Sunday, August 2, 2026
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, pears, grapes, beans, melons, figs, eggplant, honey, artichokes, blackberries, blueberries, raspberries, onion, and fennel are all in season in the Midwest.
It has been crazy hot again this summer with a good deal of surprise thunderstorms. Right now, I am harvesting cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers, herbs, greens, lettuce, Egyptian walking onions, eggplant, goji berry, yard long beans, raspberries, husk cherries, annual huckleberries, and tamarillos.
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 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.
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 mulched bed and in pots so we have to be choiceful on what to grow.
In pots, we have had great luck with Egyptian walking onions (which can be harvested year round), peppers, eggplant, cucumber, greens, moringa, sweet bay, huckleberries, tamarillos and celery.
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-2 pequin types (red and orange), an ornamental small purple pepper with variegated foliage and Bakhoulti. I’ll use the tiny peppers and the purple peppers in my season salt I make and the Bakhoulti for hot sauce and salsa.
My sweet peppers are doing well. I have gotten many peppers off my Doe Hill and a few off my Tricked You Jalapeño and a maroon meaty sweet pepper from saved seed.
The yellow crookneck summer squash in a pot died earlier. It did well in the pot previously. May have been vine borer. It's best to wait until mid June to plant summer squash to avoid it. I'm still waiting on the trombetta to start producing. Eggplant is producing plenty to make up for it.
The tomatoes are really slow going, but we are getting all we want to eat fresh. The Better Boy in a pot produced well for June and July but has slowed now. Cherokee Purple, California Tulip and Chocolate Pear in the ground have all produced a few ripe tomatoes. Mannon's Majesty is loaded but none close to ripe. The Brandywines have a few small ones on it.
Okra just really kicked in this week. I tried Heavy Hitter again and it is pumping out the fruits.
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 last year that was supposed to be hardy in our zone and it didn’t make it. I put my new ones in pots and will overwinter them in our unheated garage this winter. Fall is a good time to plant perennial herbs.
Rosemary is also tender. I have tried the two varieties that are supposed to be able to survive a Midwest winter and finally had one survive this year. I have tried to also keep in a pot and bring in each winter, but have not had good luck with this approach, but many do. So, 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.
Doing well on small fruits this year! Will grow the same next year except for the annual huckleberries. They are small and messy to pick but they do produce quite a bit in pots.
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.
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