🍅 August '23 Garden Guide

BLTs, White Acre peas, and college football. The good stuff. We also talk about what to do if you won't have a fall garden, an excellent chance to see some meteors, and what to seed this month!

“Nobody can discover the world for somebody else. Only when we discover it for ourselves does it become common ground and a common bond and we cease to be alone.”

- Source

What's Happening in August

August is an interesting and hard month for me. It feels like the summer version of february, where everyone is ready for the change of seasons. There are things I like about this time of year though. School kicks back in for the kids and schedules begin to get back into a rhythm. In the garden, the page begins to turn towards fall with direct seedings of multiple crops into the garden. It’s out with the old and in with the new. BLTs still haven’t gotten old however; neither have white acre peas with a slice of fresh onion and corn bread. In fact, it’s their time of the year. (Although, thanks to my bride, my days of eating raw onions have passed.) August is a transitional month and I have a tendency to want to hurry through it. The tension can be uncomfortable. For example: when do I pull the tomatoes and peppers? Do I let them produce until the first frost? You can only eat so many cherry tomatoes or jalepeno peppers before you are no longer interested. But it never feels good to pull a living plant that is still producing. Sharing with friends and neighbors is the obvious solution here, but how many jalepenos can my nieghbors eat?? I’m not sure why I planted so many pepper plants. Anyways, If you are like me, and have mixed emotions about August, just remember this: college football is only one month away!

Some things to do in August

🌷 August is a great time to order and plant spring flowering bulbs.

✂️ Speaking of flowers, keep “dead-heading” flowers to encourage development of more blooms and a late, summer flowering display.

🔪 Harvest that zuchinni and squash daily! It encourages production and reduces the chance for disease to set in the fruit.

🌱 Seeding Time! In early August go ahead and start your cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, and kale seeds in your seeding trays. Keep ‘em indoors until they have a couple true leave. It will depend on how quick they grow, but the plan will be to get these seedlings into the garden in early September. So seed them pronto. Also, I’ll remind us in September, but don’t forget to harden off these seedlings before planting out. I’ll explain “hardening off” in more detail in September’s guide.

🌱🌱 More seeding! Peas, potatoes, kale, collards, kohlrabi, and turnips can be planted directly into the garden. The first frost for the southeast region will likely be happening in October, so frost tender plants like peas will have a solid 60-90 days to produce. If we protect the vulnerable plants, and Old-Man winter goes easy on us, we can extend that out even further. I will talk about protection in future guides.

No Garden? No Problem!

The fall garden is my favorite… for many reasons. Including: less heat, less bugs, and less weeds. Did I mention less heat? But not everyone keeps a fall garden. So if that’s you, first - reconsider. If after you reconsider, you still decide to forego an autumn and winter filled with bounty and delight from your own garden, then consider doing the following to have your garden soil fertile and soft come spring:

• Mulch heavily throughout the garden. This will payoff come spring when you pull back the mulch to find super soft soil teeming with life! Go thick. 6-12 inches thick. I prefer chopped leaves, but you can also use wheat straw or wood chips. Remember to never incorporate woody, mulch material into your soil. It should always rest on top. Ineveitably some will make its way into the soil, but that should be unusual and not the norm or expectation. The reason you want to avoid this is because when woody material gets into the soil it messes up the soil’s nutrient cycling system. Wood has a lot of carbon in it and much less nitrogen. The problem with this is, the microbes in the soil that break the wood down need nitrogen to fuel themselves. And so, these microbes, feasting on the wood, take all of the available nitrogen in the soil and do not leave any behind for the plants. This is no good! However, if you leave the mulch on the surface of the soil and don’t incorporate it, it will conserve moisture, regulate temperature, prevent soil erosion, feed the soil biology, and supress weed growth - and slowly be broken down by microbes without tying up nitrogen in the soil!

• Plant a cover crop. A cover crop is something you plant to cover and protect the soil in between the plantings of crops that you plan on harvesting. Cover crops aren’t harvested, instead they are cut down before they go to seed and left on the surface of the soil. Different crops have different attributes, but generally cover crops help to supress weeds, aerate soils, increase water infiltration, increase the soil’s nutrient capacity, prevent soil erosion, and attract pollinators. For a fall/winter cover crop try one or a combo of the following: hairy vetch, winter rye, field peas, oilseed radish, winter rye, and crimson clover. These crops establish quickly and do not require maintenance. If you plant a cover crop this fall, in late winter you will simply mow/cut it down, cover with mulch, wait a couple weeks, and then plant directly into the living, soft soil beneath!

