July in the Garden

The sweltering month of July is all about the star vegetable of the hot summer: Tomatoes. Varieties like Celebrity, Lemon Boy, Flame, Ponderosa, Cherokee Purple, and Tie Dye Green are some colorful favorites and worth a try in your garden. Now is the perfect time to make the classic southern recipe, Fried Green Tomatoes, from your own harvest. Bon appetit!

If you haven’t already done so, don’t forget to join the Lakeway Garden Club. Our goal is to build a local community of fellow garden enthusiasts to share tips and help each other’s gardening endeavors. It is free and open to all. We are planning some in person garden tours later this year. Let us know if you would like to participate.

July Garden Tips

Flowers to Plant

Aster
Flowering Balsam
Begonia
Celosia
Cleome
Coleus
Coreopsis
Cosmos
Dusty Miller
Gomphrena
Hamelia
Impatiens
Jacobinia
Lantana
Marigold
Mexican Heather
Nicotiana
Pentas
Periwinkle
Petunias
Purslane
Saliva
Verbena
Zinnias

Seeds to Sow

Corn
Greens – warm season
Okra
Peas – southern
Pumpkins
Squash – winter

Things to Transplant

Eggplant
Peppers
Tomatoes

July Garden To-Dos

Cut back tomatoes

Cut back spring-planted, indeterminate tomatoes leaving about 1/3 of the plant, and feed with a high-phosphorus fertilizer to rejuvenate them for fall season. Sometimes there are still flowers and green tomatoes on the plants, but it is better for the fall harvest to cut them back around mid July. You can use any unripe fruits to make fried green tomatoes! Pull any unhealthy looking plants and replace them, then set up 40% shade cloth to protect your plants from the hot afternoon sun. Once temperatures cool off, the flowers will begin to set fruit. If you’re successful in keeping your plants consistently watered and happy, you’ll enjoy a good fall harvest.

Last chance for jack-o-lanterns

If you want to grow pumpkins for Halloween, get your plants started by early July.

Feed non-native landscape plants

Fertilize non-native landscape plants, such as crepe myrtles, one last time before fall, then allow your plants to ‘rest’ until temperatures begin to cool off in the fall.

Look out for heat exhaustion

Hundreds of Americans die every year from heat-related illness. Remember to work during the cooler hours of morning and evening, use sun protection, and stay hydrated. Familiarizing yourself with the symptoms of heat exhaustion can help save a life! The symptoms of heat exhaustion include: thirst, headache, profuse sweating, muscle cramps, rapid heartbeat, nausea, irritability, dizziness, light-headedness, or loss of coordination. If you have any of these symptoms, immediately stop working and get to a cool place. Relax, loosen clothing, apply cold compresses to exposed skin, and slowly sip cool (not cold) water. Drink about a cup every 15 minutes. Water is usually sufficient, but if you have cramps, a sports drink with electrolytes may help. Heat exhaustion can quickly turn to heat stroke, which is life threatening. Get immediate medical attention if symptoms progress to: confusion, irrational behavior, reduced/no sweating, vomiting, convulsions, or collapse.

Drench all plants with seaweed

Seaweed contains micronutrients, trace elements, and hormones, which makes great anti-stressor for plants! Mix it into your watering can and drench the rootzones of all landscape plants. Avoid spraying the leaves when temperatures are above 90F.

Learn to water properly

Correct watering is the single most important thing you can do to keep your lawn healthy and to conserve this precious resource. Use a watering guide to establish how much weekly water your particular type of grass needs; then use a lawn care guide to help determine how long to run your sprinker/irrigation system. Remember to divide your lawn’s weekly water needs between two waterings, and to always water in the early morning, ideally an hour or two before sunrise. Consider investing in soaker hoses and/or drip irrigation, which put water right where it’s needed: in the soil, next to your plant’s roots. This saves water and money, is better for your plants, and it may even prevent the occurrence and spread of certain diseases.

How to solarize

The process of solarization takes at least a month, but it is a highly effective, completely non-toxic way to get rid of patches of grass, stubborn weeds, and even soil pathogens. Heat is necessary to cook the pathogens and weed seeds hiding in the soil, so July and August are the best times of year to solarize. If you’re getting rid of common weeds and grasses, water the area thoroughly. If you are dealing with Bermuda or nut grass spray the area with horticultural vinegar prior to solarization. After soaking with water or vinegar, cover the area with clear, heavy duty plastic (at least 4mm thick). Securely seal the edges with soil or rocks. The sun’s energy will be trapped under the clear plastic, baking the top layer of soil along with existing weeds and seeds. Leave this in place for at least two week, then remove the plastic, till the area to bring surviving roots up to the surface, then water and cover again. Wait two more weeks, remove the plastic and start watering again. Use vinegar to spray any stragglers. Repeat this process until you see a distinct lack of lawn or weeds.