aspect of immediately removing none-too-healthy leaves from my tomato plants? I didn't once think about the fact that quietly ignoring them was encouraging pests and disease to multiply. And at the end of the season, I was guilty of throwing dead or diseased plants onto the compost heap.

Now I know that a little greenhouse clutter is forgivable, but I need to prioritise keeping my plants tidy.

8. Add Borage to Drinks

‘(Lemon) Balm is used by both our cook and butler. The cook mixes it with other herbs in various ways, and the butler puts it along with borage in summer drinks.’
Garden Herbs by George E. Whitehead, published 1942 by Adam & Charles Black

Sadly I do not have a butler or a cook, but I consider this tip highly relevant to gardening as I do like to make a refreshing drink after a session in the veggie patch on a hot summer's afternoon. I can now vouch that adding lemon balm leaves to a mojito cocktail is a genius idea, as is scattering a few borage flowers on a G&T for a pretty finishing touch.

Oh what a beautiful morning! It’s a great feeling and a great song. But the lyrics are sufficient to convince you to leave corn out of your small garden design. Yep, that’s the song that says “The corn is as high as an elephant’s eye, and it looks like it’s climbin’ clear up to the sky.”

Now that’s a lovely image, but it doesn’t work in a small, urban garden. Combine that with the common wisdom that you need multiple rows to get the plants pollinated, and growing corn gets crossed off the list of garden tasks.

But – to stick with the lyrics theme – “the times they are a-changing.” Today there are several dwarf species that might work well in the backyard garden. We’re here to introduce you.

The Problem with Growing Traditional Corn

Fresh corn on the cob is one of the garden crops emblematic of summer! You pick the largest ears in the garden, pluck them, shuck them, then roast them over the fire. A large ear of ripe corn is almost a meal itself.

But typically, gardeners with small backyards don’t plant this crop. The individual plants tend to grow taller than you are, and some species can achieve a height of 14 feet (4.5 meters) tall. That’s just not practical for someone with an urban garden. Even a few plants would shade out lower sun-loving crops like tomatoes and peppers, and you’ll need more than one or two.

Because all types of corn are largely wind-pollinated, with the breeze carrying pollen from the tassels to the silks, the ideal is to plant corn in block formations. This system increases the chances of pollen reaching the silks. Even if you plant corn tight, an 8-by-8 block will take up at least 21 feet (7m) squared.

New Stalks on the Block

Today, corn in the backyard garden is no longer a pipedream. Several types of corn have been developed that are small enough to grow in a regular, behind-the-house garden. Some corn can be grown in a container on a sunny patio! One is a Burpee special called On Deck Hybrid. The other is a dwarf variety known as Blue Jade Dwarf Sweet Corn.

1. On Deck Hybrid Corn

Burpee has done it again. They’ve developed the first-ever sweet corn you can grow in a container. It’s known as On Deck Hybrid, and specimens never grow above 5 feet (1.5m) tall, yet the delicious, bicolor ears grow to 8 inches long.

This tasty breakthrough bicolor variety grows well on containers. You can plant 18 seeds in a single, 24-inch (.6m) container on your patio. The stalks grow fast, with each one producing two or three ears - while also adding that vertical interest your deck needed. And it’s speedy! The time from planting to grilling is only two months. You can find On Deck corn seeds from Burpee.

2. Blue Jade Dwarf Sweet Corn

Neither you and I would select a corn variety because we like the color of the ears, but I've got to say that the deep silver-blue kernels of Blue Jade Dwarf sweet corn is utterly lovely. They start out white but mature to a steely blue. That blue deepens even more once the corn is cooked. And these ears of blue corn taste as good as they look.

Blue Jade Dwarf sweet corn really are dwarf plants, never growing taller than 4 feet (1.3m). Low-growing and reliable - with each stalk producing two ears - Blue Jade take about 80 days after planting to mature. Harvest the ears when they are blue with a little light-yellow in the kernels. Cobs can only be called cuties, each one about half the size of a standard ear of sweet corn. You can find Blue Jade seeds from Hudson Valley Seed Co.

Other Dwarf Corn Options

There are other dwarf corn options out there that you might want to consider, each with its own characteristics. All of these varieties stay under 5 feet (1.6m) tall and mature in 80 days or less.

