The late August edible garden

Garden in the morning

Sunday, August 27, 2023

August usually sees the full repertoire of the summer garden harvests.  Late sweet corn (plant corn in succession and different varieties to lengthen the harvest), summer squashes (like zucchini), peppers of all types (sweet to hot, hot), tomatoes, Mediterranean herbs, cucumbers, okra, apples, peaches, pears, grapes, beans, melons, figs, eggplant, honey, artichokes, raspberries, onion, winter squash and fennel are all in season in the Midwest.  

This year for warm season veggies, I am harvesting winter and summer squash, tomatoes, snap beans, lima beans, peppers, greens, sprouting broccoli, Egyptian walking onions, eggplant, cucumbers, goji berry, green beans, basil, melons, strawberries, husk cherries, and herbs.  

I planted my second round of summer and spaghetti squash and cucumber plants early last month and I am getting fruits off all of them.  I had also planted Mashed Potato winter squash twice, but the first time they didn't come up and the last time the vine did sprout and flower but has now died.  For squash, it is a good idea to replant at the beginning of July to keep the harvest going as they are susceptible to disease.

Growing zucchini and summer squash

What to do with all that zucchini?!  

Many do the same with tomatoes.  I started 4 extra tomato plants the first of July and three look really healthy and are producing fruits.  For the first round of plants, I have lost 3 of the 14.  The others I have cut back as they were getting very spindly.  They are starting to bush back out, all have flowers and most have more fruits coming on.  I started getting tomatoes at the end of June.  Was getting about a quart a day.  Right now, it is about a half a quart.  They'll continue to produce until the first hard freeze if you keep them fertilized, watered and treated for disease.

If you are not growing summer veggies in your own garden, your local farmers market is a great place to pick up these seasonal veggies to either eat or preserve.  The best buy on any fruit or vegetable is when it is in season.  You can get even better deals on any produce that has a few blemishes which have no effect on the flavor.  If you are going to can, freeze or dry them, just be sure to remove any blemishes first.

 Veggies that are easy to preserve the extras for winter eating

We grow many edibles in pots because our edibles are integrated into the flower beds.  In pots, we have had great luck with Egyptian walking onions (which can be harvested year round), peppers, eggplant, bush zucchini, bush cucumber, dwarf tomatoes, greens, fig tree, columnar apple trees, dwarf moringa tree, kumquat tree, sweet bay, mint, goji berry, raspberry, lettuce and celery. 

Spaghetti squash sitting on hummingbird vine

I have tried sweet and hot peppers in pots and the garden.  Overall, they seem to do the best in pots.  I am growing a few hot peppers-a pequin type Chiltepin, cayenne, and Anaheim.  I use the tiny peppers in my season salt I make, the cayenne for hot sauce, and Anaheim for chili powder.

Preserving peppers

My sweet peppers have had a slow start this year.  I  have many green peppers on my snacking pepper plant and have been harvesting the cayenne, Anaheim and Chiltepin peppers for a month now.  I planted all my peppers a bit late this year so they are doing well for how long they have been growing.

Peppers are for every taste and garden

Weekly watering for plants in the ground is sufficient with monthly fertilizing.  A pot with a water reservoir in the bottom is the best solution for lengthening the time between waterings when growing in pots.  Otherwise, plan on watering your pots every 2-3 days and fertilize every other week.  Summer garden tips

I grow all of our herbs in the ground except sweet bay.  Sweet bay is a tender perennial and will not survive winters outside so I keep it in a pot to bring in each fall.    I had one a couple of years ago that was supposed to be hardy in our zone and it didn’t make it.  I put my new ones in pots and they have overwintered well in our unheated garage for the last two winters.  Fall is a good time to plant perennial herbs, veggies, fruits and flowers.

Midwest Perennial Vegetable Garden

Rosemary is also tender.  I have tried the several varieties that are supposed to be able to survive a Midwest winter and have yet to find one that will last past 2 seasons.  I have tried to also keep in a pot and bring in each winter. This is an herb I will buy each spring if overwintering does not work out, plant in the garden, then preserve for the winter by harvesting late in the season and drying.

