August Kitchen Garden Almanac – Harvest to Table

tomatoes harvested
August is a month of endings and beginnings inside the kitchen garden. In nature, alternate is about. Summer season will begin to fade in loads of gardens right through August giving solution to autumn and cool local weather. In scorching summer time spaces, heat would most likely continue for numerous further weeks then give solution to warmth then again now not scorching temperatures. In the ones spaces the “second spring” garden will come on; in the second spring garden you are able to increase another time all of the crops you planted in spring then again instead of starting seeds indoors you are able to direct sow seed inside the garden.

Table of Contents

Warmth and Cool Local weather Plants

Vegetables are maximum ceaselessly divided into warm-season and cool-season crops. Most warm-season crops are harvested for their fruit: tomatoes, squash, peppers, eggplant, and melons for example. The ones crops require a lot of heat and long days to mature and become tasty.

Cool-season crops need cooler temperatures. The ones are the leaf and root crops: beets, cabbage, carrots, lettuce, and spinach. Leaf and root crops have the benefit of cool local weather; they use the shorter days to direct their energy into leaf and root formation and don’t bother with flowering and seeding or fruiting.

Moreover of interest: Cool-Season and Warmth-Season Plants

Days inside the Emerging Season

Use the choice of days for your garden’s emerging season to make a decision which crops nevertheless have enough season left to mature to harvest. The emerging season is the choice of days between the last frost in spring and the main frost in autumn. Seeds that move into the ground now need time to germinate and increase. If there are 60 to 90 days of temperatures greater than 70 ranges F, you have got a lot of emerging season left for warm-weather crops. If temperatures will drop into the 60s or 50sF inside the next 60 to 90 days, you’ll have to plant cool-season crops now.

If you are unsure of what selection of emerging days you have got left this season, check out the frost dates for your house online or identify the with regards to Cooperative Extension Supplier or seize gardeners for your house. They are able to allow you to learn about when to expect the main frost of autumn or wintry climate.

Moreover of interest: Average Date of the Final Frost and Days inside the Emerging Season

When to Plant the Autumn Garden

When planning the autumn and wintry climate garden, check out the date of maturity on your seed packets in opposition to the standard date of the main frost for your house. Add no less than 2 weeks and up to 4 weeks to that amount and depend backward from the standard first frost date to succeed in at your planting date for that crop. Vegetation increase a bit bit slower as summer time fades into autumn and the sun’s intensity decreases. So allow some increase time by way of together with a few weeks to the maturity date on your seed packets.

You can have numerous time for added warm-weather crops for your house (finally there are only one or 2 days of frost every three hundred and sixty five days in San Diego, as an example), or time may be very temporary (there are on cheap merely 60 frost-free days every three hundred and sixty five days in Telluride, Colorado, with the standard first frost date arriving about August 27).

Moreover of interest: Planting the Autumn and Wintry climate Garden

Broccoli seedlings
Setting out broccoli seedlings

Plant Seedlings in Past due Summer season

One solution to decrease temporary the choice of days a plant will need inside the garden is to transplant seedlings into the garden rather than emerging from seed. Garden amenities would most likely nevertheless have warm-season seedlings available and are very much more likely to have cool-season seedlings to be had now. The ones crops already have a 2 to 6-week head get began over seeds likelihood is that you’ll be able to sow nowadays.

If in case you don’t have any longer started seeds already, check out the garden heart for seedlings now available. Mark your calendar for next three hundred and sixty five days to start out out seedlings for the autumn garden beginning in mid-July. If frost isn’t going to come back for your garden until overdue October, November, or December, you are able to sow seeds right through August.

Moreover of interest: Past due Summer season Vegetable Garden

Autumn Garden Planting

Listed here are some crop ideas for planting the overdue summer time or autumn kitchen garden now. The ones guidelines are divided into 4 primary geographical areas: North and East and Midwest (zones 2 inside the northernmost areas to 6 along the coast), the South (zones 7 inside the north to 10 inside the a ways south), the Southwest and California (zones 7 inside the coolest areas to 11), and the Northeast (zones 5 inside of the very best elevations to 8 along the coast).

• North and East and Midwest. Take a look at the choice of frost-free days left for your house. You can have time to plant beets, chard, endive, kale, overdue kohlrabi, lettuce, mustard, wintry climate onions, radishes, and spinach. Moreover in some areas: carrots, beans, chard, corn salad, endive, kale, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, overdue cabbage, Chinese language language cabbage, cauliflower, celery, and overdue peas. You must hurry the ones into the garden if starting from seed. Herbs can be planted in pots: chives, parsley, mint, and thyme.

• South. Get began wintry climate vegetables in seedbeds or undercover for planting in early September. Every warmth and cool-weather crops can nevertheless be planted inside the August garden in The South: broccoli, Brussels sprouts, bush and pole beans, cabbage and Chinese language language cabbage, cauliflower, chard, sweet corn, kale, leaf lettuce, Bermuda onions, fall peas, radishes, rutabagas, salsify, spinach, wintry climate squash, tomatoes, turnips, and pumpkins. Next month you are able to begin to plant autumn salad greens.