• Early Sunglow. Did you know that some corn is sugar-enhanced? Early Sunglow is a dwarf variety that contains a sugar enhancer gene that makes the kernels sweeter and more tender. It’s a dwarf yellow corn that grows 5-6 inch ears with sweet, tender kernels. Count on 60-65 days to mature. Find Early Sunglow corn seeds from Ferry-Morse.
• Bodacious. Bodacious is even smaller than Early Sunglow, the stalks topping out at 3-4 feet (1-1.3m) tall. It's a miniature yellow hybrid corn that grows ears between 6 and 8 inches. Seed to harvest is about 10 weeks. You can find Bodacious sweet corn seeds from Park Seed.
• Peaches & Cream. Here’s a pretty dwarf corn plant. Peaches & Cream is really lovely, growing to 4 feet (1.3m) with bicolored kernels - bright yellow and white. The ears are 7 inches long and take 11 weeks to mature. Peaches & Cream sweet corn seeds can be purchased from Ferry-Morse.

June is a big month for tomatoes. Right now they should be putting out tons of new branches and leaves, their stems should be thickening, and the first flowers and fruit should appear soon. But if your tomato leaves are turning yellow this early in the season, then it’s crucial to figure out the cause and treat the problem fast.

Yellow leaves on tomatoes can occur for a variety of reasons. Some of them are no big deal and easy to fix. But if others are left untreated, they could have serious implications on your plants for the rest of the season. Your harvest could be much smaller or even nonexistent, depending on the severity of the problem.

Whatever the issue, though, there is a solution. But the first step is identifying the problem. I’ll walk you through the three most common causes of yellow tomato leaves in June and how to deal with each of these complications.

1. Nutrient Deficiencies

The most likely cause for yellow leaves on tomatoes in June is a nutrient deficiency. Tomato seedlings often turn yellow before you even transplant them into the garden because they’ve used up all the nutrients built into the seeds from which they sprouted. That’s why it’s important to fertilize tomatoes in June, especially if you didn’t give them a dose of fertilizer when you transplanted them into the garden.

Often leaves turn yellow when there is a nitrogen deficiency in the soil – nitrogen is what stimulates lots of green, leafy growth. But phosphorus and potassium are also key for producing lots of fruit, so you don’t want to overdo it with the nitrogen in order to get green leaves at the expense of actual tomatoes. Though, a potassium deficiency can cause yellowing around the edges of your tomato leaves as well.

Iron and magnesium deficiencies can also cause yellowing leaves on tomatoes. But rather than the entire leaf turning yellow, these nutrition problems exhibit themselves in different ways. Iron chlorosis causes the leaves to yellow and the stems to remain green. A magnesium deficiency causes leaves to take on a yellow, splotchy appearance.

The best course of action is to first do a soil test – this quick and easy at-home soil test kit from Home Depot is a great option for immediate results – before choosing a fertilizer for your plants. A one-size-fits-all fertilizer is not ideal, especially if your plants are already turning yellow. A simple soil test will tell you exactly what nutrients your tomatoes are lacking and guide you to choose the proper plant food for your particular plants.

2. Diseases

A variety of different tomato diseases can cause leaves to turn yellow. In June, the most likely diseases to impact your plants are:

• Early Blight
• Late Blight
• Septoria Leaf Spot
• Leaf Mold
• Bacterial Spot
• Fusarium Wilt
• Tomato Pith Necrosis
• Tomato Yellow Leaf Curl Virus

The best way to both prevent these diseases is to provide proper tomato care. Do a soil test before planting and amend your soil based on those results. Water plants at the base to prevent splashback onto leaves, which can spread diseases. Provide consistent irrigation so plants are not stressed and more vulnerable to disease. When pruning tomato plants, always clean your pruners between each plant to prevent disease spread.

As an extra precaution, especially if you’ve encountered any of these diseases in previous years, choose disease-resistant tomato varieties to grow in your garden. Botanical Interests is a great source for disease-resistant tomato seeds. Or you can shop disease-resistant tomato starter plants from Bonnie Plants.

3. Herbicide Drift

Another cause of yellow leaves on tomato plants is herbicide drift, however, this is much less common. Still herbicides can travel via the wind for up to a mile and harm your tomato plants, causing them to twist, turn yellow, and become stunted. This issue is more likely if you live near a commercial farm, but it can still occur in any neighborhood.

If you use herbicides in your landscape, never apply them on a windy day and try to stay as far away from your tomatoes as possible. Ideally, you should hand-pull weeds with a tool like Grampa’s Weeder from Walmart, which works wonders on the dandelions in my yard. You can also try a safer organic weed control method instead, so you don’t accidentally harm your own plants.

Herbicides are also sometimes present in low-quality soil mixes, composts, and mulches. That’s why you should sometimes be careful when using free mulch, free compost, or free garden soil. If possible, find out the source of the material to ensure it does not contain unwanted herbicides that can ruin your garden.

