Mid-Summer Garden Plantings

[B. White]

I plowed up my fordhooks and bush beans this weekend. Half died from the drought and what was left still looked bad. I replanted yesterday and if the rain continues I hope to be able to recover and have a month's worth of pickings to can. We didn't get too many quarts put up before they slowed down and quit. I replanted in an area I had potatoes, cabbage, lettuce, etc. earlier in the year.

I had never grown pumpkins and the other winter squash (except a little spaghetti squash) until this year. I've already cured the pumpkins and the butternut, spaghetti and kabocha are still looking good, so I put a couple more hills of each back where the beans were to see how a 2nd round does.

I covered another open area with a 5:1 mix of iron and clay peas and sunflower to keep the weeks down until I plant in the fall.

We're trying to keep a perpetual garden and always have something fresh, even if not much variety certain times of the year. I'm happy to have some diced and roasted turnip roots in the dead of winter. I've tried to adjust to have less of some things, since I should not need as much canned or in the freezer, if we have a bigger variety planted more often. I probably need two more years of average weather to figure it out, but I'm keeping a log of what was planted vs. how much was put up, since I don't want to over produce or be short. Inputs and labor are too valuable not to try find a good average.

What, if anything else do you have luck planting this time of the year? Bugs and heat are hard to beat, but I did some late beans last year that put out good once it cooled a little. Has anyone found a good rotation that is more than just two seasons?

 

[jrickman]

Dug up a row of taters and a row of the last surviving (pitiful) cabbage yesterday. Replaced it with beans packed in as dense as I could get them. My row of straight neck yellow squash is about petered out now, so I'll probably pull it this week and see if I can get a few late cantaloupes. Otherwise, I'm just starting seedlings for fall now.

 

[livinoutdoors]

I do year round gardens and aint no expert by far, but here are some rotations i do,
Potatoes in early spring followed by sweet taters in the same spot or cowpeas. Right now if i pull something out i like cowpeas as a replacement cuz i know they will do great. Im also trying yardlong beans this year. I will replant beans, corn, melons, etc. Okra all summer.
My spring cabbage or similar i will do the same as the taters, follow them with sweet taters or cowpeas. I try to plant summer squash real early to beat the bugs, then do a replant. Sometimes the replant fails, sometimes it works. Most all of your other typical summer garden stuff will go in a plot i had turnips in for the winter. I have been planting rye in the winter as a cover crop for my corn patch. Seems to work really well. Everthing else gets planted with kale, cabbage etc.. for winter garden.

 

[sportsman94]

Same for me. After the initiaL spring planting I more or less throw in the towel and just plant cowpeas, sweet potatoes, cover crops, and have done peppers before. Something that should keep weeds down and condition the soil for the fall. I planted buckwheat last week and will run the chicken tractor through it in the next week or two as well as a few other places I have CC planted.

 

[crackerdave]

You might get another crop of tomatoes by starting plants with suckers pulled off your first plants.

 

[B. White]

My maters are still going, but I think the leaf-footed bugs are starting to affect them. I probably should have did a 2nd batch of corn, but didn't plan for it, plus coons would just get fatter now that they have a taste of what I left standing.

I think I'll leave it as is and go ahead and get onions and leaks going inside to get ready for fall and add a little each week to start with a good fall plant variety.