Summer is coming and it is a great time to plant your summer vegetable garden. We use mostly starts to create a diverse and delicious assortment of herbs, flowers, and veggies to use in your kitchen from summer into fall.

Simply plant out any vegetable starts that you want to grow this season. Summer crops include cucumbers, eggplants, hard and soft squash, hot and sweet peppers, melons, potatoes, and tomatoes along with any herbs and flowers you enjoy having around. We enjoy including edible and medicinal flowers like calendula, marigold, pansies, and nasturtium. Sunflowers make great poles for polebeans and tomatoes and basil benefit being planted closely together.

After you have planted your veggie starts, water them in well. And don’t be shy on filling your yard with garden mounds and planters to get a lot growing! We suggest using drip irrigation to minimize water waste and to get the water straight to your planted areas.

This is what our summer veggie gardens look like in full bloom, most of the plants will be harvestable until November in our climate. After harvesting all of that, you can start seeding and planting for your winter garden.

One of the few problems you will face with a summer garden is overabundance, so be prepared to share your food with friends and neighbors. Get creative with recipes and keep in mind that pickling and jarring will be great for keeping your foods for longer since being able to consume it all can be a challenge.

Any size container will do to grow food in your own backyard. Here is a featuring of our corten beds full of summer herbs, flowers, & greens. Happy growing and eating from your backyard this summer! Contact us today to help design, build, or prepare your gardens for seeding and planting.

Summer veggies recipes include:
Caprese, bruschetta, pasta sauce, summer drinks, and many more.

Josh Carmichael
Founder of Carmichael Environmental

The following are examples of crops growing together simultaneously for at least part of their life cycle:

Sowing buckwheat between tomato plants keeps weeds suppressed, adds carbon to the soil, and improves soil structure. The buckwheat can be mowed before it competes with the tomatoes and left as mulch. This technique also works well with squashes and cucumbers, which have lots of bare soil around them as they develop. If you use floating row cover to control pests, the buckwheat can actually lift the row cover off the plants. Remove the row cover when the squash flowers and again, cut the buckwheat and leave as a mulch.
Transplanting lettuce into a stand of broccoli (or other brassicas such as kale or cauliflower) maximizes available garden space of two species that have different plant architectures but similar growing requirements. The lettuce is harvested as the brassica plants fill in, having acted as a living mulch to suppress weeds and hold soil moisture. The brassica plants also provide a little protection for the lettuce as it develops.
Planting radishes and carrots together allows for an early harvest of radishes followed by a later carrot harvest. The radishes also help to mark the slower germinating carrot rows so an early cultivation can be done before the carrots emerge.

There are many more examples of inter-planting for maximum production. Quick-growing plants such as radish, arugula, or cress can be sown into already-established beds of tomato, pepper, corn, or beans. Plants that are easily transplanted such as brassicas, greens, or basil can be planted into open spots throughout the garden to insure that no space is wasted. The primary limitation is the availability of water. If water is available, the only limitation is your own imagination!

Steve Peters
Seeds of Change Product Development Manager