Managing Home Vegetable Production

Many people are well into the vegetable-growing season in their home gardens. An activity that began in the spring with excitement and hope may now be in the difficult phase as gardeners deal with weeds, insect pests, diseases, and watering schedules.

If you have a new garden plot or are wondering what’s going on with the soil in your garden, get a soil test. Choose a consistent time of year to enable multi-year comparisons. For many, fall is the preferred time to take soil samples. The results will help you be more precise with pH adjustments and nutrient needs.

If you are tired of dealing with heavy clay soils, try amending your garden soil this fall after garden clean-up with some compost or other organic matter source. Compost will provide benefits with drainage, aid in loosening heavy clay soils, add some nutrients, and contribute to improved soil tilth. Tilth refers to the physical condition of soil as related to its ease of tillage, fitness as a seedbed, and its relative impedance to seedling emergence and root penetration.

For most gardeners, the struggle now is dealing with the “daily grind” of the vegetable gardening season: weeds, watering, and pest management.

Weeds can get out of hand in a hurry. Mechanical methods of weed control (hand-weeding, hoeing, or roto-tilling) are often effective, but it requires persistence.

Mulches can help suppress weeds, and they become even more important if you are in a no-till or reduced tillage system. Plastic mulches can be used at planting time, but gardeners can also use organic mulches, such as straw, crushed corn cobs, bark chips, and other materials. Mulching also conserves soil moisture and moderates hot summer temperatures.

For larger plantings of specific vegetables, herbicides may be used for weed control. But, they are usually not very feasible for the smaller home garden simply because multiple crops are planted very near to each other.

Watering is a must for most vegetable gardens. Hopefully, when you planned your garden plot, you located it close to a water source. Otherwise, watering will be a real chore. If we don’t get 1 to 1½ inches of rain per week, supplemental water is needed. If we haven’t had rain, a deep watering once every several days is much better than frequent light, shallow waterings because roots go where the water is. If they stay close to the soil surface, as they would with frequent shallow waterings, they are more susceptible to drought stress. Watering methods that avoid getting leaf tissue wet, such as soaker hoses or drip irrigation, are generally preferred to overhead watering because wet leaf tissue for longer periods becomes more susceptible to diseases. If overhead watering is what you have, do so early in the morning so that leaf tissue dries by mid-morning.

Pest management always begins with scouting, so inspect plants daily. Most of the time, you are out of luck if you notice insects or diseases already heavily infesting garden plants. So, you need to catch them early. Identify the exact problem first, then select a management strategy. Sprays or dusts are available for pest control, but be sure to read and follow the label directions. Make sure the product is listed for control of the pest you have on the vegetable you are growing. Heed any pre-harvest intervals listed on the label; these specify a required time between application of the pesticide and harvest of the vegetable. Also consider row covers or other non-chemical control options.

Keep in mind that some insecticides will be harmful to bees, so choose a product with low toxicity to bees if possible. If necessary, avoid applying insecticides during bloom times and during most daytime hours. For bees, the safest time to apply insecticides is right after sundown.

Disease control strategies include selecting disease-resistant cultivars, rotating crops to different locations each year, and removing all plant debris in the fall. During the growing season, most available fungicides protect the crop from further infection rather than curing the part that is sick. This is another reason to inspect and catch the very first signs of disease.

For more detailed advice, access the free Purdue Extension publication, “Home Gardener’s Guide,” at the Purdue Extension Education Store, https://edustore.purdue.edu. If you are interested in home preservation of garden products, Purdue Extension has a supply of USDA’s “Complete Guide to Home Canning” available for $25 each at the same address.