A couple rehashes that still apply to August!

✔️ Avoiding pruning during the summer is a good idea for a few reasons. First, during this season, plants are busy growing and putting all their energy into making leaves, flowers, and fruits. If we prune them, it can interrupt their growth process and take away the resources they need to thrive. Second, pruning in the summer can make plants more vulnerable to stress, diseases, and bugs. When we cut branches or stems, we create open wounds that can get infected or attract pests that are more active in warm weather. Plus, pruning can expose delicate plant tissues to too much sunlight, which can cause sunburn and harm the plant. Lastly, many plants bloom in the spring or early summer, and if we prune them during this time, we might accidentally remove the flower buds or disrupt their natural blooming cycle. It's generally better to prune trees and shrubs when they're dormant or in early spring before new growth starts. This way, the plants have time to recover and grow without any unnecessary stress.

✔️ Remove any diseased fruit in the garden. Stay vigilant here. Make note of any areas of the garden where diseases pop up. Particularly fungal diseases like powdery mildew, downy mildew, and Choanephora Rot. You might have no idea what these diseases are or even look like. That’s OK! What you need to look for when trying to figure out if your plant has a fungal disease are little fuzzy hairs. If you see a white spot on a leaf or a black spot on a fruit, examine it to see if it’s fuzzy. If it is, then its a fungal issue. The problem with fungal diseases in a garden is they can become persistent and get worse every year if you aren’t proactive in doing a few things.

1. Look for diseased plants and fruit and remove them promptly. Be careful to avoid disturbing the fungal areas as much as possible so that the spores aren’t spread every where. Discard this infected plant material in the trash. Don’t add to any compost or feed to animals.

2. Rotate your crops each year by planting them in different spots of the garden. This helps to break disease cycles. Particularly fungal diseases because when the spores emerge from the ground, they won’t find a host and will not be able to reproduce.

3. As mentioned in June’s guide, avoid walking in the garden when its wet. This helps avoid spreading any diseases among the plants.

4. Keep the garden mulched and well weeded. This promotes healthy plants, supports proper air circulation, and keeps disease prone weeds out

Night Skies

☄️ The Perseids meteor shower is a top choice for stargazing, boasting a peak display of around 60 meteors per hour. These meteors originate from the debris left by the comet Swift-Tuttle, a discovery from the year 1862, and are known for producing a substantial number of bright meteors that streak across the sky. The shower occurs each year from July 17 to August 24, reaching its climax on the night of August 12 and the following morning. The crescent moon shouldn't cause too much trouble this year, as the skies are expected to remain suitably dark. For the best experience, seek out a dark location after midnight. Although the meteors will radiate from the Perseus constellation, you might spot them anywhere in the sky.

What’s in Season!

🍅 Tomatoes

🥒 Cucumbers

🌶️ Peppers

🍆 Eggplant

🥔 Potatoes

🟢 Green Beans

🟡 Squash and Zuchini

🌽 Corn

🥬Collard Greens

🌿Summer Herbs - Basil, Dill, cilantro, Parsley, Thyme, Oregano, Mint, Rosemary

🍐 Asian Pears

🍎 Apples

🟣 Beets

🍈 Cantalope

🔵 Blueberries

🔴 Raspberries

🍇 Grapes/Muscadines

🍑Peaches

🍑 Nectarines

🍉 Watermelons

Lunar Calendar 🌕

In August, the full moon was traditionally known as the Sturgeon Moon by early Native American tribes due to the abundance of large sturgeon fish in North America's lakes and rivers during the summer months. It was a time when these primitive fish were more easily caught. The moon is also referred to as the Green Corn Moon and the Grain Moon. Additionally, this particular full moon in 2023 marks the second of four supermoons, where the moon is near its closest approach to Earth, appearing slightly larger and brighter than usual. Despite its historical association with the sturgeon fish, which were once abundant and unchanged since ancient times, it's now almost impossible to witness a sturgeon during this moon phase. Sturgeons have become critically endangered, representing one of the most endangered groups of species on Earth.

This August, the “Sturgeon Moon” was on August 1st. Did you catch it?

This month actually has TWO full moons. And both are supermoons! The second full moon in August is called the “Blue Moon”, the name given to the second full moon in a month. Look for it on August 31st.

A Common Life has a podcast!

(We’ve been a bit quiet here! However, after things settle a bit - the newborn has Morgan in boob jail 🙂 - we plan on getting back into it. We really enjoy doing them together.)

Give it a listen and let us know what you think!
Listen on Spotify Here
Listen on Buzzsprout Here