• Southwest and California. In loads of areas, there is also numerous warmth local weather to stick the warm-weather crops coming into into successive plantings; inside the warmest spaces and reverse-season areas, set out bush beans, cucumbers, eggplants, limas, southern peas, peppers, tomatoes, and watermelon. You are able to moreover plant basil, string beans, beets, broccoli, carrots, cauliflower, chard, sweet corn, dill, endive, kohlrabi, lettuce, okra, potatoes, rutabagas, summer time squash, wintry climate squash and pumpkins, spinach, and turnips. Where there is also a lot much less time until the main frost, plant radishes, cabbage, Brussels sprouts, chard, kale, leaf lettuce, fall peas, overdue potatoes, salsify, and overdue spinach. Irish potatoes can move into the garden now. In opposition to the highest of August, wintry climate vegetables can be sown in seedbeds or undercover.

• Northwest. You must no doubt check out the choice of frostless days left for your house. You can have time for beets, broccoli, cabbage, carrots, cauliflower, endive, leaf lettuce, mustard, parsley, peas, spinach, and turnips. Take a look at the seed packets for “fall” and “late” varieties; they are sooner maturing crops. Past due cabbage, overdue cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, and broccoli will probably have time to mature.

Moreover of interest: When to Plant the Fall Vegetable Garden

Peppers harvest
Peppers able for harvest

Additional Tips for August

• Tomatoes. Continue to feed tomatoes and look ahead to pests and illnesses. Water tomato crops often to stop the development of blossom-end rot. Remove excessive leaf growth from tomatoes, side shoots, and yellowing leaves. Stop outside tomatoes when 4 or 5 trusses have set by way of pinching out new growth. At midmonth, remove plant existence and buds from tomatoes to speed the ripening of fruit. (The equivalent is right kind for squash.) Additional at: Discover ways to Ripen Tomatoes on the Vine

• Feeding vegetables. Give warm-season fruiting crops–eggplants, peppers, tomatoes, and squash–a side-dressing of compost tea or manure tea. Add a cup or two of well-rotted manure or compost to a gallon and let sit down down in one day forward of watering spherical crops. Additional at: Fertilizer for Tomatoes, Peppers, and Eggplants

• Get in a position for season extension. Get in a position for frost Briefly-season spaces, clothes, floating row covers, and plastic tunnels can be used to extend the emerging season earlier the main frost. Season-extending gadgets should be readied to protect crops from early frost. Be able to cover tomatoes, peppers, beans, and other subtle crops from frost. A plastic tunnel can prolong your emerging season by way of 4 to 8 weeks. See all of the articles about Season Extension  click on on proper right here.

• Herbs. Cut back herbs to freeze and dry for wintry climate use, preferably forward of leaves become too earlier or crops begin to flower. Achieve herb seeds when ripe. Pot up herbs for wintry climate use, or take cuttings or divide perennial herbs to start out out new crops. Take cuttings of bay, lavender, mint, rosemary, rue, and sage; lift and divide clumps of chives. Additional at: Expand Herbs Indoors in Wintry climate

• Brambles and berries. Cut back fruited raspberry, blackberry, loganberries, currants, and gooseberries canes once more to flooring level, and carefully tie new canes that have now not fruited to is helping. Take hardwood cutting from black currants and gooseberries. Root them in sandy soil in a sheltered spot. Plant black currants, pink and white currants, and blackberry and raspberry canes from now until early spring provided that the soil is not too cold to too wet. Shallow rooted blueberries should be correctly mulched and watered. Protect grapes from birds. There are articles on with regards to all fruits proper right here at Harvest to Table. Look up your favorite fruit to increase inside the Index.

• Strawberries. Clean up strawberries once they have got finished fruiting. Remove earlier leaves and unwanted runners. Runners can be detached from mother or father crops and transplanted or rooted in pots. Potted runner crops can be set out inside the garden. Water all correctly. Change burnt up mulches. Keep watering everbearing strawberries; replenish their mulch as sought after. Briefly-season spaces, have cloches able to extend the season for late-fruiting crops. Additional at: Strawberries

• Apples. Thin apples and fortify intently encumbered bushes. Spray rising fruit with calcium nitrate. Get began deciding on early apples; early-ripening apples do not store correctly, so consume them now. Water apple bushes often and deeply to decrease the danger of bitter pits. Remove and cast off apples showing signs of pest infestations. Keep an eye on woolly aphids on apple bushes; apply grease bands to trunks. Do away with fallen leaves from scab infected apple bushes. Place netting to cover and offer protection to rising fruit from birds. Summer season prune cordon and espalier apples. Additional at: Apples

• Cherries, plums, apricots, nectarines, and peaches. Get began deciding on early plums. Prune cherries, plums, apricots, nectarines, and peaches when the harvest is entire; decrease out unnecessary, diseased, broken, and crossing branches. Prune espalier and fan-trained fruit bushes; decrease lateral growth in opposition to the wall or fence by way of phase. Rake and cast off fallen leaves from scab-infected pear bushes and rust-infected plum bushes. Keep the orchard and house underneath fruit bushes clean to damage the life cycles of pests. Protect fruit in opposition to birds. Plant peaches and nectarines. See the Index for articles on every of the ones fruit bushes.

• Greenhouse and frames. Add further shading to greenhouse glass if vital. Clean and disinfect the greenhouse and get able for wintry climate. Take a look at insulation and heaters to make sure the minimum temperatures are reached (you will want to have a minimum-maximum thermometer). Ventilate on warmth days as vital.

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