August is the ideal time for planting greens and root crops. Warm days encourage good growth, while cool nights bring out the flavor of your fall crops.
There is a wide variety of vegetables you can grow now, including beets, kale, chard, radishes, spinach, cabbage and broccoli. When you’re selecting seeds, look at the days to maturity information or days to harvest on the package. This is roughly the amount of time from planting seeds to picking your crops. The shorter the days to maturity, the faster you’re harvesting.
Radishes for example, mature in about 25 days, so if you plant them now, you’ll be picking radishes in less than four weeks.
Begin your second season by cleaning up any lingering weeds or vegetation, then add 2 inches of organic material and dig in about 6 inches.
The summer crops will have depleted most of the nutrition in your soil, so adding an organic fertilizer at this time will get your cool weather crops going strong.
Most seeds can be direct sown this time of the season. Make sure you take time to mark each row as you plant. Take advantage of the cooling temperatures to try some Asian greens such as Mizuna or Bok Choy. Asian greens add unusual shapes, textures and spicy flavors to salads.
Don't have room in the garden? Are your potted petunias and other flowering annuals starting to look tired? Plant some colorful Bright Lights Swiss Chard or Red Winter Kale in their place. For a longer harvest, start seeds every two weeks and keep a frost cloth handy for those nights when cooler temperatures threaten your crop. This will help extend your "greens" garden well into late fall. There's nothing like a dinner salad picked from your own garden. It's fresh and you know exactly what's in it.
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