Harvest and preserve your herbs

Make your own "Herbes de Provence"

Flowers are doing great right now in the garden.  They are covered in beneficial insects, butterflies and butterfly caterpillars.  The zinnias, marigolds, petunias, Hummingbird vine, and Cock's Comb are putting on a big show.  The zinnias, marigolds and Cock's Comb are also edible.  Flowers that are edible

Red zinnia

A quick reminder, save the seeds from your best performers that have been disease free to plant next year.  You can replant seeds from any heirlooms or open pollinated plants.  What do the terms GMO, natural, heirloom, organic, hybrid really mean?  Not only does it save you money, but it also gives you the plants that do the best under your garden and zone conditions.

Seed saving-fun, easy and a cost saver

It's winter squash harvest time

Butternut squash

Saturday, August 26, 2023

It is winter squash harvest time!  
Winter squash are ready to harvest after the vine completely dies in late summer or fall.  Be sure to harvest your fruits before it gets too cold.  A frost or two is the max cold to leave them out in.  Definitely don't let them sit through a freeze.

Squash originated in Mexico.  There are cave drawings from 8000 to 6500 BC depicting squash. Squash was grown extensively by Native Americans as part of the “Three Sisters”-squash, corn and beans.  Winter squash is chock full of vitamins, minerals, and fiber  Winter squash-one of the world's healthiest foods

Summer squash are the ones you eat fresh like zucchini.  Winter squash are the ones that you wait for the skins to toughen and the flesh to sweeten.

Winter squash take until late summer into fall to ripen and can be stored inside for months.  They include butternut squash, acorn squash, spaghetti squash, Hubbards, turbans and pumpkins.  Each vine does not produce many fruits.  We typically get 3 butternut or spaghetti squash from each vine, which is a decent yield.

Spaghetti squash sitting on Hummingbird vine

Winter squash is left on the vine until the vine dies and the fruit loses its sheen.

You should be able to poke the squash with your fingernail and it should just dent it, not puncture the skin.  Be sure to leave 2-4” of stem attached when you harvest.  Place in a warm, sunny place to allow the skin to toughen.  Then, store in a cool, dark location until ready to eat.

I harvested one spaghetti squash and one is about ready to harvest.  It is a new type for me, Warsaw spaghetti squash.  It is supposed to be disease resistant.  So far, it is doing well.  The second winter squash I was trying this year was Mashed Potato squash, but the vine has not produced any fruits.  I'll try it again next year.

There are some amazingly diverse and cool winter squashes/pumpkins, from the bumpy and blue hubbards, to traditional pear shaped butternut to the exotic "turban" squash, so named because of the hat it appears to be wearing............  

Depending on the variety of winter squash, it can store well for months.   Butternut and spaghetti squash are long lasting common winter squash.   I have eaten butternut squash into June the following year!  I started growing Trombetta squash 3 seasons ago.  It is one you can eat fresh like zucchini or can leave on the vine for its skin to toughen and store for the winter.  I still have 2 from last year in the basement. 

Acorn squash sitting in the window sill to toughen the skin

If you decide you want to grow winter squash next year, here are some tips.

Since it originated in a temperate zone, winter squash requires a long growing season.  It is best to start them indoors in the spring. Squash love organic matter and warm temperatures.  If you throw a few seeds in your compost pile, you will be rewarded with exuberant vines.

Plant when nighttime temps are 55F or warmer.  Add a fertilizer rich in phosphorous a week after transplanting, when flowers first appear and again when fruits begin to form.  They love water, too.  If growing in a pot, keep well watered and don’t let dry out.  Summer garden tips

Don’t panic when the first blooms fall off without producing any fruits.  There are male and female flowers.  If yours falls off, it was likely a poor guy that withered without the love a gal.  There can also be some false starts with malformed fruits.  Don’t worry, the plant will put on more blooms.  Everything you need to know to grow squash

Veggies that are easy to preserve the extras for winter eating

Veggies that are easy to preserve for winter

Monday, August 21, 2023

If you are interested in being more self-sufficient, to have nutritious food at the ready, reduce your food bill or just want to save the extras from the garden this year, there are simple ways to preserve many different crops from the garden: freezing Freezing the extras for winter, drying Dehydrate or sun dry your extra veggies, canning Easy, low tox canning of summer's bounty, and pickling.

I only do canning of high acid vegetables like tomatoes or pickling so only a large pot is needed.  If you decide to can low acid vegetables, then a high pressure canner is needed.  Sites & resources for canning

Crops that are easy to put away for year round eating:

Beets, Basil, Broccoli, Cabbage, Carrots, Cucumbers, Eggplant, Garlic, Green Beans, Greens, Herbs, Onions, Peas and Snow Peas, Peppers, Tomatoes and Squash.

