The jungle is coming, and it feels like a wild time to start a gardening newsletter

July brings explosive growth, waiting, and an ode to bolting cilantro. Also: your weekly to-dos.

It’s newsletter number one! And it’s smack in the middle of our growing season. So let’s not dilly-dally like January daydreamers.

Early July in my garden brings a waiting period that is the quintessential calm before the glut. Tomatoes, cucumbers, squash, peppers, eggplant, and string beans are putting on tremendous growth, establishing strong foliage and roots, and beginning to set fruit. But those harvests are still days or weeks out.

Leafy greens and cold-loving crops that we had a hard time keeping up with in May and June are now gone. Pea vines crisp up, and I yank them out. Spinach and arugula bolts, and I hurry to harvest them, their newly serrated leaves less sweet for the sugar-stealing flower stalks that formed. Lettuce is also gone because this year we caught them all before they bolted and bittered.

As the heat set in last month and ended salad season, and even as I witness an explosion of growth this early July, we wait on mid-summer’s bounty. And there’s less to harvest.

I grumble a little when it’s not obvious what to plan our dinner around. But I also step back. Holy wow, look at this garden.

I’m grateful for so much. I’d like to share three things:

The bridge crops: superstars that thrive in both cool and hot weather. I’ve been harvesting Swiss chard, kale, and most of my herbs since May. And these crops continue to thrive straight into the fall. What gifts!

The hitch is that they can succumb to pests and disease if we are not vigilant—each crop with its own bug fan club and disease sensitivities. We do well to keep an eye out and harvest often. And if they wither, replace them! Because these many-weather crops are a steady and reliable supply of greens and garnishes to our dinner plates.

Bolting cilantro. It gets a whiff of 80 degrees and erupts into swan song. But I leave it in the garden, because its second act is magnificent!

First come the flowers. Umbel clusters of itty bitty white blossoms that float three feet above the ground, wispy-beautiful but atop plants that have become heavy enough to flop all over the tomatoes or bush beans they were sweetly bordering last month. So, a stake helps.

Beyond beauty, cilantro and other flowering crops invite pollinators and beneficial predators into our kitchen garden. Did you know that a variety of flower sizes in the garden invite a more diverse group of pollinators? And doesn’t that make sense? It’s not one size fits all for our beneficial buddies.

I loved this discovery, and I’ve begun to add other small flowers like sweet alyssum to the cast of companion and cut flowers I can’t be without—nasturtium, marigold, calendula, zinnia, strawflower, gomphrena, cosmos.

A couple of weeks later comes cilantro’s seeds, green coriander that I do believe you can only obtain in your own garden. Citrusy, punchy, bright—though some may find them a bit bitter—I love them.

I try to use green coriander while it’s in. To garnish salads or grind up with some salt before adding to the end of a stir fry. To nibble on out in the garden. It feels precious.

I do mean to leave the bulk of the green pods right on the plant, though, where they’ll slowly dry out.

It takes a good couple of additional months for the cilantro plant to cure its seeds. In the meantime, the rest of the plant dries up too. I don’t blame any gardener who pulls them out—three-foot-tall crispy, gangly stalks can cramp the summer lush.

But if you have the patience, it pays in loads of coriander seeds. Some to cook with, some replant for your next crop of cilantro.

I’ve counted four uses for cilantro after we’re done harvesting it’s leaves: flowers, green coriander, dried culinary coriander, and seeds for planting new cilantro. You understand my gratitude now.

And I’m grateful for the beauty. A July garden is the prettiest garden.

It is lush. It is fruit blossoms. It is vining tendrils. It is first flowers.

It’s before wear and tear sets in and overgrowth overwhelms. It’s all the promise and all the possibility.

It’s Christmas Eve Eve.

Here’s what I’m doing this week, and you might too:

Tie, clip, and train your vining crops and indeterminate tomatoes. I’ll share lots here on my favorite arches and other trellising because I’m such a huge fan of vertical growing for all of its benefits.

But however you're supporting your crops this season, notice how fast your tomato, cucumber, pole bean, vining squash, and melon are growing.

Snip lower tomato leaves and suckers and tie branches to their trellises. Direct wayward cucumber, squash, and melon vines back onto their trellises, and don’t hesitate to clip their lower leaves and runners. There will be plenty more—and an abundance of fruit to come.

Beetle watch. Pest control is a whole thing! But in July the beetles begin to come for squash, cucumber, peppers, eggplant, beans, and potatoes. And simple monitoring can do so much to control infestations.

Look for squash beetles, cucumber beetles, Japanese beetles, flea beetles, potato beetles. And don’t be fooled by their names—many beetles like many different veggies.

If you’re unsure if they’re a pest or beneficial, take a pic and look them up! I’ve spotted fireflies and am glad I looked them up before doing them in.

I keep a yogurt quart container filled with dish-soapy water out in the garden and flick beetles in for a quick death.

Check undersides of leaves for eggs and squish them off.

PS, a comprehensive guide to pest management is one of the upcoming in-depth tools I’ll be sharing with paid-subscribers :)

Black raspberry pruning. Fruiting is over, and it’s time to make some big cuts to keep the bramble tidy and healthy.

Cut the floricanes down to the ground. Floricanes are the dark, woody, second-year canes that fruited this year and are now dead.

If you haven’t already, cut back the primocanes to a uniform 36-48” to keep them manageable. Primocanes are the light green canes that will produce fruit next year.

Plan for time away this summer. Even if you have irrigation, hire someone to look in on your garden.

I’m partial to paying our 13-year-old neighbor to come water ground beds and pots, and harvest and enjoy the produce.

Harvest what’s ready! I’m going to remind you to do this every week.

Frequently harvested veggies, herbs, fruits, and flowers are healthier, more productive, and more pest and disease resistant.

That’s what I’ve got for now. I’m loving this so far!

With dirt under my nails,

—Mars