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| Pic of edible garden early August |
Saturday, August 15, 2025
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, huckleberries, 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. The easy 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, pole beans, greens, tomatoes, herbs 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? The record heat we are having is hard on many edibles. Right now, the tomatoes are having a hard time developing fruits. When temperatures stay above 85F, their flower pollen is sterile in most varieties. We had temperatures go down into the 80's a couple of weeks ago so we are getting some ripe tomatoes now, but with it being back in the 90's for another couple weeks, the harvest will likely drop back down again.
The last couple of years, I planted a second crop of tomatoes in mid June. I planted some more a couple of weeks ago this year but they haven't grown at all. Again I think it is because of the crazy heat we have been having. I planted a few Brandwine and Mortgage Lifter plants.
My yard long bean vines have just taken off in the last couple of weeks. I have started getting yard long beans to freeze. Yard Long beans are much more productive than typical snap beans so I switched to them a couple of years ago. I did try another variety of yard long bean this year but it is just sitting there while the Chinese Red Noodle is motoring right along. I do also have Christmas Speckles lima bean vine and 1500 Year Old Cave bean vines growing. I have gotten a few pods from Christmas Speckles but none from the Cave Bean vine.
The Trombetta squash I planted in the garden bed is about 15' long and has just begun making fruits. I have harvested a couple so far. I had planted another variety of summer squash vine but it died. My melon vines are looking very healthy and I have a large melon that should be ready to pick in a couple of days. The other vining crop, cucumber is doing pretty well. I have 4 different kinds growing to see which does best against disease and in our heat. I have more cucumbers than I can eat or pickle at the moment.
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| Newly sprouted zucchini, ready to be transplanted |
Have many sweet and hot peppers and cucumbers and okra. I tried Heavy Hitter okra for a second time. The first time I didn't get much off of it. This time, it is producing heavily! Have had a few fruits from the eggplants and the plants are getting to a good size.
Most of my pepper plants look nice and green. I do have a couple t hat are on the yellow side. I added more fertilizer and minerals with Azomite to see if that helps them. My sweet peppers are flowering and have had fruits for the last month. 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. I had plenty of chili powder left so I am not growing Anaheims this year.
The flea beetles are having their usual summer feast with my eggplants but it seems less than in past years. 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 if it gets too bad. We have purple and green varieties this year. 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.
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| 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, 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. My top 10 seed saving tips
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