The easiest to start with are herbs.  Spices are very expensive in the store.  Herbs are carefree and produce alot that can be dried or frozen to use year round.  My 2 favorites are making pesto from basil (Basil basics-harvesting, preserving, growing basil) and using a variety of dried herbs to make “Herbes De Provence” (Make your own "Herbes de Provence") that I add to almost every dish!  Since most herbs are from the Mediterranean region, they thrive in mediocre soil and dry conditions.  Start a kitchen herb garden!

For spring and fall planting for a preservation garden: 

Beets, broccoli, cabbage, carrots, garlic, greens, cool season herbs like cilantro and parsley, onions, peas, potatoes and snow peas.

Beets, broccoli, cabbage, carrots, greens, and snow peas should be blanched and then frozen.  Blanching stops the degradation of the vegetable in the freezer, increasing the shelf life to months.  Blanching simply means putting into boiling water and then immediately into ice water or very cold water to stop the cooking of the vegetable.  For the bigger veggies, 3 minutes in boiling water is sufficient.  For greens, just a couple of minutes.  After blanching, remove the excess water.  I like to then put on a cookie sheet in the freezer in a single layer.  After freezing, I put in freezer bags.  This way your veggies will defrost quicker and you can remove only what you want to use for that meal.  If just put directly into the freezer bag, they will all freeze together in one big block.

You can also dry any vegetable, store in a sealed jar, and rehydrate when needed for cooking.  The trick is to make sure that they are dried enough that they will not mold.  If in doubt, your dried produce can be stored in the frig or freezer, taking up much less room than the whole vegetable.

I also like to grow sprouting broccoli as it can be harvested from for 8 months of the year.  Carrots and onions can be left in the ground over the winter and pulled when needed.  My favorite onion to grow is Egyptian walking onion.  It produces a small bulb that is just the right size for using for one meal.  It can be grown in a pot, too, and harvested year round.  Egyptian walking onions

Garlic is planted in the fall and harvested in mid summer.  There are 3 ways I preserve garlic.  One is to harden off and keep several garlic bulbs to use fresh.  The second is to separate the cloves and put into vinegar with peppers.  I store these jars in the refrigerator.  This preserves the garlic and adds a little kick.  The third is to dry some garlic cloves to make garlic powder.  Quick tip-make dried garlic into garlic powder

For summer planting of a preservation garden: 

Corn, cucumbers, eggplant, green beans, warm season herbs like basil and rosemary, peppers, squash.

I don't blanch my summer vegetables before freezing.  If you want to keep them in the freezer longer than 4-6 months, blanching is the best way to go.  For small peppers, I freeze them whole. Peppers a Plenty in September  Large peppers and all tomatoes, I slice and freeze.   As the tomato harvest heats up, any that we can't eat, I freeze.  Come fall when it cools off, I will take all of last year's frozen tomatoes and make into sauce.  A few tomato plants give us enough to freeze and make sauce for the coming year.  Preserving the tomato harvest 

  For peppers, I also make hot sauce Quick tip-make your own hot sauce and dry them to make chili powders.

For eggplant and squash, I like to freeze them whole.  When I am ready to eat them, I slice them while frozen and grill.  If you are going to use them in recipes, I would cut them into the size you want to use in your recipes, blanch and freeze.  This past summer, I made spaghetti and lasagna noodles them, blanched them and froze them in quart bags.  For the lasagna noodles, first lay them flat on a cookie sheet to freeze before putting into a freezer bag.  What to do with all that zucchini?!   

Green beans, I break into the size I will use in my recipes and freeze.  Cucumbers I make into pickles.  Make your own pickles without a store bought seasoning mix  For corn, the easiest way to store is just blanching the whole ear of corn.  After removing the silks, you can either freeze whole or slice off the cob and freeze the kernels.

All your summer vegetables can be dried as well.  Dehydrate or sun dry your extra veggies

Now you are ready to eat fresh and preserve the extras to get you through to next year's garden!

What's happening in the early August edible garden

Pic of edible garden early August

Sunday, August 13, 2023

August sees the full swing of the summer, warm season garden harvests.  Late sweet corn (plant corn in succession and different varieties to lengthen the harvest), summer squashes (like zucchini), peppers of all types (sweet to hot, hot), tomatoes, Mediterranean herbs, cucumbers, okra, apples, peaches, pears, grapes, beans, melons, figs, eggplant, honey, artichokes, blackberries, blueberries, raspberries, onion, and fennel are all in season in the Midwest.  

