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Gardening in the summer months can be challenging, both for you and your plants. Keeping hydrated and covered while the sun beats down on you is extremely important, as is keeping your plants just as hydrated and properly shaded. In July there are some specific green gardening tips to remember.

Tomatoes and basil are prominent foods/herbs that grow in July. Here are some tips to make them both blossom to their best potential.

* Remove tomatoes with rot

- This might sound pretty self-explanatory, but examining each blossoming tomato for end rot, a disease that turns the bottom of the tomato brown, can help decrease the risk of tomatoes around the infected one from getting the disease. End rot usually occurs due to uneven watering or a calcium deficiency. To help the infected plants, sprinkle limestone around the base of the plant on the top layer of soil. Also, in dry periods hand water the plants deeply once a week.

* Harvest basil leaves

- Harvesting basil leaves comes down to one simple motto: Take as many as you can! Cut off as many leaves as you can when they seem fully blossomed, then cut the stems back by one-half or two-thirds to promote bushiness later in the season.

* Remove dying flower heads

- You can tell a flower head is dying by its fading color or loss of petals. Also, cutting off heads of flowers like the rose of Sharon or buddleias can help prevent the excessive seeding from the flowers head. Removing the flower heads will also help the re-blooming of the flowers in the late summer.

* Beware Japanese beetles

- These fun little critters will get everywhere! Roses, hollies, grapevines, Japanese maples, apple and linden trees, and tons more are hot spots for these plant-eating bugs. Removing them now, early in their attack, will prevent an onslaught of the beetles later in the summer. Try help with organic gardening; do not use pesticides that can damage your plants and the environment. Instead, handpick the beetles and put them in soapy water.

* Prevent plant mildew fungus

- Lilacs, zinnias, garden phlox, asters, bee balm, crape myrtles and verbena are plants that are prone to developing mildew. This powdery layer on the plants can be sprayed by an organic spray and will prevent disfiguring diseases. If the fungus goes untreated, the plants can turn a gray-white color and plants can be totally dried out.

* Fertilize container plants

- Container plants are just like your regularly grown plants, just more mobile! That means they deserve the watering, and fertilizing you would give it if it was planted in the ground. While you’re fertilizing, make sure the pot is still draining freely and re-pot lost soil.

* Thin tomato plants

- This green gardening tip is done extremely easily; simply pinch with your fingers any stems that are growing out of the crotches of the tomato branches.

Don’t forget to look for these flowers blooming in your garden this month:

* Black-eyed Susan

* Garden Phlox

* Daylilly

Melissa Rubin is a senior copywriter and Web developer at OTO Networks, a digital marketing company located in Baltimore, Maryland. Her primary responsibilities include SEO, link building and creating content for multiple sites. A preview of a site on which she has worked, http://www.AGreenRetirement.com, is available with this article.

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