August Garden Ramblings

August, in general, tends to be a crazy time in the food garden... and this year is crazier than most. 

The heat came early, the drought came early, now we desperately need rain. Some days I go out to my garden and look forward to the harvest, to the watering, to the puttering... other days I go out there to water (yet again) with a deep sigh and with worry on my brow.

Nevertheless, August is the time of harvest and lots to do! Busy, busy month.  

I will start chatting about the edibles and move onto flowers at the end, plus what to sow and plant now. 

The veggie garden - coming along nicely, seems to be life pretty much as usual even though it has been extremely hot and dry this year.  

Tomatoes - The tomatoes are slowly starting to ripen. They seem farther behind than most years but when I look at pics of years past they seem to be at about the same stage. Maybe I just planted less of the early slicer varieties this year so it seems later than usual to me? I mean, I cannot complain really... we are eating tomatoes every day, it's just that I want more...    

The pastes are coming along, think it will be a couple of weeks yet till I am doing any real canning though. The slicers and cherries are keeping us in fresh 'maters daily for our salads, snacking, and sandwiches, the beefs are sizing up but have some cat-facing going on.

Cat-facing on tomatoes is when you have lumpy, bumpy tomatoes that look like a bunch of different tomatoes were pieced together in an odd way to make a franken-tomato. This mostly seems to affect the beefsteaks. Cat-facing is caused by poor pollination due to very cool, hot, dry, or wet weather. 

We had cool weather in early spring, followed by a heatwave just as they were flowering nicely so our tomato pollination went a little wonky. Any flowers that were pollinated later will be just fine, will just get a few of these weird wonders. 

One last bit about tomatoes... BER (blossom end rot) can occur on all tomatoes but mainly happens to the pastes, for whatever reason. They seem to be more particular about watering schedules. The key to no BER on your tomatoes is to water on a consistent schedule, less often but deeply.  

I know you are tired of hearing me tell you to water less often. I get it, truly I do. It goes against the very grain when it is so hot and dry and everyone else is telling you to water daily or even more often. But,  hear me out... the tomatoes in my potager have been watered every 3rd day throughout the entire season and I have no end rot on any of them. This is not just a fluke as I have 100 tomato plants in the potager and 80 of them are pastes. 

They are deep watered with the weeping hoses so that the water goes down deep where the roots are so even though the top inch or two dries out quickly, the bottom part of the bed stays nice and moist and they are so happy. Remember that you planted your tomatoes deep in spring so that they would be able to make more roots to access more water. They are doing that! Trust in yourself. Stick your finger into the soil to check for moisture. If it is damp, walk away for another day, if it is dry, deep water again.   

I am thinking I may have to up the watering from every 3rd day to every 2nd day as this dry just continues to be a thing and is supposed to be up to 30°C ++ again this week, but will keep sticking my finger into the soil and will see how it goes.  

Now... potted tomatoes on the other hand. Argh! I am struggling to get the watering right. I only two tomatoes in pots this year, inside the greenhouse. A tumbling cherry type which is doing just fine and an indeterminate paste tomato called Ten Fingers of Naples (Dix Doigts de Naples). It is in a 5 gallon deep pot, it is healthy, it is happy, the foliage looks great. It has been pruned, it has been fed, and I water it thoroughly every 2nd day but I am getting BER on it! I tried to water every 24 to 36 hours instead, seeing if that will help... so far, still getting some rot, though not as much. It is on 1out of every 5 tomatoes, not all of them thankfully, or it would be in the compost bin by now. Le sigh, deep deep sigh.       

Spuds - One bed of potatoes has been harvested already! So early! They look absolutely fabulous and taste even better. Amazed at the beauty and size of them so early in the season this year. These ones are not storage potatoes as they have the lovely thin summer skins and are meant for eating now. You need thick skins on well cured potatoes in order to store them for winter. 

The other bed of potatoes was planted a whole month later so the tops are still green and growing. They will be our winter storage spuds. This bed is watered once every week or two and will be left until the tops go yellow and brown and kind of fall over to give them the thicker skins that they need in order to keep throughout the winter. Do not water the week or two before you harvest for cleaner potatoes that will cure well. 

We store ours in cardboard boxes in the unheated garage and they last us until spring but can be placed in a burlap sack, old flower pots, bins, whatever you have on hand. Make sure to to cover them from daylight or they will turn green and become inedible.     