If you are not growing these in your own garden, your local farmers market is a great place to pick up these seasonal veggies to either eat or preserve.  The best buy and taste on any fruit or vegetable is when it is in season.  You can get even better deals on any produce that has a few blemishes which have no effect on the flavor.  If you are going to can, freeze or dry them, just be sure to remove any blemishes first.  Preservation garden

I pick what to have in our garden based on the harvest per foot of garden space needed.  Our garden is incorporated into the flower garden mulch bed and in pots so we have to be choiceful on what to grow.  Grow what you love to eat, too.  It won't be a lot of fun to have a bumper crop of veggies you don't really like.  How to decide what to plant for small spaces?

In pots, we have great luck with Egyptian walking onions (which can be harvested year round), peppers, eggplant, greens, sweet bay, bush cucumber, vine beans and celery.

I do use vertical space for the green beans and cucumbers, growing pole types on trellises whether grown in the garden or in a pot.  You can also use trellises for squash or grow bush types that stay compact.

So, what is doing not so well in the garden this summer?  Our tomatoes are doing just okay.  Have had a couple die so far.  May be voles.  The voles seem to love the mulched flower beds!  I grow tomatoes in the garden beds because even an extra large pot doesn't give enough support to the indeterminant types I like to produce well in a pot.  If you are growing in a pot, be sure to get dwarf types so they don't outgrow the pot.  Dwarfs stay small so you won't get as many tomatoes as you do from a regular size plant but you will get a few each week.  

We had such a cool May that the eggplant, peppers, beans, squash and cucumbers were slow to get going.  The summer squash is now producing.  I planted Trombetta again as it doesn't have disease or pest issues in my garden.  I also had volunteer what summer squash vines come up.  Have never grown this variety before so it must have come in the compost I bought a couple of years ago.  Have had a few fruits from the eggplants and the plants are getting to a good size.  Got my first cucumber today.  The snap beans are not producing many beans but the vines have filled back out so hopefully, they will kick in shortly. 

Everything you need to know to grow squash

Newly sprouted zucchini, ready to be transplanted

I started extra tomato plants as they are so susceptible to fungal diseases in our humid summers and we have a healthy population of voles that play havoc on the roots.  I planted this second batch out last month and they have tomatoes on them.  Tomatoes will continue to produce up until a hard freeze so all the way through fall.  

Tomatoes 101, everything you need to know to grow ...

My pepper plants look nice and green.  The Anaheims are producing peppers and continuing to flower.  My sweet peppers are flowering.  Peppers will produce all the way until there is a hard freeze.  It seems their best month is September.  They love warm days, cool nights and lower humidity.  I grow the sweet peppers to snack on and freeze for football salsa.  The Anaheims I am growing to dry and make chili powder out of.   

Peppers are for every taste and garden

Peppers love September 

The flea beetles are having their usual summer feast with my eggplants.  They love to eat holes in the plant's leaves.  They don't eat the fruits, but with the damage to the leaves can reduce the plants ability to produce fruits.  We have purple and green varieties this year.  I also bought a purple Japanese type.  They are tender and sweet.  Err on the side of picking early versus late.  Leaving the fruits on too long makes the skins taste on the bitter side.  You want to pick when the skin is glossy.

Eggplant-add this native from India to your garden

 I have my pole bean vines in pots again this year.  I plant them in extra large pots and put a trellis in the pot.  They do decent in a pot but are much more productive in the garden bed.  This year, I have not seen any pests or disease on the beans.  I grow Blauhilde pole bean instead of the other Roma types for its disease resistance.  Its lavender flowers are pretty, too.  I am trying 1500 Year Old bean this year and it has only produced a few pods.  Christmas Speckles lima bean has produced one harvest and it is flowering again.  I grow these more for fun than to put away because it takes so many vines to get a good harvest for any dried bean.  They say you don't need to fertilize beans after they are planted unless their leaves start yellowing.  Growing beans  I fertilized them a couple of weeks ago to give them a boost.  Too much fertilizer will cause them to focus on greenery versus fruits.  This is true for all fruiting plants.  More is not necessarily better.

