July Gardening Tasks For Southern California Areas of Coastal Influence
This is the time of year when coastal gardeners are growing and harvesting almost everything from chard to tomatoes. Here is a suggested list of July tasks:
- Monitor plants regularly, at least every other day during warm weather and every day during hot weather to catch wilting, irrigation, pest, disease, weed, and other problems early.
- Maintain or add mulch; consider adding extra mulch to a total depth of 1 1/2 to 2 1/2 inches to keep soil cool during summer heat.
- Harvest thinnings and summer crops. Harvest more aggressively before heat waves, including whole plants or all vegetables for cool-season crops such as basil and red-or-multi-colored chard and sensitive warm-season crops such as zucchini.
- Provide consistent soil moisture and partial shade during heat waves to extend harvests; see GardenZeus Tips for Shading Vegetables During Hot Weather for creative ideas for providing shade.
- Add nitrogen with caution in active beds and near plants as it may activate heat-generating processes in soils.
- Harvest and save seeds from spring-and-summer-bolted vegetables and herbs such as arugula, basil, beets, chard, and lettuce after seed stalks are brown and dry; and from warm-season vegetables such as tomatoes. See The GardenZeus Guide to Saving Tomato Seeds, Advanced Gardening Tip: How to Save Seeds From Summer Squash, Including Zucchini, and Saving Pumpkin Seeds: It’s Complicated for information on saving seeds.
- Cut off expired plant stems at ground level after harvest or as plants die, leaving roots in place to feed soil.
- Plan and complete irrigation, seed-starting, transplanting, soil testing, soil amending, and garden projects for later summer and fall.
To view customized information for growing individual plants in your area, go to GardenZeus and enter your zip code, then go to the specific plant.