By Bev Johnson

Master Gardener

Gardens are going crazy this summer. Vines are so long they look like they are heading for the nearest interstate. Tomato plants are topping their cages and weeds are flourishing. Time for gardeners to take control before they can’t get in the garden for all the foliage. Start with the vines. Grab one then follow it to the first fruit or bloom if you don’t see a fruit. Cut it off just before the fruit or blossom. This will remind the plant that their job is to produce food, not vines. It is fairly easy to determine what the vine is producing. Just look at the swelling on the stem where one is developing. If it is a cucumber, you will see tiny cucs. If it is melons, squash or pumpkins, you may only see a swelling at the end of a stem depending on how advanced the vine is. 

Now for tomatoes. Again, the idea is for the plant to give you tomatoes, not vine.  Again, grab a vine and look for a developing tomato. Cut the vine off just before that baby tomato. Do this with all the stems. This sends the vine into ripening the fruit, not just getting taller. If you have the tomato in a cage to ensure most of the fruits get ripe, you will need to thin out some of the vines. If you look carefully at a stem, you will see a stem growing in a crotch – it will not have a bloom or grow fruit on it. You can safely cut that stem off. Don’t thin the vine too much as you don’t want them to get sunburned. If you see yellow leaves at the bottom of the plant, remove them. Check for any browning of the lower leaves. If you didn’t mulch around the tomato when you planted it, you have a chance of getting either early or late blight starting at the bottom of the plant and eventually killing it if you don’t do something. Remove any affected leaves and bag them.

Never plant the same plant in the same place in the garden each year. Diseases common to the plant are in the soil. Moving it to a different place will reduce the chances of the plant getting that disease. Plant families, for instance potatoes, tomatoes and eggplant are one, will get the same diseases so should never be planted where their cousin was last year. If you have a plan for your garden, this should be easy to do. 

Planting dill will attract lady bugs. They will lay their eggs on them.  The small critters that develop from them are born starved and will attack any insect or egg they find. Planting a few flat-faced flowers near the garden will attract some pollinators. Butterflies love them too as they have a place to land.  

If you notice a vine dying, check for what looks like sawdust. There is a worm in that vine. Take a razor blade and slice the vine until you find the worm. Squish it, lightly tie the vine together. It will heal and continue to feed the fruit. Never leave ripe fruit in the garden to rot. The first bugs to find it will be picnic bugs quickly followed by wasps. If you discover a melon with wasps flying out of a hole in it, pick the melon and hold the hole away from you, thump it until all the wasps have fled the area. You may have some damage to the melon, but it is still edible unless you wait too long and it rotes.  That’s all folks. 

Bev Johnson Master Gardener.              

P.S. My book, ‘Water the Snot out of It,” is still available at Victor Lundeen’s in Fergus Falls!