Riverside Garden Tips for August 2024

Kim Malstrom is a Riverside-based home gardener. She runs a small, local business, Kitchen Garden’s by Kim, which assists in consulting, designing, building, and maintaining food gardens in the Riverside Area. Kim is our friend with a green thumb, and we are glad to have her as a seasonal contributor.

What are we picking? 

We are in the season for

• Vegetables: tomatoes (tons), zucchini, yellow squash, peppers, watermelon, cantaloupe, honeydew, and beans. If you are lucky, you may still have cucumbers.
• Fruit: Stone fruit: peaches, plums, nectarines 

What are we planting? 

We are still in the heat of summer, so we try to get the most out of what is left in the garden. However, you still have time to plant corn, melons, onions, okra, strawberries, and maybe even more tomatoes.

Check the tags for the number of days to maturity. Anything over 100 days will likely not mature before the weather cools.

Seasonal Tips

At this point in the growing season, many gardens are being overtaken by diseases and pests. Many beginning gardeners may feel discouraged and often give up, thinking they have done something wrong. This extreme heat weakens the plants, but their struggle to stay healthy is part of the plant’s life cycle and is to be expected. 

There are many things we can do to help the plants during the heat of summer to fight common issues. 

• Fertilize every 4-6 weeks; I use a liquid fertilizer for easy application.  
• Deep soak the soil in the mornings before the heat of the day.
• Remove dead and diseased leaves from plants, and put them in a trash can, NOT your compost pile, to avoid further spreading of disease.

Common issues at this point in the season and what to do

• Milky mildew 
  • Morning water, deep soak on extra hot days, always at soil level, never spraying the leaves, that can burn them and spread diseases.
• Caterpillars (mostly on tomatoes and cucumbers)
  • Remove by hand if possible.
  • Gently shake the plant to see if you can get them to fall out of the plant, and kill and remove them (great snack for chickens)
  • Last resort: spray with BT. Make sure bees are not around, and it is early morning.
• Leaf foot bugs will find your tomatoes, citrus, and other plants.
  • Shake the plant or spray with the hose to get bugs off the plant.
  • Shake bugs into a soapy water mixture. 
  • Use a spray bottle with a soapy water mixture.
  • Hand Vacuum bugs up (yup, that is a real option many gardeners use to catch them!)
• Spider Mites are small red bugs that make “spider webs” on plants, turn leaves and fruit yellow, slowly killing the plant.
  • Can be treated like Leaf Foot Bug: spray, shake off, vacuum
  • Use insecticide at first sight (they are a very destructive pest) and repeat it often until it is completely gone.

If you use Neel or horticultural oil, only use it in the morning or evening, never in the heat of the day, as the oil will burn the plant.

Don’t be discouraged! The fall season is just around the corner, and that is the most fantastic season to garden in because we have cooler weather, fewer pest issues, and fantastic food picks

• broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, cabbage
• snap peas, cucumbers,
• leafy greens-lettuce, spinach, kale, swiss chard
• winter squashes,
• root veggies- beets, onions, carrots, parsnips

Send questions about growing your backyard garden to gardening@raincrossgazette.com.