Hot peppers make a delicious fermented treat! Come learn how to make these pickled delights at our fermentation workshop.
To harvest peppers, hot or sweet, wait until they have turned colour and harvest by snipping the the stem with a pair of garden shears or scissors. Did you know that there is no such thing as a green pepper? You can harvest them green if you prefer, but all peppers will change colour if you let them ripen. Harvest eggplants the same way, once they have reached the desired size, and become slightly less hard, snip the stem. Your peppers and eggplants are sun loving crops so make sure to clear around them and cut back any tomato vines that may be shading them.
We have been seeing lots of powdery mildew in the gardens. Remember to remove any diseased leaves from cucumbers, zucchini and tomato plants. As needed spray your affected plants with a baking soda solution every 2 or 3 days to keep disease under control. Powdery mildew is present in many gardens and it is important to act quickly to keep it under control.
Tomatoes will start ripening soon. Cut off any extra branches to focus energy onto the ripening of the fruit. Make sure to support plants with extra watering and weekly applications of fertilizer. Chicken manure is great for the extra calcium content. We also like to use Kelp fertilizer at this time of year.
Harvest onions, garlic, beets and carrots. We will fill those extra spaces in the gardens at the beginning of September with leafy-greens seedlings. Beans and peas are ready to harvest as well. The more you pick, the more the plant will produce. If your pea plants are producing less or starting to yellow, you can remove them from the garden.