The third week of May is when backyard farmers go crazy for tomatoes, potatoes, herbs, berry plants and other edibles to start a bountiful summer season. The secret to success when it comes to growing food in our cool summer climate is to maximize the heat for warm season crops.
Here’s the answers to the most-asked questions from backyard – and front yard –farmers:
What are the best tomato varieties for our region?
If you’re gardening in Western Washington and insist on full size tomatoes then grow with short season tomato varieties such as Early Girl, Stupice and Early Cascade. The garden gossip after last summer’s cool arrival is that small fruited tomatoes are always the most dependable. Grow Sweet 100, Sweet One Million, Grape tomatoes, Patio tomatoes, yellow pear tomatoes, Husky Gold or any variety with small fruit and you won’t be disappointed with green tomatoes this August.
What can I do to speed up my tomato ripening?
Location, location, location. For the most success, grow heat-loving tomatoes, peppers, basil and eggplants against a south facing brick or concrete wall in a raised bed. Place pots (black plastic pots absorb heat) on top of concrete driveways or patios. Rocks, gravel and concrete can absorb heat during the day and release it at night. Warm season crops like tomatoes hate our cool summer nights.
How should I protect young tomato plants after planting them into the ground?
I have been pampering my tomatoes by placing a metal tomato cage around each plant and then wrapping each cage with bubble wrap to form insulated plastic walls. The top is left open. You also can place red plastic at the base of each plant to form a heat-absorbing mulch that reflects red light back onto the plants to speed ripening. (Yes, it sounds like voodoo but it works.) You can purchase red plastic mulch for this purpose at local garden centers.
Can I mix tomatoes and veggies in with my flowers?
For sure! Place a cherry tomato plant in the middle of a large pot, surround with beautiful purple ruffles basil and you’ve got a beautiful and edible display. Use feathery carrots to border a bed of bright marigolds and geraniums, poke garlic and onion bulbs in around the rose plants. The smell will help keep out the aphids. Use Swiss chard as focal point plants in the center of pots, grow scarlet runner beans over garden archways and wall trellises, and turn window boxes into beautiful herb gardens by adding deep green parsley and tri-color sage to the blooming plants.
How can I keep slugs, sow bugs and earwigs out of my vegetables without using pesticides?
If you are reading a newspaper, you’ve got the answer right at your fingertips. Crumble up a sheet or two of newspaper and dampen with water. Lay this pest trap near your plants. You can further entice the bad bugs by slipping in a grape fruit rind, rotting potato wedge or a bit of bacon grease. After a few nights the damp newspaper will be harboring slugs, bugs and other thugs. Another version of this simple trap is to lay a board or old carpet scrap as a weed-blocking pathway material in the veggie garden. Then lift up the “pathway” every so often to capture the guilty.
But wait there’s more! Extra! Extra! Newspaper also makes an excellent weed block under a bark dust mulch and you won’t have to pull all the small, white- flowering shot weeds sprouting between your plants. You’ll also be hiding moss and lichen that grows on top of the soil. Just smother weeds with a layer of damp newspaper, cover the paper with bark chips and your small weeds and moss will die from lack of light.
Now you’ve got one more reason to subscribe to your local newspaper.
Marianne Binetti is the author of “Easy Answers for Great Gardens” and eight other gardening books. She has a degree in horticulture from WSU and will answer questions from her website at www.binettigarden.com.
Meet Marianne
Sumner: At 9 a.m. May 21, Marianne Binetti will teach a class on “The Edible Landscape” at Windmill Gardens in Sumner. Call Windmill Gardens at 253-863-5843 or go to www.windmillgarden.com to register.
Olympia: at 1 p.m. May 21, The Barn Nursery will sponsor Marianne Binetti for a talk on saving time and money, “Easy Answers for Great Gardens.” Free, no registration required. For directions, go to www.thebarnnursery olympia.com.
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