Planting tomatoes in spring is important, but don’t underestimate the importance of caring for your plants in June. If you start good tomato-care habits now, you’ll get better quality fruit more fruit, and a plant that lives longer.

When you are growing tomatoes, you can’t rest on your laurels in June. Early summer is a critical period for tomato plants as they develop from green leaves into summer fruits. Don’t worry – the tasks are not complex.

The top five things you need to do for tomatoes in June are simple actions like giving them water, fertilizer, a support system, mulch and a haircut.

What Tomatoes Need in June

For tomatoes to be happy campers, they need a proper growing location where they get at least 6 hours a day of direct sunlight each day and moist, well-draining soil. If you planted in May, upkeep starts in June. Here are the five most important tasks to keep those plants healthy and growing.

1. Provide Support for Tomato Plants

If you have young kids, you know that sense of shock when you see how fast they grow. One minute they are babes in arms; the next minute, it seems, they are riding a bike. The same is true for your tomato plants in June.

Tomato plants shoot up amazingly fast. In early June, it’s time to set up a support system for them. By late June, the plants are too heavy and tangled to move them around. What happens if you don’t support them? They can drag on the ground, bend, develop disease, and even snap. Great support options include modular tomato cages, stakes, and trellises.

This snap-together system, available from Amazon, is a personal favorite of Gardening Know How Senior Editor Liz Baessler. If you have waited too long to install a traditional cage, you can just build this modular system around your plants with no fuss!

2. Water Deeply and Regularly

Think of cutting into a big ripe tomato; it’s full of juice! That suggests that you can’t grow tomatoes without regular water. While all young tomato plants need moist soil, tomatoes require even more water in June as temperatures rise.

For June irrigation, regular deep watering is the rule. It encourages deeper, stronger root systems and better drought resistance. Water slowly and deeply, putting the water around the roots of the plants, never overhead. Installing a drip irrigation system like this Rain Bird watering kit from Amazon is easy to do and will keep your tomatoes perfectly watered, even while you're on vacation. Watering early in the morning is ideal so that the leaves will be dry well before nightfall. Wet foliage at night is a recipe for fungal issues.

How often should you water? You want to irrigate at least once a week, but you might need to water more frequently if the weather is hot and dry. The idea is to keep the soil consistently moist. Going from very dry to very wet will cause your fruits to crack.

3. Add Mulch Around the Base of Plants

One way to help tomatoes hold moisture in the soil is to apply mulch. This is particularly important as summer temperatures rise. Spreading a few inches of mulch around the base of each tomato plant will also suppress weeds and keep the roots cooler.

Mulching also prevents soil from “bouncing” up onto foliage when it rains, an event that results in soil-borne diseases to spread to the lower leaves.

When mulching in June, remember to keep the mulch an inch or so from the main stem. What to use for mulch? Some good choices are straw, pine needles, compost, and shredded leaves.

4. Clip Out Lower Leaves to Improve Airflow

It’s hard to imagine when you are planting your crops, but, by June, tomato plants often become thick and crowded. The lush leaves reduce airflow and increase the risk of fungal disease as the weather grows warmer. Fungal diseases spread fast when leaves remain wet for long periods, the air is stagnant, and plants are overcrowded.

So take your snippers and prune your tomatoes in June. Focus on leaves that touch the soil, and leaves that are yellowing. This will allow more air to circulate, reducing humidity around the plant. It also helps prevent soil-borne diseases from splashing into the lower tomato leaves.

5. Monitor for Early Pest and Disease Problems

What happens in June? People get married, we celebrate the summer solstice, and tomato pests and common tomato diseases first begin appearing. With careful monitoring, you can get out ahead of the problems and avoid severe infestations later in the summer.

What are you looking for? Any signs of bug damage, including yellowing or wilting foliage, spots on leaves, or chewed leaves. You should also note any and all bugs, including aphids, hornworms and whiteflies. Treat these critters ASAP with diatomaceous earth. Be sure to only use food-grade diatomaceous earth, which can be found on Amazon, so that you can enjoy your tomatoes safely.

When it comes to diseases, fungal diseases are on the top of the list. Think about early tomato blight and Septoria leaf spot. Treat diseases when spotted, and take steps to prevent diseases in the future, including watering early in the morning, trimming leaves that touch the ground, and spacing the tomatoes appropriately.

Tomatoes are heavy feeders and fast growers. During June, they enter a stage where they need proper support, balanced watering, airflow, and regular maintenance to continue growing strong through the hottest part of summer.