Summer garden tips

Beans on trellis in garden bed

The first round of lettuce, sweet mustard and spinach bolted long ago.  I left them to go to seed.  I have many volunteer sweet mustard and lettuce plants coming up.  Greens are heavy nitrogen users.  I make sure to fertilize them monthly.  I grow most of my greens in pots.  Pots need to be fertilized about twice as often as garden beds.  I always use natural organic fertilizers like Espoma or for an extra boost of nitrogen, blood meal or bat guana or liquid fish fertilizer.

A quick reminder, save the seeds from your best performers to plant next year!  You can replant seeds from any heirlooms or open pollinated plants.  What do the terms GMO, natural, heirloom, organic, hybrid really mean?  Not only does it save you money, but it also gives you the plants that do the best under your garden and zone conditions.  Only save seeds from your best fruits and only from disease free plants.  Seed saving-fun, easy and a cost saver

What to plant in the August edible garden

Fall garden

Saturday, August 12, 2023 

August is a great time to begin planting for fall and winter harvests.  Get the most out of your edible garden by using all the seasons for fresh, homegrown goodness!

You can garden year round in small space
A fall edible garden
The winter edible garden

Here are the crops you can start in the August Midwest edible garden:

Beets

Broccoli

Brussels sprouts
Bush beans

Cabbage

Carrots

Cauliflower
Celery

Collards
Corn salad
Endive

Fava beans (broad beans)

Kale

Kohlrabi
Lettuce
Mustard

Onions

Peas

Radish

Scallions

Snow peas
Spinach
Strawberry runners

Swiss chard

Turnips

Early August is last call for zucchini and summer squash planting!

November edible garden

Look for cold hardy varieties when planting for fall and winter harvests.  You may be surprised that you can harvest all through the winter months things like greens, onions, Austrian peas, carrots, herbs and cabbage.  You can also extend the fall and winter harvest by looking for the same crop with different days to harvest timing so that they mature at different times.  Finally, you can use cover to possibly extend the harvest all the way to next spring.  Extend the season with protection for plants

When planting in the hot months, be sure to keep the soil moist until the plants are well established.  Summer and fall planted crops take longer to come to harvest than they do in the spring.  Rule of thumb is to add 2 weeks.  It's because the days are getting shorter rather than longer.  

A great and easy way to start your fall garden is to sow the seeds in a pot on a covered deck or patio.  This makes it easy to keep an eye on the seedlings and protects them from the harsh hot summer sun.  After they have a couple of sets of their true leaves, you can transplant into the garden bed.  Harden them off first by moving the pot to full sun before transplanting.  "Hardening off" seedlings  After transplanting into the garden, keep them watered regularly during hot, dry weather until well established.

Our local Ace Hardware has fall vegetable transplants in so you don't even have to start seeds to get a fall garden and harvest.

For more summer seed starting tips Outdoor seed starting tips

Plant your edible garden in the shade

Vegetable garden in shade

Sunday, August 6, 2023

You may think that your shady yard can't grow any vegetables or herbs.  You may be surprised to learn that you can grow many veggies and herbs in shade.  They will not be as lush or full, but they will produce and some will appreciate the cool shade on hot summer days.

Veggies you can grow in the shade: greens, chard, kale, lettuce, spinach, celery, peas, beans, beets, radishes, turnips, endive, french sorrel, leeks, radicchio, purslane, pac choi, carrots, potatoes, scallions, mustard greens, cultivated dandelions, corn salad, chickweed   

Herbs for shade: mint, chervil, oregano, chives, cilantro, golden marjoram, lemon balm, parsley

I have grown green beans, snow peas, tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers and eggplant in a shady part of the garden that gets direct sun just in the afternoon.  They don't produce heavily, but it is enough for us to eat and put away for winter.  We cut the limbs on the trees up about 10 feet to allow dappled sun to come through in the morning.  Any variety that has been bred for greenhouses are great options for trying in the shadier parts of your yard.

Remember that you will have sun in the spring under deciduous trees until they leaf out and in fall after the leaves have fallen.  Cold crops that do well in cool temperatures of spring and fall include lettuce, kale, broccoli, cabbage, radishes, turnips, peas, beets.  Choose crops that have the shortest time to harvest and plant as early as the seed packet instructs to get your crop up and ready to harvest before the shade overtakes the garden spot.

I always thought you had to have your garden in full sun pretty much all day to be able to grow vegetables.  This isn't the case.  If you can give them some sun or dappled shade, it will be a boost to yields and you can grow almost any vegetable.

