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August Garden Checklist

Come August, many gardens and gardeners are just bone-weary. The summer heat has taken its toll, and in some of the warmer climates, August is the hottest month of the year. To combat the late summer blues, stay strong and start fall garden planning — just the thought of cooler weather is often enough to help me hang in there.

Plan

Continue updating your garden journal, making notes about heat, temperatures, humidity, and rainfall. Have shadecloth on hand to give your summer veggies a bit of a break from the strong sun — my peppers, in particular, appreciate this gesture. Begin planning for your fall garden — what to plant, and where and when to plant it. Order your garlic for fall planting.

pumpkin flower

Prepare and Maintain

Remove flowers on pumpkin vines and tomato plants to direct the plant’s energy into growing the existing fruit.

Prune tomatoes, peppers, and eggplant to encourage new growth. Your peppers, tomatoes, squash, and eggplant may even appreciate a bit of fertilizer to catch their second wind. Cut basil back to keep it from going to seed.

Remove dead or dying plants — it’s not worth the extra effort to keep them alive this late in the summer. Cooler climates should watch the forecast for early frosts — be prepared to protect plants from damage.

Warmer climates can continue planting and harvesting. All climates can save seeds from the best and healthiest plants in the garden.

pruning tomatoes

Sow and Plant Indoors

Zone 6 can start carrots, kale, lettuce, and peas.

Sow and Plant Outdoors

Zone 4 can plant any remaining beets, broccoli, and carrots as well as fast-growing cool weather lettuces, and spinach in cold frames.
Zones 5-6 can plant any remaining beans, beets, broccoli, cabbage, Brussel sprouts, carrots, and spinach.
Zones 7-8 can sow seeds of corn, cucumbers, squash, and dill in the garden. Set out transplants of tomatoes, peppers, basil, and eggplant for fall harvest. Transplant any indoor seedlings of broccoli, cauliflower, collards, chard, and cabbage into the garden, but be prepared to cover them with shade cloth if temps get above 90 degrees.
crop cover

Garden Harvest

All climates should harvest anything that is ripe, including beans, chard, cucumbers, eggplant, tomatoes, melons, okra, onions, peppers, squash, and potatoes.

 

Get a Jump on Next Month

In gardening, time moves quickly, well not when you are waiting for plants to sprout and to fruit time seems to slow down in those moments, but when there are chores and seasonal transitions get the jump on next month with our September Garden Checklist

Kellogg Garden Organics August Monthly Garden Checklist.

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Small fruit growing on a tree with text, "August garden checklist. Planning to harvest"

10 Comments

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  1. Hi! Are zones 9+ left off intentionally? Loving these checklists as a planning tool for our school garden in zone 9b. Thank you!

  2. Hi, I just moved to Fairfield Idaho last year and I have no idea what zone I am in. I am actually in a strip that is colder in the winter than the rest of the area. If zip code helps 83327
    Thank you
    Judy

  3. Being new to your site and failing miserably this year with new raised beds, I appreciate the knowledge you share each month. Thank you.

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