Where did August go? As often is the case, summer has evaporated on me. But even as Labor Day Weekend is just ahead, there is a great deal of action going on in my vegetable garden. If you are growing vegetables, here are some of the things you might want to do as summer turns into fall.
- Weed. Weed. Weed. We continue to pull larger weeds and hoe down young ones. Unfortunately the weeds never stop and jumping on them whenever possible is the best way to keep a veggie garden productive. Don’t think that all the weeds need to be pulled or hoed at once, however. If you break it down into sections or rows your weeding will get done over time and you’ll feel less overwhelmed. Why weed at the end of the summer? Because those weeds will make hundreds of seeds if we don’t get rid of them soon, and then we’ll be pulling the resulting offspring next summer and beyond. What’s the old saying? Something like one year’s seeding produces ten years of weeding.
- Plant more arugula, lettuce, beets, carrots, and coriander. If you live where hard frost arrives in September you might want to protect these crops with floating row cover as the temperatures dip. Find this at your local garden center or here: Dalen Gardeneer 5-Foot x 50-Foot Harvest-Guard Plant Protection HG-50
- Continue to harvest crops regularly. Pick beans and squash when they are small and young. Not only are they more tasty but you’ll be less overwhelmed with excess produce. Cut older leaves from chard and kale so that the plants will continue to produce new ones.
- Order or buy your garlic now! Garlic gets planted in the fall and the organic sources often sell out quickly. Some local garden centers sell seed garlic and if you grew it yourself this year you can use your own heads and plant the biggest cloves.
The beans, kale, chard and broccoli in this part of our garden will continue producing into October if we tend it well and continue to pick.