Kitchen garden with flowers in front

Watch how the sun travels through your yard and don't forget about your front yard!  You can grow herbs and vegetables interspersed with flowers for a beautiful "flower" bed.  If you have an elevated deck that gets sun, use pots.  There are many varieties today bred specifically to be compact and do well in pots.   Decorative container gardening for edibles

Here is a listing of crops you can grow  in your garden by hours of sunlight:

2-3 hours of sun:  Anise hyssop, Asian greens, chives, cilantro, kale, lemon balm, lettuce, marjoram, mesclun greens, mint, mustard greens, oregano, parsley, scallions, shiso, spicebush, spinach, sweet woodruff, wild ginger
4 hours of sun:  Alpine strawberries, arugula, soybeans, tomatoes, cucumbers, eggplant, beans, peas, rosemary, basil, radishes, Swiss chard, carrots, beets

5 hours of sun:  blueberries, grapes, apple trees, micro greens, potatoes, celery, green onions, turnips

You can get more sun than you think by trimming tree limbs up to allow morning or evening sun in.  You can also use light colored mulch or even the high dollar metallic mulch to have more sunlight reflect up onto the plants.  Another approach would be to spray paint what the plants back up to with metallic paint or place a piece of metallic painted plywood behind your plants.

Another thing to keep in mind is when the leaves are off the trees.  There are many cool season crops that will do great in the chilly seasons like winter, spring and fall.  Overwintering crops are another winner for planting in the shade of late summer that will then have the benefit of late fall, winter and early spring sun.  For more on cool season crops for fall and winter, Fall garden planning and planting and Time to set out transplants for fall, winter, & spring harvests.  For spring any that are planted before your first frost date are the cold hardy ones Indoor sowing/outdoor planting dates.

Crops that thrive in spring will appreciate shade and dappled shade during the heat of summer. These include lettuce, spinach, kale, chard, sprouting broccoli, and cilantro which bolt (go to flower) at the first sign of heat.  It is that bolting time of year.....  If you can plant them in a shady spot or move the pot they are planted in to shade as temperatures rise, you will be able to extend the season of harvest before they go to flower.

Don't let a little shade keep you from trying your hand at an edible garden.  The harvest may not be as much for the summer lovers like tomatoes, zucchini, cucumbers, peppers, and eggplant, but you can have a nice kitchen garden.

August 2023 Edible Garden Planner

August edible garden

Saturday August 5, 2023

August brings harvests of some of the favorites of the edible garden.  Sweet corn, tomatoes, summer squashes (like zucchini and yellow straight neck), peppers of all types (sweet and hot), Mediterranean herbs, cucumbers, okra, apples, peaches, pears, grapes, snap beans, melons, figs, eggplant, honey, artichokes, tomatillos are all in season this month.

At the same time, it is also the month to plant for fall and winter harvests.  It can be hard to make room for new seedlings, but your pantry will thank you in the cool days of fall that are coming.

A secret to maximizing your fruiting vegetables like peppers, tomatoes, eggplants, snap beans, tomatillos, and summer squash is to harvest them continuously.  A plant’s driving force is to reproduce so by continuing to harvest, it causes the plant to put on more fruits.  There are many options to preserve the extras: Freezing the extras for winter, drying Dehydrate or sun dry your extra veggies, canning Easy, low tox canning of summer's bounty, and pickling Make your own pickles without a store bought seasoning mix.

We have many deer, raccoons, birds and squirrels in our yard; deer bed down in our yard at night.  To keep the critters from snacking on ripe tomatoes on the vine, I harvest them as they are turning red and let them finish ripening on the counter overnight.  Still taste great being picked so close to peak ripeness.

Quick tip-how I keep the deer away

Continue to fertilize with a natural, organic fertilizer every month for veggies in the ground and semiweekly for those in containers.  When fertilizing, scratch the fertilizer into the soil around the plant.  Nitrogen is the one component of fertilizing that is most used during the season.  If you leave the fertilizer on top of the ground, you will need twice as much as the nitrogen will off gas into the atmosphere if not covered.  Summer garden tips

Keeping consistent moisture to your plants is key.  Irregular watering causes tomatoes to crack and blossom end rot to occur.  Make sure your garden is getting 1 inch of water weekly either from rain or watering, being sure to water deeply at the base of the plant and not on the leaves.  Many warm weather lovers like squash, tomatoes and cucumbers are susceptible to fungal diseases.  If your garden is susceptible to fungal diseases, you can continue using a natural preventative fungicide spray weekly to keep it at bay and boost your garden's production.