Your pepper plants in June might not look like my pepper plants in June. That’s because the date for planting pepper seeds indoors and the date for transplanting them outdoors will vary quite a bit depending on your climate.

However, anyone who is growing peppers this summer will need to take some of the same basic steps in June. These are not complicated vegetables. If you give them a site with the proper amount of sunlight, the appropriate soil, and sufficient water then you are likely good to go.

So here are five essential tasks that you need to do for pepper plants, at any stage, in June.

What Your Pepper Plants Need in June

Hello, summer! You’re just starting to enjoy being outdoors which is a lucky thing, since June is a big month in the garden. Here’s what to do with your pepper plants now for a huge harvest later in the season.

1. Give Them Plenty of Water

This is not a shocker. All young vegetable plants need water. No matter where you live in the United States, June weather will be warmer than May, April, or any of the previous months of the year.

June signals the beginning of summer, with more sun and hotter days, which sends peppers’ water requirements to the top of the to-do list for June. This is true whether your plants are recently transplanted seedlings or established plants.

All pepper plants need water, across all of the growth stages of their lives. Young seedlings need soil that is always moist, but they will die in soggy soil. Give transplanted seedlings a deep, slow watering two or three times a week, depending on weather. A drip irrigation kit from Home Depot, like this one Content Editor Laura uses in her own garden, is a great way to give peppers consistent irrigation at the source.

You want to encourage those young pepper plants to send their roots deep into the soil. Deep roots mean greater drought tolerance. Established plants require 1 or 2 inches (2.5-5 cm) of water per week, ideally through drip irrigation.

2. Make Sure They Get Enough Sun

Yes, some vegetables are happy to grow with more shade than sun – think lettuce – but peppers are not among this crowd. They grow fast and require many hours of direct sunlight every day to produce those crisp and luscious fruit.

Insufficient sunlight means tall, leggy plants and poor pepper crops. One of your June pepper tasks will be to check on their sun quotient and do what’s necessary – whether that's clearing branches above them to transplanting, if necessary – to provide enough sunlight.

How much sun do peppers need? As much as possible. That is, peppers require at least 6 hours per day of direct sun and won’t complain if you give them up to 12 hours. The ideal situation for a pepper plant is a site that gets direct morning sun and a bit of afternoon shade rather than no morning sun and full afternoon sun, which can cause sunscald on peppers.

3. Watch for Pests

The June weather is so nice that the whole family spends more time outside in the backyard. But you aren’t alone. A variety of common pepper pests also like the early summer weather. They show up in the garden, happy and hungry. The golden rule for dealing with pests in the garden is to catch them early. That makes it easier to get rid of them.

The pests you are likely to see in June may depend on where you live. But almost everywhere there are aphids, European corn borer, corn earworm, and pepper maggot. Aphids form colonies on pepper plant leaves, often on the underside, and such out the sap. The other three insect species will damage the fruit.

Monitoring for pests means inspecting those pepper plants every week or even twice a week. Look on the undersides of the leaves for aphids, use yellow sticky traps like these from Amazon, and search for signs of damage. Neem oil, which you can also get from Amazon, is effective on all of these pests as well.

4. Pinch Out Early Flowers

This is a hard one for some gardeners, including me! But it’s a proven fact that pinching out early flowers on pepper plants is a good strategy over time. Early flowers suck energy from the plant during a time when they should focus on developing strong roots and foliage.

Pinching out those blossoms will make your plants more vital and healthier. It can also mean that you’ll get more peppers from each plant. It also puts the brakes on premature pepper fruiting and gives the plant a chance to mature before producing peppers.

5. Add a Protective Layer of Mulch

Mulch is kind of magic. It protects the roots of the plants from temperature spikes and drops, putting a buffer between the soil and the elements. Mulch can also hold moisture in the soil, especially in the hot sun, and reduce the risk that soil-borne pathogens that splash up on the lower leaves of the pepper plants when it rains.

What type of mulch should you use? Pick something natural, a product that will disintegrate into the soil over time. This organic wood mulch from Back to the Roots is a good option. I also like leaf mulch, straw, or grass clippings for peppers.

Be sure that the mulch doesn’t actually touch the stems of the plants or else this can cause fungal diseases. While you are laying the mulch, take the time to clip out the lowest-hanging leaves, too. This is another way to reduce soil splashing.

June is here and that means for most gardeners across the US, it’s time to transplant your tomatoes. Transplanting time is also the perfect moment to give your tomatoes a boost with their first dose of fertilizer for the season.

