The weather is heating up and the sun has been shining bright! Our summer evenings will soon be filled with picnics at Gas Works or neighborhood BBQs and many of those meals will be brimming with local cucumbers, tomatoes, and melons! These are all delicious foods to keep us cool on those hot summer days.
These plants are all things that can be grown at home and the time to plant them is now! You have likely seen seedlings around the neighborhood at the Tilth Edible Plant Sale last week, out on the front racks at QFC on 45th, or at the Wallingford Farmer’s Market this week.
General tips for planting warm season crops
Make sure to find your sunniest spot in the garden for these heat lovers! Prepare the soil with compost and balanced fertilizer added to the area before planting and plan to water heavily for the first week to ensure good root growth on the plants. They will also need regular watering (a few times per week) throughout the growing season to ensure good fruit production.
When planting your tomatoes, strip the last few leaves off of the stem and plant the root ball deep into the ground (even lying on its side) burying the roots up to the first set of leaves. This will encourage maximum root growth.
Make sure to have at least two cucumber plants to allow for a better chance of cross pollination. Cucumber plants have both male and female flowers and you need both to get any fruit! I find that having more than one plant has helped provided an abundance of cukes to share with neighbors and friends.
If you are going to try to grow watermelon or cantaloupe, be sure to look for a varietal that will grow well in our climate. Even though we have nice warm summers they don’t always last long enough for large melons to ripen. Look for plants that mature in 85 days or less for best success. My favorite brand is called the Minnesota Midget which produces softball sized fruit that is sweet and delicious.
For all of these crops be sure to have a plan for staking or caging to provide support for later in the season when they have lots of fruit. Vertical trellising is a great way to make the most of small planting spaces or containers. You can use any solid structure as a trellis so think about ways to recycle items that might be lying around the house and give them a second life!