QUAIL SEEDS
  • Home
  • Shop
    • New for 2025
    • Vegetable Seeds >
      • Arugula
      • Beans
      • Beets
      • Broccoli and Cima di Rapa
      • Cabbage
      • Carrots & Roots
      • Celery
      • Chard
      • Corn
      • Cucumber
      • Eggplant
      • Fennel
      • Genepools and Landrace Gardening
      • Greens
      • Kale and Collards
      • Lettuce
      • Melons
      • Oil Crops
      • Okra
      • Open-Source Seeds (OSSI)
      • Onions and Leeks
      • Peas
      • Peppers
      • Spinach
      • Squash & Pumpkins
      • Sunflowers
      • Tomatoes
      • Tomatillos/Husk Cherries
      • Turnips and Rutabagas
      • Winter and Greenhouse Vegetables
    • Perennial Vegetable Seeds >
      • About Perennial Vegetables
    • Flower Seeds
    • Herb Seeds >
      • Medicinal and Historic Herbs
      • Culinary Herbs (and teas)
      • Herb Collections
    • Seed Collections
    • Pollinator and Pest Control Plants >
      • Pollinator and Pest Control Mixes
      • Plants for Pollinators
    • Plant for Spring >
      • Spring Vegetables
      • Spring Herbs & Flowers
      • Spring Grains
      • Seeds that Need Winter Cold
      • Fast, Fresh Food
    • Grains >
      • Heirloom Wheat Barley Oats & Rye
      • Gluten-Free Grains
    • Cover Crops >
      • Cover Crop Mixes
      • Cover Crops that are Food Crops
      • Decorative Cover Crops
    • Plant for Fall >
      • Fall Vegetables
      • ltalian Fall Specialties
      • Herbs and Flowers for Fall
      • Fall Salad Greens
    • Open Source (OSSI)
    • Start these Indoors
    • People behind the Seeds >
      • Carol Deppe Varieties
      • Jonathan Spero Varieties
      • Frank Morton Varieties
    • Companion Plants
    • Recipes >
      • Spring Recipes: Fresh Flavors of the Season
      • Tomato Recipes
      • Preserving and Fermenting
    • Plant for Summer
    • Mid-to-Late Summer Sowings
  • About Us.
    • Our Story
    • Shipping Info
    • Contact
  • Blog
  • HOW-TO

The Late Summer Garden:                    Make Your Effort Count

8/14/2020

2 Comments

 

This is the first in a three-part series on late summer garden problems. So many words are expended on spring planting, when gardeners are already full of plans and optimism. I think folks need inspiration more after their plans and optimism have been subjected to aphids, weeds, drought, and just plain life.

By August, things can get confusing in the garden. 
Here's how to bring it into focus, accomplish the key tasks, and move on.
Picture
First, take a minute to just enjoy being in your garden. 
Now, take a look at what is actually happening out there in the jungle. Make a list, or a drawing, or a phone memo or whatever is easy for you. Think about what you've been eating out of the garden and what you enjoy about it. Sort things into 6 categories:
  1. Things you are harvesting and enjoying, or that are nearing harvest and look pretty good.​
  2. Things that have done well, but are fading a bit--zucchini that is slacking off and getting mildew for example. Or chard that is looking puny, tomatoes with blossom end rot, scruffy pole beans with some weird leaf issue.......
  3. Things that are pretty much finished--bush beans with just a few wizened beans left, or bolting lettuce.
  4. Things that never really did much or you didn't like.
  5. Things that are out of hand and making you feel guilty.
  6. Empty spots where you harvested and didn't replant. 

Now you already have a plan:  numbers 3, 4, 5,and 6 are where your fall garden going to be.  (Or cover crops, or mulch.)

Number 1 is doing okay and might just need some compost one of these days.

Number 2 is where you concentrate your efforts. This is the part of the garden that will fail without help, but is in good enough shape that your help won't be in vain.

Let's deal with zones 3, 4, 5, and 6 first. If the combined area is small, pull everything out. Or get out the hoe and take it down. Then, either plant fall crops there right now, or cover it up until you can plant. (use a tarp, mulch, cardboard, plywood, bedspread--anything to keep weeds from undoing your work.)

