…and pulling out plants that are past their prime.

By this time of the year, it’s finally started to get sweltering hot – and all of the lettuce, radish, and other green plants that produced bountiful harvests just a few weeks ago have started to bolt! This is depressing – losing a precious lettuce plant, especially if you just didn’t make it to harvest some before flowers shot up towards the sky – but so exciting! New plants can take their place, and will start producing more food in no time.

At Mujeres Unidas, radishes have bolted, scapes have curled up on garlic plants (yum), and new seeds are being sown in the place of plants that are no longer producing. This is the time of year to make sure you have planted tomatoes, peppers, summer squash, okra, and cucumber – all of those “warm weather” crops. Many of these can be sown directly – no need to buy transplants, just a packet of seeds. According to Motherearthnews.com, The only plants that one would need to purchase transplants for instead of sowing directly during this time of year are cabbage, eggplant, peppers, sweet potatoes, and tomatoes, as well as most herbs such as rosemary, sage, and thyme. But why is this – why do you have to use transplants for these plants instead of starting from seed? It’s necessary to use transplants for these specific crops during this time of year because they thrive in hotter weather – like we experience during june and july – and if you planted them from seed, there would not be enough time for the plants to grow; by the time they’re ready to fruit, the weather will be getting colder, and the day length will be getting shorter.

Alot of work was done this week, and excitement was abundant over tiny green tomatoes finally popping up on plants. It’ll be no time before we’re all enjoying ripe tomatoes straight from the vine. And I feel it’s safe to say that most everyone is anticipating that day…