Mid-July Garden Tour | Heatwave Challenges & Triumphs

Welcome to my latest garden tour. This is Tuesday after the 4th of July, and I've just returned from an eight-day trip. It's been almost two weeks since my last video, so let's dive right in.

In this tour, I’ll show you the good, the bad, and the ugly of my garden, starting with the ugly. I’ll explain how I’m using cardboard to protect ripening tomatoes from sunscald and the steps I’ve taken to manage diseased foliage and bacterial wilt in my tomato plants.

You’ll see the progress of my trellis and hear about the impact of shade on plant growth. I’ll also share updates on my pea and bean harvests, the new sunflower varieties from Sunflower Steve, and the condition of my eggplants.

Plus, I’ll talk about the productivity of my cherry tomatoes compared to my favorite full-size tomatoes - Cherokee Purple and Black Krim.

Despite the heat and humidity here in Georgia, the garden is still very productive. I’ll give you a sneak peek of what’s to come and my strategies for staying on top of garden maintenance.

Plus, Larrie the Garden Cat makes a few cameos. Everyone say hi to Larrie!

0:00 - Introduction and Garden Overview
0:16 - Protecting Tomatoes from Sunscald with Cardboard
1:00 - Addressing Diseased Foliage
1:30 - Managing Bacterial Wilt in Tomato Plants
2:10 - Pea Harvest
2:40 - Trellis Update and Shade Impact
3:15 - Planting Bush Beans
3:47 - Dahlia Care and Flower Update
4:05 - New Sunflower Varieties
4:26 - Larrie the Garden Cat makes an appearance
4:42 - Eggplant Insect Damage
5:30 - Cherry Tomatoes vs. Full-Size Tomatoes
6:00 - Harvesting Cherokee Purple and Black Krim Tomatoes
6:30 - Conclusion and Upcoming Updates

More joegardener® Resources:

My Organic Vegetable Gardening Online Course - Coming Again In 2025

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[bingster-]

I lost 20 of 66 pepper plants. They just looked like the top growth was burned off. We have had about 4 weeks of low to mid 90's.

[nikkibayo]

Beautiful garden! I’m not too experienced at all, and I’m on my 4th year of having a garden. However, it’s been the toughest year thus far. Everything seems to have a lighter green color and just doesn’t look vibrant. We’ve had intermittent rain here in Indiana, but the heat has been intense, so I’m not sure if that’s the cause or not. I water daily, unless it rains, and then I wait a couple days. I have pruned several tomato plants down to the vine. They’re producing though, but I’m not sure what happened.

[karunald]

Bacterial Wilt IMO is more heartbreaking to me than necrosis, etc. "I know what you're telling me but I can't face it just yet.... Do you need water? The others look fine but maybe you need a bit more. Why aren't you perking up? I'll water you again. Oh shit."

I was under the impression Bacterial Wilt was more an isolated thing in the plant or soil. I'm flagging grow bags with sick plants to dump the soil somewhere this Fall. Maybe I don't even need to do that. Our winters in Chicago area 5b have become so mild which surely can't kill off everything.

Do you also grow BKX? Black Krim Potato Leaf. Really nice. I'm not 'entirely' convinced Potato leaf types thwart (or at least deal with) disease better than regulers but it does seem to make sense to me. Carbon has been my best tomato so far (yea it's early).

[debrak.]

My small garden here in Ohio Valley is doing pretty good considering the temps in 90's! I keep up with watering... trimming....added more mulch 7:03 yesterday to help hold the water in...just now starting to get a little bacteria.... i carefully sprayed with daconil and disposed of leaves..cleaned my trimmers with alcohol throughout....this was on my zuchinni and a little bit on cucumbers... do u agree with using the daconil? My tomatoes and peppers ok so far..havingba rough time with lettuce and chard growing of all things!!!!

[michellecjackson]

I live in the central valley of california. it gets really hot here, we just had 9 days in a row over 100. For that reason alone, I do not prune or trellis tomatoes. Too much risk of sunscald.

[troxycat]

Your tomatoes look fantastic! It was such a late, cold spring up here in Washington, my tomatoes are just coming in to flower. Then we had the heat wave, so I suspect those flowers won't do much now. Ah well, some years are better than others!

[veena]

Could you please share all the varieties of tomatoes and squash you are growing, and you like?

[paulandbarbie]

I grew sun sugar last year for the first time, very sweet and tasty, but they were so susceptible to splitting. Hoss Tools recommended a variety called "Esterina" due to less likely to split. Grew those this year and they did really well with no splitting, and in my opinion tasted much better than sun sugar. Love your channel and learn so much from you, thank you. Panama City, Florida zone 9a

[dustyflats]

In WI we’ve had way too much rain! Last year we had severe drought and I prefer that over what we have now.
In all my gardening years I have never struggled to grow tomatoes. They are spindly, not very tall, No vigor And we have early blight which never arrives until first week of August. I’m not so sure we will have a crop to preserve.
Spring was great, but the rain kept coming. Since March we’ve had 32.7” of rain and avg annual is 37” and that’s not including winter rain and it’s only July 10th.

Many plants are advanced by 2 weeks. It’s throwing the potatoes into early harvest. They looked really great and then Boom! they are falling. Now the rust and mildew/fungus arrived. The insect pressure is odd. Spring there ere cabbage moths and I use netting.—They disappeared! Had a few potato beetles a month ago and took care of them and Now hordes of them in one patch! The squash vine borers we remove every year were HUGE! And very few Japanese beetles which so far is strikingly odd. The mosquitoes are THE WORST EVER!! A climbing Zucchini plant that just wilted before a foot tall. The peppers were looking peeked and think they are picking up, onions ok and garlic I caught in time. Thankfully we have sandy soil.

To survive gardening I need a head net, long sleeves, mosquito spray, headband—it’s REALLY not pleasant at all in this high dew point humidity and now the heat from the west moving in. I can only do short moments before I need to cool down. It’s almost impossible. Thankfully we will miss rain from hurricane.🌀

I’m using copper on mildew, rust and blight, but should have started before it showed up, but when? It rained all the time.

My only successes were from starting a low tunnel for brassicas in April. Because of abnormally warm winter several plants wintered over including an artichoke in Z5a 😮.

I read comments from all over the world and many are struggling with climate changes. We are just a bunch of depressed gardeners 😏. I much prefer gardening in drought as long as water table holds up. I just don’t understand tomatoes. It is starting to dry out and hope I can give them a shot of liquid fertilizer and get them to the finish line. Could only use granular fertilizer while raining. It’s been warm enough but I suppose lack of sun did the damage as well. I’ve been trimming tomatoes also and it’s too late to start more. It’s a bummer.

Last year we had a few days we couldn’t go outside because of heat dome and smoke, this year it’s mosquitoes and rain. It’s discouraging and getting to be tricky and more work to garden. Right now gardening is not a stress reliever, but creator.

Thank you for sharing what’s happening in your garden.

[helenmcclellan]

It's looking lush and abundant, nice!

I too have been prunning and weeding our small garden. I just noticed pumpkin leaves bribg chewed so I have to get out the BT...😂.

[PennyFarmer-wg]

Thank you. Yup, my cherry tomatoes are quite happy, I have shade cloth up finally.

[HadassahHaman]

Beautiful!❤ Thank you for sharing. 🥔🫛🌶🍎🫑🥬🍅🫘🧅🍈🥕🥒