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| Pic of edible garden in August |
Saturday, August 13, 2022
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, and celery.
This year, I am using vertical space in pots for the green beans and cucumbers, growing pole types on trellises and okra. 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? Okra and pole beans have been slow to have harvestable fruits. Our tomato plants are not bushy and green and only the Chocolate Pear plant is giving us lots of tomatoes. We are getting some fruits from all the vines except the Brandywine which just starting producing baby tomatoes this week.
It is a good idea to plan to replant new tomato and zucchini plants in mid-summer. This year the summer squash, Trombino, and cucumber bush plants are still doing great. I do have volunteers that I will let a few grow to full size to make sure I have back ups in case they are needed.
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| Newly sprouted squash vines, ready to be transplanted |
It is my first time growing okra in a pot. They are a cool looking plant. I trying a new variety that is supposed to give a bumper crop. I do have several fruits coming on this week so maybe they have hit their stride. Their flowers are beautiful, like creamy hibiscus blooms.
I have been trying many different types of sweet peppers to find some that produce as well as hot peppers. Hot peppers are really prolific. So far, I am pleased with my sweet pepper varieties.
The flea beetles are having a field day with my eggplants. They love to eat holes in the plant's leaves. I go out and squish them regularly. They don't eat the fruits, but with the damage to the leaves stunts the plants ability to produce fruits. We have orange, purple and white fruit 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 while the fruit skins are shiny.
The bean vines are doing okay this year in their pot. They say you don't need to fertilize beans after they are planted unless their leaves start yellowing. Growing beans I fertilized them to give them a boost on the same frequency as the rest of the pots. Veggies in pots need more added nutrition than those growing in the garden bed. Too much fertilizer will cause them to focus on greenery versus fruits so it is a balancing act. This is true for all fruiting plants. More is not necessarily better.
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| Beans on trellis |
I planted brussel sprouts this year first the first time in several years. They are in the same family as broccoli. I am having pest problems with them just like the broccoli. I need to not plant anything in the broccoli family for a year or two. Without a favorite food source, they will die off. Meanwhile, I have been picking them off and spraying with BT for this year's plants.
The lettuce and spinach bolted long ago. It was a pretty good spring for lettuce since it stayed cool. I made sure to fertilize both well. They are heavy nitrogen users. I always use natural organic fertilizers like Espoma or for an extra boost of nitrogen, blood meal or bat guana. I have summer loving greens going now for salads, like unusual varieties of mustard with large sweet tasting leaves, Chinese Multi Colored Spinach amaranth, and Red Malabar spinach. I sowed seeds for winter hardy lettuces a couple weeks ago to get them up and full size before it gets really cold this fall.
I started harvesting some apples and figs in the last week. The apples are a little on the tart side but harvesting some will let the rest grow larger and I beat the birds and deer to them! My overbearing raspberry is still giving fruits on and off. Strawberries are taking a heat break at the moment.
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. Seed saving-fun, easy and a cost saver
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