Now is the Time to Harvest and Monitor for Healthy Growth
Plant sweet potato slips in mid to late June in wide rows, with 8 inches between each slip and soil mounded up to a depth of 4 inches. Weed and water regularly. More growing information is available from Clemson Extension.
As you continue to harvest your spring vegetable crops and these crops become spent, pull out the whole plant (debris and roots) to give more room for your summer vegetables to grow. If you have some extra garden space, consider succession planting, or planting another row of beans, peppers or tomatoes. This will provide you a second or third harvest of produce later in the summer. Read more about succession planting and other intensive gardening methods from the University of Maryland Extension and VCE. For more on on inter-cropping techniques, see May Vegetable Gardening. Check area planting guides for recommendations on when to plant and harvest certain plants during warmer summer months.
Keep an eye out for emerging insects and rodent pests. Certain plants are especially vulnerable to insect pests, such as squash, cucumbers, tomatoes and eggplant. Gardeners need also to be on the lookout for color changes and/or damage on leaves and stems that could be indicators of plant disease and other environmental conditions. Signs of fungal disease on plants (especially cucurbits) is also important to detect early. Quickly remove affected plant parts or the entire plant to avoid spreading the disease to other crops. Note that plant problems may occur for a variety of other reasons, such as too much or too little water, lack of sufficient sunlight, unhealthy soil, or drastic temperature changes.
To increase success, continue to follow recommended best practices by rotating your crops, watering correctly, cleaning out plant debris and weeds, choosing plants/seeds of disease-resistant varieties, and planting companion plants. These types of best practices are ways to improve your garden’s health and make it more resistant to plant disease and insects. The practices are part of integrated pest management (IPM), a gardening practice based on using mechanical, biological, and cultural methods of pest control. For more information, see the 2022 Pest Management Guide from VCE.
See Beating the Bugs for more information.
These recorded VCE/MGNV classes will be of special interest:
- Contained Excitement: Outdoor Container Garden Basics & What’s Trending!
- Edible Landscaping
- Fruit Trees and Berries for the Urban Landscape: Natives
- Fruit Trees and Berries for the Urban Landscape: Selecting
- The Kitchen Herb Garden
- Seeds: Selecting and Starting
- Tomato Love
- Top Insect and Disease Management Strategies for Fruit Producing Trees
- Vegetable Garden Design for Success
- Vegetable Gardening Without Fear