Mars Kitchen Garden

Mars Kitchen Garden Mary Buri, Garden Designer, Coach & Speaker. Deeper Dives on Substack 🌿

08/18/2026

It’s a good garden problem: vines so healthy they are taking over your garden beds.

Here’s how I prune them back.

I returned from two weeks away to my Row 7 Seed Company Centercut squash vines covering nearby peppers and eggplant.

healthy happy vines. I’m not complaining. Except when I forget to wear my garden sleeves and my arms are itchy as hell after pruning.

Here’s what I do:

1. Harvest all the squash that are ready

2. Cut lots of lateral vines. Trust that you don’t need a gazillion squash. By cutting off vines you are freeing up energy that the plant can now send to the remaining fruits

3. Trim off any yellow or diseased leaves. Turn off more leaves to open up sunlight if they are shading out nearby plants.

Be decisive. Be strong. This is fun.

Harvesting and pruning. All summer long that’s our job.

08/16/2026

Spoiler it’s three minutes. But that’s not bad for how much I’ve got going on in here right now.

It’s mid August and all of the summer produce is peaking and so are the herbs and flowers I’ve got growing and all the nooks and crannies of my raised beds. Not to mention my ground beds full of cut flowers. I love this time of year!

I haven’t planted anything for a fall yet snd that’s on my short list. It’s time!

What have you got growing in the garden right now?

08/15/2026

Keep your zinnia at a ten 👇

I planted zinnia seeds in mid May spacing them just about 6 inches apart. Good soil but no fertilizer because excessive nitrogen can delay blooms. I give them no additional irrigation beyond rain.

They’re pretty low maintenance, and if you’ve got good support in place you don’t need to do much. But some smart harvesting and pruning will keep them looking so fly.

PRUNE. I snip out tired blooms and throw them in the compost bins so the laterals get energy to bloom sooner.

HARVEST. For indoor arrangements I keep cutting. Zinnia are cut and come again flowers, and the more you cut the more they come!

08/03/2026

No pruning for two weeks in July—I’ve come back to mayhem.

Fourteen years vegetable gardening, and every July I face leaving my garden for upwards of two weeks. I work my butt off to prune to the max before leaving, knowing I’ll come home to a jungle.

And I love it! The tomatoes are 10 feet tall, but they have airflow and not too much disease. The Centercut squash are snaking into the pepper and eggplant beds and there are some 10lb squashes to harvest, all because they are healthy vines.

Here’s what I’m tending and harvesting in the garden right now:
Peppers
Tomatoes
Zucchini
Summer squash
Center cut squash
String beans
Beets
Carrots
Cucumber
Cabbage
Kale
Brussels sprouts
Onions
Shallots
Leeks
Strawberries
Potatoes
Basil
Thai basil
Oregano
Parsley
Thyme
Sage
Rosemary
Tarragon
Chive
Garlic chive
Lavender
Marigold
Calendula
Nasturtium
Strawflower
Cosmos
Zinnia
Gomphrena
Sweet alyssum

And soon I’ll again plant a bunch of the lettuces and cool crops I grew in the spring—for a fall harvest.

07/02/2026

Put down the snips! It’s too hot.

In a heat wave, pruning can stress our plants—and they’ve got enough work to do just getting through these few days of high heat.

So let’s hold off on snipping and spraying. Let’s just keep the soil moist to help our plants get through this heat.

In my latest email newsletter, I’m sharing all the pruning and harvesting techniques I’m practicing right now—like how a...
07/01/2026

In my latest email newsletter, I’m sharing all the pruning and harvesting techniques I’m practicing right now—like how and why to prune your tomatoes🍅

Click on the link in my bio on Mary Buri | Garden Designer & Coach to read it.

And if you want more guidance in the garden, subscribe and I will email my newsletter to you directly!

I’m loving Substack because I can I teach gardening in longer format. I love IG too! Distinct spaces, distinct ways to share my passion for growing food and flowers.

06/30/2026

Water THIS WAY when you are hand-watering:

Water LOW. Water DEEPLY (infrequent deep > daily shallow).

Foliage doesn’t need the water. The roots do. And when foliage gets and stays wet—like with those summer evening overhead waterings—the moisture on the leaves invites POWDERY MILDEW and other diseases.

Give plenty of water. You want the water to seep into the ground at least 4” deep.

Don’t assume you need to water daily. If you’re not sure, stick your finger into the soil. If it’s’ still moist 2-3” down, you don’t need to water yet.

Let the plants work with lower moisture. It helps train strong roots. Daily shallow waterings train plants to have shallower roots—taking sips from the surface instead of deep drinks lower down.

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