Planting July 2023 Planting and Chat Thread

[packyderms_wife]

Planting Calendar - Gardening by the moon

This planting calendar helps you pick the best days for gardening tasks based a 200-year-old formula. Our readers swear by it! Learn more.

www.farmersalmanac.com

1st – 1st
Barren day, neither plant nor sow.
2nd – 3rd
First day is when any aboveground crops that can be planted now will do well. Second day is a good day for planting beets, carrots, salsify, Irish potatoes, and other root crops.
4th – 5th
Good days for killing weeds, briars, and other plant pests. Poor for planting.
6th – 7th
Set strawberry plants. Good days for transplanting. Good days for planting beets, carrots, radishes, salsify, turnips, peanuts, and other root crops. Also good for vine crops.
8th – 9th
A barren period. Second day is a good harvest day.
10th – 12th
Good days for transplanting. Root crops that can be planted now will yield well.
13th – 14th
Poor days for planting, seeds tend to rot in ground. Good harvest days.
15th – 17th
Plant seedbeds and flower gardens. First two days are good days for transplanting. First two days are also most fruitful days for planting root crops. Last day is most favorable for corn, cotton, okra, beans, peppers, eggplant, and other aboveground crops.
18th – 22nd
A most barren period. Kill plant pests and do general farm work.
23rd – 24th
Sow grains and forage crops. Plant flowers. Favorable for planting peas, beans, tomatoes, and other fall crops bearing aboveground.
25th – 26th
Start seedbeds. Extra good for fall cabbage, lettuce, cauliflower, mustard greens, and other leafy vegetables. Good for any aboveground crop that can be planted now.
27th – 28th
Barren days, neither plant nor sow.
29th – 30th
Any aboveground crops that can be planted now will do well.
31st – 31st
Good day for killing weeds, briars, and other plant pests. Poor for planting.

 

[moldy]

Thank you.

 

[dioptase]

I harvested another small GYPSY pepper today. Normally I don't start harvesting peppers until late July at the earliest, but these pepper plants were under lights indoors a LONG time, waiting for things to warm up outside, and somehow set peppers while still indoors, in puny 3" pots. So, the peppers I've harvested thus far have all been small (because small plants, small roots) but I'm hoping for better things to come!

I did ornamental work this morning, mostly deadheading daylilies and weeding and watering. I had to pack it in and come inside by 11 am, as it was getting too hot for me. I saw that my tomatoes need training (again) but I'll have to do it when it's cooler. (Currently it's 95 F.)

 

[SusieSunshine]

Thank you. I'll try planting more lettuce. That possum killed it.

 

[seraphima]

Spent two days digging out a weedy bed that i kept promising I'd get to *next year* with help from my 6'3" son who can really wield a shovel. We pulled weeds throughout, several times, then added a bale of peat moss, dried crushed eggshells and 4 bags of fine seaweed. Then we hoed, and hoed again and again. Then the heavens opened up and it rained and rained. Today the bed has the color and texture of good chocolate cake.
Today i transplanted about a hundred calendula seedlings into the bed. These had been sown at the end of April into a nearby halibut tub for just this purpose. I'm not strong or (relatively) affluent anymore so I have to plan ahead instead.
The little plants look so perky and green in the beautiful chocolatey soil! Oh, and all this time it has not gotten warmer than 51 degrees F. Hardy plants are my good friends.

 

[packyderms_wife]

Spent two days digging out a weedy bed that i kept promising I'd get to *next year* with help from my 6'3" son who can really wield a shovel. We pulled weeds throughout, several times, then added a bale of peat moss, dried crushed eggshells and 4 bags of fine seaweed. Then we hoed, and hoed again and again. Then the heavens opened up and it rained and rained. Today the bed has the color and texture of good chocolate cake.
Today i transplanted about a hundred calendula seedlings into the bed. These had been sown at the end of April into a nearby halibut tub for just this purpose. I'm not strong or (relatively) affluent anymore so I have to plan ahead instead.
The little plants look so perky and green in the beautiful chocolatey soil! Oh, and all this time it has not gotten warmer than 51 degrees F. Hardy plants are my good friends.

Would love to see photos!

 

[Raggedyman]

going to have trouble with tomatoes this year - so much moisture thus far they're going to blight if it doesn't dry out some over night and in the early mornings

 

[Leigh19717]

going to have trouble with tomatoes this year - so much moisture thus far they're going to blight if it doesn't dry out some over night and in the early mornings

I just finished pruning all my tomatoes this morning. Took off suckers and lower branches and anything that looked yellow. More air circulation for sure at the bases. We have had almost two weeks of daily rains in east TN. Today was a nice day though.

 

[Fairwillows]

I learned something new this planting season. I planted a whole pack of beets figuring the past couple of years the garden has been a bust, so why not. Well every last one of those beets came up. Surfing online I saw a mention that you can transplant beets! We did and they are doing so well!!! Thankful!!! Some are the size of tennis balls! I'm amazed!

 

[Raggedyman]

I just finished pruning all my tomatoes this morning. Took off suckers and lower branches and anything that looked yellow. More air circulation for sure at the bases. We have had almost two weeks of daily rains in east TN. Today was a nice day though.

roger that - we're nearly neighbors - WNC on the TN line

 

[packyderms_wife]

I learned something new this planting season. I planted a whole pack of beets figuring the past couple of years the garden has been a bust, so why not. Well every last one of those beets came up. Surfing online I saw a mention that you can transplant beets! We did and they are doing so well!!! Thankful!!! Some are the size of tennis balls! I'm amazed!

Those beet greens are edible! Cook them up with a little onion, garlic, and bacon and yum!

 

[SousJo]

We're done for this half of the year. Root formation doesn't happen once soil temps reach 100. Only mature plants are likely to survive those temperatures.

Potato harvest was average, and I'm disappointed. I'm rotating them to the south garden next time.

I was worried the onions were cooking in the ground even under the mulch, they were in the west garden under the worst of the sun. I pulled them early. They're smaller, and yet considering all the green onions I pulled I'm really pleased with the productivity.

The trees and tomatoes are all that's still going. I'm not getting enough tomatoes for canning sauce, so I'm just making them into sun-dried and storing in half gallon Mason jars. It looks as if we'll be getting our first figs this year.

The cucumbers did well. Got thirty quarts of pickle and gave out about a dozen more before the heat killed them. Plenty of herbs, even for drying.

Now I'm plotting the fall garden, everything will cool off and I'll maybe get another 90 days.

 

[dioptase]

I'm still waiting on our first tomato, which is coloring up. (Hopefully this weekend? We can barely wait. DH gave up on the farmers' market tomatoes, which have been awful.) I've been side-dressing with a liquid organic fertilizer for tomatoes/veggies every two weeks, and the plants are doing well, with a good amount of fruit set.

(Everything is relative - my kitchen garden gets too much shade but it's the only fenced/protected area that I have, so I work with what I have. I'd love to have a full sun area for my tomatoes - maybe I'd get an earlier and longer harvest - but it is what it is.)

I never prune my tomatoes; I don't understand why anyone would. It seems like it would decrease productivity. Explain to me why I'm wrong (if I'm wrong). (If it's a matter of air circulation and fungal diseases... we have an arid environment here.)