Cukes - The long English cucumbers have been producing like mad all through July but are now starting to peter out... oh, and guess who forgot to start more cukes last month? Ugh. Luckily, I have tons of pickling cukes coming along nicely so they can also be used for snacking and salads. I sowed those seeds in early July and we have started our pickling this week.  

Squash - While I am not having much luck with my summer squash, just getting one or two zucchinis per week, the winter squash are amazing. 

The are ripening so quickly that I may even have that bed emptied and cleaned up by end of month. No ugly, mildewed plants to look at in September ; ) 

Leave your squash to ripen on the vine. Spaghetti squash are picked when they are golden yellow, pumpkins when they are fully orange (or blue, if the case may be), butternuts when they are that nice beige colour. They will also have a dry brown stem and a thick rind that you cannot easily pierce with your finger nail. Think what they look like at the grocery store and leave them till they look like that : ) 

Some years, we have had to pick them green-ish in September or October if they are slow to ripen up but that is rare. If your fruits started later and you end up needing to do that, put them in a nice, warm sunny place to cure and colour up, but out of the direct sunshine. I put them on a table in either the hoophouse or the greenhouse.   

Peppers - just doing their thing in the greenhouse. We will leave the hots till late summer to make into sauce and a bit of dried pepper flakes. The sweet peppers are loaded but still green, waiting on them to colour up to red, yellow, and orange.  

Remember that peppers will also get BER from over-watering or inconsistent watering. They like the heat, don't need a lot of watering, fussing, or feeding. Water heavily once a week, every 5 to 7 days for the best results. Here is a how-to about pepper growing.

Carrots - If you find that yours are smaller than usual and not quite as sweet due to all this heat, leave them till winter and the frosts will make them sweet and amazing. 

We are harvesting our winter sown carrots now (see picture above), our spring sown carrots will be harvested in fall and winter, and the summer sown ones throughout the wintertime. I try to succession sow carrots at least 3 times a year. 

Eggplants - three of the four we planted are producing well and pretty much ready for eating anytime now, the other one is slower but coming along. Am really looking forward to eating some great grilled eggplant sandwiches this week! With a lovely potato salad! Home grown goodness. Watered once a week, sometimes twice a week during a hot spell if I see the leaves wilting. I grow them just like I grow my peppers. 

Onions - Mine have been harvested and laid out to cure in the curing shed (a fancy name for a wee lawnmower carport). Lift your onions when the tops fold over, regardless of their size. When the tops fall, that is as big as they are going to get. 

Leave them to dry until their tops dry and their skins go papery. Not all onions are good storage onions, so use up the ones with the shortest storage time first. I have white, red, and yellow onions this year, the best keepers are the Stuttgarter yellows which will keep all the way till next spring. Read more about growing great onions, here..  

 

Fruit trees and shrubs - All I can say is WOW, what a year for fruits and berries. I hope you all are having as great a year as we are. We got a ton of the early summer fruits of cherries, raspberries, and blueberries. Now we are waiting on our peaches to ripen, the plums are loaded for boar, and the apples, pears, and Asian pears, too. 

While when your trees and shrubs are producing the fruits, try to give them a really good drink of water once a week in order to keep them producing plenty of juicy fruits. 

That brings us to Watering- This is such a biggie this year. I am conservative by nature, have always been. My rule in the yard is always to water as little as I can while keeping my plants healthy and thriving. 

This year, we have had no rain to speak of in over 7 weeks and have been in Level 4 watering restrictions for a month already. This means we are being thriftier than ever before. Even if on a well, we are all in this together. 

I water something every single day, am out there giving something a drink in the morning and something else a drink in the evening. Every single day. Such is life on an acreage in summer.   

I've already mentioned the potager and the fruits and how much water they are getting, plus we are always allowed to water our edibles... at least until we go into the next/final stage of watering restriction. Nothing has really changed with my food crop watering except that I have spaced out my deep watering more than usual for the tough guys, the hardy plants like potatoes, onions, cabbages, brussels...  

With the ornamental plants, like the border garden above, I am watering as much as I feel that I can just to keep plants alive till the fall rains come. I am not worried about roses blooming (though many of them are) or flower blooming, just keeping things alive. 

Surprisingly, all is looking pretty good and even the hydrangeas are blooming, all looks good except the lawn which is so crispy, golden, and crunchy that it will take quite a while to bounce back this fall (sorry Weed Man Lawn Co). 

