What's Growing in the Garden - July 2022
By Zac Hoppenstedt | Fruit and Vegetable Production Horticulture Agent
Onion harvest, summer veg and strawberry renewal
Content for this gardening recap comes firsthand from observation and experience of K-State Extension agents and volunteers who oversee the WIC Community Garden, the ¼ acre urban farm space focused on fruit and vegetable production located at the Johnson County Extension office. The WIC Garden is one part trial and teaching grounds for urban agriculture and one part community resource for food access and fresh produce donation to those in need. Read more about the garden and volunteer opportunities at: https://www.johnson.k-state.edu/lawn-garden/wic-community-garden/index.html
Summer, temperatures have been high and precipitation relatively low. Following an abundance of moisture in the spring we had to quickly increase our irrigation schedule and install drip tape in beds that we were trying to keep from flooding just a couple weeks earlier.
Onion Harvest
In our efforts to prioritize storage crops and cooking staples in the garden we planted over two thousand onions in the garden this year. Half were thinned/harvested for green and spring onions in May thru early-June. Likewise, another important allium (onion family) in the WIC demo garden is garlic. At the time of writing, we are just wrapping up a harvest of nearly 900 hardneck garlic bulbs. And starting late June and early July we start harvesting the diversity of mature bulbing onion varieties, including: Red Candy, Yellow Candy, Super Star White, Walla Walla, Redwing, Ringmaster, Cipollini and Red Torpedo.
Onions let you know they are ready to harvest when their green tops have fallen over. As soon as tops on half of the bed are bent we usually harvest the whole row. We pull them out of the ground and as long as the weather is dry we let them start the curing process by drying an hour or so on the soil. But bulbs may sunburn if left for too long in direct sun, so we move them into our lean-to shelter and stack single layers of bulbs in our vented harvest totes to dry. We wait for tops to completely dry out before they are ready to go out to the pantry or home storage. This can take up 3 weeks but is usually quicker when done outside during the hot dry weather we’ve been having.
When fully cured we trim tops and roots to about ¼ inch, then sluff off a layer of the dried paper skin to get rid of any clinging soil. We recommend that folks store bulbs in a vented bag, like brown paper bag with a few punched holes or mesh bag and leave in a cool, dry dark location.
Summer Veg Plantings
It's definitely that time of the year when we’re searching for our second wind in the garden but there is still a lot that we can plant now that will make for a late summer and fall bounty. Some folks consider the 4th of July a cuttoff date that for planting warm season crops. And while that might be a good rule of thumb for longer maturing crops like tomatoes, pumpkins, sweetcorn and parsnips—you can easily get in crops like cucumbers, summer squash, and beans anytime through the end of the month.
Likewise, July is a time when we start seeding trays of kale, broccoli, cauliflower and other cabbage family crops for transplants that will go in the ground aroudn August. We do the same for lettuce (which is especially heat sensitive) but start the transplants closer to end of the month/early-August. Later this month we’ll direct seed a second or third round of beets, carrots, turnips, and scallions. And by mid-August we’ll hopefully be past the hottest days of the year and we can start direct seeding lettuce, spinach and radishes for a fall harvest.
Strawberry Bed Renewal
This was the second year of strawberry production in the garden. We netted over 75 lbs of berries from the roughly 100 ft of row planted and that doesn’t include the multitude of berries that went directly from the harvester’s hand to mouth. June-Bearing varieties are done flowering and fruiting for the year and in all honesty even with good mulching and regular maintenance the weeds got out of control in these beds. Flower buds for next year’s crop develop in the late summer and fall the year before spring fruiting so early July is a great time to clean up the patch.
Our process for rejuvenating is pretty simple, we use a standard rotary lawn mower to cut the plants down to 1-2" height as to not damage the crowns. Then we come through with our rear tine tiller removing outside tines to get a more narrow strip of tillage and leave two 8” strips of scalped plants behind with at least 24” between each row. We hoe or hand pull plants so the in-row spacing is at least 6” between plants. Then we fertilize and irrigate with drip tape immediatly afterwards. Make sure to keep beds weeded around plants as they leaf out and then mulch with straw going into fall. With our day-neutral varieties we’ll hopefully get another flush of flowers and fruit later this summer so we just aim to keep the plants weeded and cut runners to maintain a big healthy plant. Day neutrals are not renovated like June-bearing varieties and many growers will treat them more like annuals—removing them and replanting after every couple of seasons.
Upcoming Farmers Market
We’ll end this recap with another plug for our Pop-up Farmer’s Markets being held every 2nd Thursday July thru September, next one is July 14th 10am-1pm at the WIC Community Garden (11875 S. Sunset – East side of the Olathe Health Services Building) These are come-and-go events that are free and open to the public. The Market Includes garden tours, recipe testing to highlight seasonal produce and of course attendees can pick up fresh organic vegetables to take home from the market stand (donation suggested to support the WIC Community Garden). This is a great opportunity to see in person the urban agriculture techniques we discuss in the newsletter, to get outside and take home some delicious food. July market will be full of delicious potato varieties, onions, shallots, hardneck garlic, carrots, greens and maybe even a few blackberries.
