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The last half of August is a busy time in my garden. There are the daily harvests of tomatoes, cucumbers, summer squash, and beans, but I’m also trying to keep up on watering my raised beds and polytunnel. It’s also time to refresh summer containers that are looking a bit tired. Below you’ll discover six late August tasks to keep your garden in top shape.
It may be tempting to hang up your garden hose, but if you want crops like tomatoes, peppers, and cucumbers to continue producing a high-quality crop, you’ll need to pay attention to soil moisture. I gauge the moisture levels of garden and container soil by sticking a finger two inches deep into the growing medium. If the soil is dry, it’s time to water.
By late summer, I don’t recommend feeding trees, shrubs and perennials as fertilizing pushes out fresh growth, which may not have time to harden off before winter. However, you should keep feeding annuals in garden beds and containers as well as long-term crops like tomatoes and peppers. I’ve set a fertilizer reminder in my calendar to pop up every two weeks, which prompts me to grab my Seaboost or fish emulsion fertilizer and give my pots and veggies a feed.
If you want the longest show of flowers in your garden beds, pots and planters, deadhead spent flowers every few days. I use garden snips or hand pruners to clip dead flowers from the plants. It only takes a few minutes but can extend the blooming period of many plants by several weeks. You can also cut back any leggy growth on annual plants like petunias. A trim can encourage a last flush of flowers and keeps the plants looking tidy.
Late August and September is prime time for tomatoes, so stay on top of harvesting. I pick cherry tomatoes every day or two as they ripen, but my strategy for harvesting large-fruited tomatoes is slightly different. I pick slicing tomatoes when they’re about half to three-quarters ripe. Why? Fully ripe tomatoes are prone to cracking and splitting, but they’re also more attractive to pests like chipmunks and deer. I clip the partly ripe fruits from the plants and allow them to finish colouring up indoors in a spot out of direct sun (a sunny windowsill can thicken the skins). It only takes a few days for them to ripen fully and they taste just as good as vine-ripened tomatoes.
Collecting vegetable and flowers seeds is a fun late summer activity. I gather seeds from open-pollinated and heirloom varieties, not hybrids, which aren’t likely to grow true-to-type. For novice seed savers, it’s easy to collect seeds from self-pollinating plants like peas, beans, lettuce, peppers, and tomatoes. I also gather seeds from annual flowers like nasturtiums, poppies, zinnias, marigolds, calendula, and morning glory. I spread the collected seeds on sheets of newspaper or a screen to let them thoroughly dry. After four to five days of drying, I store the seeds in labeled envelopes.
The pots of annual flowers on my back deck are looking a tad tired. Mid to late August is the perfect time to edit containers, removing underperforming plants and replacing them with fall mums, ornamental grasses, asters, ornamental kale and cabbage, and black eyed-Susan’s. These late season superstars will ensure your pots, planters, and window boxes look great well into autumn.
Niki Jabbour is the author of four best-selling books, including her latest, Growing Under Cover. She is a two-time winner of the American Horticultural Society Book Award. Find her at SavvyGardening.com and on social media.
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