It’s the end of the season for cool season, winter
vegetables now after mid-March. Warm season vegetables should be going in the ground now if
they haven’t already. In protected hot microclimates it should have been
sooner. Here is what you need to do now in our hot, desert climate.
Warm
season vegetables include tomatoes, peppers, eggplant and your squashes,
cucumbers and melons.
When you
buy your vegetable transplants, get small ones. A good size is about six to
eight inches tall and bushy. While you are at it, buy some compost, a starter
fertilizer, some Dipel or Thuricide and insecticidal soap.
Mix the
compost with your garden soil when planting the transplants. After planting,
sprinkle the starter fertilizer around the base of the plant and water it in.
Don’t fertilize again until you see fruit setting. Lightly fertilize all
vegetables once a month.
Spray plants
with soap sprays twice a week. The soap sprays are more effective if you spray
under the leaves, not just on top. With squash you might have to cut or pinch
off the lower leaves so you can spray under the other plant leaves.
Spray
soaps early in the morning or late in the day as the sun is setting and bees
have gone home. Alternate soap sprays with Neem if you like Neem oil or other botanical oils.
When
seedlings are starting to pop out of the ground, protect them with a Dipel or
Thuricide spray or dust applied to the soil immediately around them. This helps
protect against cutworms from damaging your new plants. After watering the
plants you have to apply it again.
Amend
the soil at the time of planting, spray regularly for pests, fertilize lightly
once a month and you will have a better harvest.