Crazy Weedy Business - We actually decided to hire a lawn company this spring to help us with our lawn, to feed it to make it stronger and hopefully healthier/thicker and to get rid of the tough woody lawn weeds like chicory. This company uses a high iron spray to kill the weeds so is safe for the bees and beneficials. 

The picture above is chicory in our lawn. It is such a pretty plant with beautiful blue flowers when blooming in ditches or at the fence line. However, if you have it in your lawn, it is deadly on kid's and dog's feet. The stems become little sharp wooden spikes after you mow it down, so sharp that it even comes through your flip flops. When the dogs step on it, we end up with holes in their paws that require Epsom salt soaks, vet visits, and anti-biotics. After battling this stuff for years, lots of wounded paws, we finally decided to look for help. 

This is not an advertisement, I am just passing on the info as I really like them and they have helped save our dog's paws. Check out Weed Man Lawn Care Services. These guys are courteous, prompt, are in and out really fast, they call and let you know when they are coming so that you can put the dogs inside, send a survey after each visit to make sure that you are happy, if you're not, they come back out. Highly recommend them. They are island wide, North America wide actually. Oh, and I just read that they will get rid of mosquitoes, too! Bonus! The skeeters are horrible this year! 

Hanging Baskets, Pots, Planters... baskets are watered daily, maybe even twice daily. I do once daily watering if temps are in the mid 20's°C and twice daily if it goes to the high 20's and above. 

Potted plants are watered daily or every second day. Even though I am showing geraniums in this picture, they like to be on the dry side in order to bloom and thrive.  

Do not feed pots or baskets during heatwaves as that will stress them out further. I try to feed mine once a week whenever we have grey skies or a dip in the weather. I find that some of the plants are really hungry in the heat, like the petunias. 

Are your baskets and planters starting to look tired and a bit peak-ed? Freshen them by deadheading and giving things a good hard pinch back for fuller flowers and fresh blooms in two weeks time. If you have some plants that are done in, spent, looking ugly, pull them out and refresh with something new. All sorts of late summer bloomers are showing up at the shops right now, pick some up and tuck them into your tired looking planters. 

Citrus - In June, I found that my citrus fruits were getting scorched leaves, dropping leaves and fruits, and were super unhappy in the direct sun (which is odd as that is where they hang out each and every year). So, I moved them under the gazebo where they get only a few hours of direct sunlight daily but are in a bright location. They are now thriving, have grown lush and green again and are putting on loads of new flowers. 

 

Finally, here is the list of 'What To Plant/Sow Now' for your fall and winter eating. 

Sow from seed... 

Beets - round ones, not long ones as they will take too long to size. Beets sown now are mostly grown for the tops. 

Cabbage - Late summer sown cabbage may not heart, meaning that they might not get that firm centre but instead will be a loose head of leaves. Still lovely for eating just not firm and solid in the middle. 

 

Brassicas - Sow some Cauliflower and Purple Sprouting Broccoli for spring harvest. 

Greens, such as chard, pak choi, mustards, arugula, cress, kale, spinach. Best sown a bit later in the month, when temps drop a little bit. Now quite now during as we have another heatwave coming. 

Herbs, cilantro, dill. Fall sown cilantro will last a long time, much better and longer than your spring sown/grown. Dill will get knocked down by snows or hard frosts, can also be grown under cover. 

Kohlrabi and turnips

 
Lettuce - I am waiting to sow mine till it cools down and will grow them under cover but you can also grow them out in the garden. Sow winter hardy ones at the end of the month like Rouge d'Hiver, Cimmaron, Winter Density, Deer Tongue, and most all mesclun mixes.

  
Peas - get in a fall crop of peas. Look for short maturity dates of around the 50 to 55 day mark. 

Radishes - still too hot right now, wait till end of month. 
Spring onions - Sow some Lisbon bunching onions or the lovely Italian Scallions from Renee's Garden Seeds.   

Transplants - You can plant your fall and winter starter plants this month, too....broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage. Starters are everywhere at the shops this month, pick them and plant them now! Try some new things like Kalettes, a cross between brussels and kale or the amazing, super tall Walking Stick kale. 

You can also still start some of your own fall and winter veggies in seed trays, like the greens and lettuces, to plant out when temps cool down some. Grow them in a shaded area unlike in spring when we are looking for sun and heat, in fall they are needing cooler temps.    

Happy Sowing, Growing and Harvesting Month ~ Tanja