If your renewal zone is larger and out of hand and you don't have time to deal with it, you can use a string trimmer (weedeater, etc) to mow it all down. Failing that, stomp it down with your feet
. You can flatten more area quickly if you use a piece of lumber, metal fencepost, plywood, or other hard, stiff object. Put a rope on each end and use the ropes to lift and move the weight forward. Then step on it to crush the plants beneath. Repeat your way across the area. Then water well, and put down cardboard or a tarp or whatever opaque cover you have. Black plastic sheeting works well and can be reused for several years. In a month the area will be composted and ready for your fall transplants or your cover crop seed. Keeping it covered not only kills the weeds, it allows the worms to come to the surface and eat them. They will also fluff the soil up for you.

The stomping and covering shouldn't take too long, once you have located the cardboard, mulch, or tarp. And trust me, it will make you feel great.

Start some seeds in pots, flats, or old containers of some kind, and you have a fall garden on the way.
2 Comments
Nj Namju link
8/26/2023 10:06:55 pm

Lovely post.

Reply
KFGeiger
8/20/2024 06:02:25 am

Thanks for an informative post!

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    Author

    Jamie Chevalier lives and gardens on a river in the Coast Range of Northern California. She has gardened professionally in Alaska and California, as well as living in a remote cabin, commercial fishing, and working with seeds.  She is the proprietor of Quail Seeds.

      Sign up for Monthly Garden Tips
      (We don't share your information with anyone.)

    Subscribe to Newsletter

    Archives

    March 2025
    July 2024
    May 2024
    April 2024
    February 2024
    November 2023
    August 2023
    June 2023
    May 2023
    March 2023
    February 2023
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    May 2021
    April 2021
    February 2021
    September 2020
    August 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    September 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    November 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    May 2018
    March 2018
    December 2017

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly
  • Home
  • Shop
    • New for 2025
    • Vegetable Seeds >
      • Arugula
      • Beans
      • Beets
      • Broccoli and Cima di Rapa
      • Cabbage
      • Carrots & Roots
      • Celery
      • Chard
      • Corn
      • Cucumber
      • Eggplant
      • Fennel
      • Genepools and Landrace Gardening
      • Greens
      • Kale and Collards
      • Lettuce
      • Melons
      • Oil Crops
      • Okra
      • Open-Source Seeds (OSSI)
      • Onions and Leeks
      • Peas
      • Peppers
      • Spinach
      • Squash & Pumpkins
      • Sunflowers
      • Tomatoes
      • Tomatillos/Husk Cherries
      • Turnips and Rutabagas
      • Winter and Greenhouse Vegetables
    • Perennial Vegetable Seeds >
      • About Perennial Vegetables
    • Flower Seeds
    • Herb Seeds >
      • Medicinal and Historic Herbs
      • Culinary Herbs (and teas)
      • Herb Collections
    • Seed Collections
    • Pollinator and Pest Control Plants >
      • Pollinator and Pest Control Mixes
      • Plants for Pollinators
    • Plant for Spring >
      • Spring Vegetables
      • Spring Herbs & Flowers
      • Spring Grains
      • Seeds that Need Winter Cold
      • Fast, Fresh Food
    • Grains >
      • Heirloom Wheat Barley Oats & Rye
      • Gluten-Free Grains
    • Cover Crops >
      • Cover Crop Mixes
      • Cover Crops that are Food Crops
      • Decorative Cover Crops
    • Plant for Fall >
      • Fall Vegetables
      • ltalian Fall Specialties
      • Herbs and Flowers for Fall
      • Fall Salad Greens
    • Open Source (OSSI)
    • Start these Indoors
    • People behind the Seeds >
      • Carol Deppe Varieties
      • Jonathan Spero Varieties
      • Frank Morton Varieties
    • Companion Plants
    • Recipes >
      • Spring Recipes: Fresh Flavors of the Season
      • Tomato Recipes
      • Preserving and Fermenting
    • Plant for Summer
    • Mid-to-Late Summer Sowings
  • About Us.
    • Our Story
    • Shipping Info
    • Contact
  • Blog
  • HOW-TO