You can also start a second round of tomatoes and squash in July to have strong production from end of August through frost if you find your production is dropping off this time of year and you are keeping up with watering and fertilizing.  I have been trying different summer squash too, looking for one that keeps right on producing for the entire season.  Trombetta has done great in my garden for the last 3 years.  The production is steady, too, so you don't have zucchinis over running your counter.  The only potential drawback is that the vine is a rambler.  It grows to around 20' long.  You can have it grow between other plants.  Just be sure to get it moving in the direction you want it to grow while it is small.

Summer peppers and tomatoes

If you had any lettuce from early planting, they will have bolted by now.  Take the flower heads off and save the seed.  You can shake the seeds into your self watering pots to get your fall lettuce growing.  I have pots at 3 different stages of growth going right now to keep us in fresh salads.  Lettuce will not sprout if the soil temperature is above 75 degrees F.  You can start your seeds indoors or in a cool, shady spot in the garden and then move to its permanent spot.  The first seeds I sow are ones that are four season types.  As I succession plant my lettuce every 2-3 weeks, I will switch over to winter hardy varieties next month. 

Never ending salad from one packet of seeds

Planting for fall and winter vegetables

I know it sounds crazy, but now is the time to start planting for fall and winter harvests.  You need to plant early enough for your veggies to be full size when frosts hit.  Add 14 days to the days to maturity listed on the seed packet and back it up from your last frost date for the time to plant your seeds. 

What to plant in the August edible garden

A fall edible garden

Winter edible garden

Frost date look up

Daylight hours determine the growth rate of plants.  Since the days are getting shorter, it will take longer for the plants to come to full maturity in the waning daylight hours of fall than the lengthening hours of spring and with the cooling temperatures coming next month.  By the first of November, almost all growth has come to a full standstill until the beginning of January when daylight hours are back to 10+ hours per day.  

If you can't pick up transplants like broccoli, cabbage, lettuce, kale, and herbs at big box stores or a local nursery, you can get transplants from on-line nurseries if you want to go that route.  Farmers markets may also have them.  

I have started doing more from seed.  I re-use 6 pack containers, peat pots or a rectangular self-watering pot, put starting mix in them, water well, then add seeds, covering with soil per packet instructions.  I just leave them on our covered deck so that I can keep them moist.  Seeds sprout super fast this time of year.  The other advantage for outdoor seed starting is that they are already acclimated to the summer temps so do well when transplanted.  

Outdoor seed starting tips

Fall planting guide for cool season crops

August is the month for starting greens (arugula, corn salad, lettuce, miner’s lettuce, spinach, mustard, endive, chard, lettuce), kohlrabi, onions, scallions, cabbage plants, radishes, peas, fava beans and turnips. 

What to plant in the August edible garden

In September, plant more greens, carrots, and radishes.  For our Zone 7a garden, the first 2 weeks of September are prime for planting lettuce.  Try different cold hardy varieties planted at the same time.  Different varieties mature at different times, giving you an on-going harvest. 

 Grow lettuce through fall and winter

What to plant in the September edible garden

October is the month to plant garlic for next year’s harvest.  Be sure to order now before they sell out!  Time to plant garlic! With growing tips......

What to plant in the October edible garden

For more details on varieties to plant, Cold season crops for your edible garden

Caring for your new seeds and transplants

Like in the spring, newly sown seeds need moisture to sprout.  Keep seeds and transplants moist but not wet until they get their first real set of leaves and are well established.  Then water as needed.  

Many crops can be harvested into December and beyond without any cover, depending on how cold fall is.  Some get sweeter with some frost, like carrots, chard, and lettuce.  With cover, you can harvest all the way through winter and get a jump start on spring!

Below is the portable greenhouse I use.  I can get 10 large pots under its cover.  Portable greenhouse covers like this could also be placed directly in the garden as well.  I use it to extend the fall and winter harvest for potted greens, broccoli and cabbage.   Prepare for hard freeze 

My portable greenhouse

A quick reminder, save the seeds from your best performers to plant next year!  You can replant seeds from any heirlooms or open pollinated plants.  Not only does it save you money, but it also gives you the plants that do the best under your garden and zone conditions.  

Seed saving-fun, easy and a cost saver