The Rusted Garden Blog

by Gary Pilarchik (The Rusted Garden) Cucumbers love the warmth of summer  As the season goes on, your cucumbers can begin to look "beat up" and tired. It may be from the high summer temperatures, insects, diseases or all three.  A lot of times, here in Maryland Zone 7, I get great production from my cucumbers from late June until the end of July. But as August approaches, the plants just get beat down. That leads me to my first and most under utilized cucumber tip. Visit my YouTube Channel with over 800 gardening videos: The Rusted Garden   One key...

  By Gary Pilarchik (The Rusted Garden)  There are several reasons you may want to prune peppers. One reason is to help the pepper plants develop stronger sturdier stems. Another reason is to force or create a bushier plant with more side shoots which leads to more flowers and potentially more peppers. Visit my YouTube Channel with over 800 gardening videos: The Rusted Garden     I want to be clear, you do not have to do this. If you haven't pruned peppers before, take the middle ground. Prune a couple plants and see how they respond. One of the...

By Gary Pilarchik (The Rusted Gardener) These cages can be built in 15 minutes. They will allow you to get your tomatoes into the garden a lot earlier. It works. I use a few every year and I am the first in the area with red tomatoes. Try it! Visit my YouTube Channel with over 800 gardening videos: The Rusted Garden Wind-Break They act as a wind-break and keep the plant from chilling from winds. They also allow transplants time to get used to the elements without becoming overly-stressed from temperature changes. It makes a mini shelter for them. Heats...

By Gary Pilarchik (The Rusted Garden) Tomatoes use a hormone similar to salicylic acid to trigger a response called 'systemic acquired resistance' or SAR. This response helps a tomato plant fight off bacteria, fungi and other diseases. This defense response is a naturally occurring internal plant process that can be started manually (so to speak) by spraying your tomato plants with aspirin. The salicylic acid in the aspirin will trigger the tomato's defenses, by mimicking the natural hormone, as if it were being attacked. You can preemptively trigger the SAR response in tomatoes. Why is this a good thing? The...

by Gary Pilarchik (The Rusted Garden) In Maryland Zone 7 we get the four full seasons of temperatures. We often get a period of great weather in February or March and think the frost is gone and spring is here, only to be hit be a deep freeze. You would think I would learn but I don't and I try to get plants out early. Yes... every year! Your cool weather crops like; lettuces, spinach, kale, broccoli, cauliflower and peas can actually take a frost and a freeze into the upper 20's and survive. Now the cold can still damage...