Maybe you live somewhere warm and you’ve already put your tomatoes in the ground or you live in the far north and you’re still waiting for that final frost date. Either way, whether you’ve already moved your plants into the garden or that’s on your to-do list for this weekend, now is the ideal time to fertilize tomatoes.

But before you start feeding your favorite vegetable, it’s important to understand exactly what kind of fertilizer your tomatoes need at this stage in their lifecycle. It’s also vital to apply fertilizer in the right way to ensure your plants get the biggest benefit and you don’t accidentally set back their growth.

I’ll walk you through how to fertilize tomatoes in June for a huge harvest this summer. Plus, I’ll reveal the biggest tomato feeding mistake that can potentially ruin your plants for the rest of the season.

Do You Have to Fertilize Tomatoes in June?

June is a great time to start fertilizing tomatoes. Most gardeners begin transplanting tomatoes outdoors between mid-May and mid-June. The exact date varies depending on your growing zone and last frost date in spring.

But by mid to late June, almost everywhere in the contiguous US should be free of frost, which means it’s safe to plant your tomatoes outdoors. When you transplant your tomatoes outdoors, you should also give them their first dose of fertilizer.

Benefits of Fertilizing Tomatoes in June

Fertilizing tomatoes in June at the time of transplanting or just after planting tomatoes outdoors gives them a head start that will benefit them for the rest of the summer. It helps them establish a healthy root system that will set them up for strong growth the rest of the summer. Fertilizing in June also provides them with a much-needed boost of nutrients that will help them transition from indoor growing to thriving outdoors in the garden.

If you started tomatoes from seed, by June, your seedlings have likely depleted all the nutrients that were stored in the original seed. Most seed starting mixes don’t include much fertilizer – if any at all – so by the time your seedlings are big enough to transplant, they are in need of more nutrients.

Fertilizing tomatoes in June, just after planting, replenishes your plants with necessary nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, and other micronutrients they need to thrive. If your tomato seedlings are turning yellow, that’s a clear sign that they need a dose of fertilizer when you transplant them.

How to Fertilize Tomatoes in June

The easiest way to fertilize tomatoes in June is when you transplant them into the garden. There are two ways you can do this. The first way is to amend the soil in each individual hole. After you dig the hole for each tomato plant, add a dose of a slow-release organic fertilizer. My favorite tomato fertilizer is this one from Jobe’s on Amazon. Follow the instructions on the package for the proper dosage. Then mix the fertilizer into the surrounding soil and plant your tomato.

The other way to fertilize tomatoes at planting is to amend the soil in the entire area where you plan on putting your tomatoes. Again, use an organic slow-release granular fertilizer that will gently feed your plants all season. Follow the recommended dosage on the package for the size area you need to cover. Then use a rake or one of my favorite gardening tools, the Garden Weasel from Amazon, to incorporate the fertilizer into the soil and plant.

Water plants after you finish transplanting your tomatoes to help spread the nutrients to your tomatoes’ roots. Always water plants after fertilizing and transplanting to help them settle into the soil and prevent transplant shock.

If you’ve already transplanted your tomatoes into the garden and forgot to fertilize, don’t worry – it’s not too late. You can apply a side dressing of an organic granular fertilizer to your plants now to give them a boost. Simply sprinkle the recommended amount around each plant and gently use your fingers to mix it into the soil. Don’t get too aggressive with this or you could damage some of the roots. Next, water in the fertilizer to help it seep down into the roots.

Alternatively, you can use a liquid tomato fertilizer like this organic option from Espoma. Mix the recommended dosage for your number of plants into a watering can and drench your plants at the soil line. After the first dose of fertilizer for the season, keep reapplying your organic fertilizer of choice every two to four weeks or follow the directions for the specific plant food you use.

Don’t Make This Feeding Mistake

Feeding tomatoes in June can give them a huge boost that will serve them well during the peak of the summer growing season, but there’s a common fertilizing mistake that can actually set back plants. You should never fertilize plants during the heat of the day.

Fertilizing tomatoes in the middle of a hot June afternoon is a recipe for disaster. It can cause fertilizer burn on plants and scorch the foliage they need to capture the sun for photosynthesis to grow. Young plants, especially newly transplanted ones, are most at risk of fertilizer burn and leaf scorch.

The best time to fertilize plants is in the morning. This allows time for any excess water that may get on foliage to dry before the end of the day. That’s important because wet leaves invite many common tomato diseases. So give your plants a dose of fertilizer in the morning some day this month for an even bigger harvest of tasty tomatoes later on in the summer.

Tomato Fertilizing Essentials