The Garden Gate

Garden tips for every month of the year!

August

August continues the intense heat, but there is much we can do for plants before we enter September and the promise of cooler times.

If you intend to plant a fall garden, by the first week of August, pull out all the old vegetables and turn the mulch into the soil to loosen it. This is best accomplished with a rototiller and allows the organic matter to rot sufficiently.

Once the soil has been turned, reform your beds and you are now ready to begin planting the fall garden toward the end of August. You can plant snap beans, pole beans, lima beans, broccoli, cauliflower, collards, cucumbers, squash, onions (seed), tomatoes, turnips, and watermelon. By September, one could add to this list beets, cabbage, lettuce, and mustard. It is helpful if you do not plant the same type vegetables in the same spot you planted in the spring. If for instance you planted squash, cucumber, or cantaloupe in certain rows, now plant bean or peas there, and if you planted those there before, then switch to tomatoes, peppers, or potatoes, and if you planted those there before switch to onions, or switch to radishes and carrots, or switch to broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, kohlrabi, or Brussel Sprouts, and so on. The practice is called crop rotation and means not planting a vegetable from the same family in the same spot for several years, thus attempting to "starve out" those pests that prefer a particular vegetable but which can’t move easily from place to place to reach those vegetable. It isn’t a perfect practice in a small garden, especially when a tiller can spread a particular soil pest throughout the garden, but it is a simple practice that anyone can follow - and just makes good sense.

This begins the season for leaf and needle drop. A very good practice is to gather fallen leaves and place them in the walkways between vegetable rows to act as mulch. Later, when the whole garden is turned, these will add organic matter to the soil and make it that much better for vegetables.

If too many leaves are generated (which can happen if you have a large oak in the yard), they can be used around landscape beds as mulch, or they can be "stored" in wire holding units. These are made from 3 by 4 inch mesh fencing wire which is at least 10 feet long and 36 inches wide. Just make a circle of this and bend wires together to close it. It’s not really composting, since one is not layering soil and fertilizer in it, but it does produce a material that serves as a good, partially rotted mulch for the garden and the walkways.

Few flowers are recommended for this month. Chrysanthemums can still be planted. Most of the fall flowers, which will add beauty to the garden right through winter, should be planted in October. Bulbs, tuber, or rhizomes that can be planted now include Aztec lily, Butterfly lily, Kaffir lily, Leopard lily, African lily. Spider lily, and Walking Iris.

Now is the time to revitalize hanging baskets. Plants chosen for their "flowering habit" often begin to look "leggy" as their stems hang down and they loose their older leaves back toward the top of the basket. To make these baskets attractive once more, remove the plant from the basket, shake some of the potting mix from the roots and then replant it in a new or cleaned basket with fresh potting mix. Be sure to use one of the better grades of potting media. Those sold as "general-purpose" potting mixes are usually made using a dense, mucky type peaty mix that will rot most roots. It is better to stick with ones that have "Professional" in their name and whose label indicates they are formulated with Canadian or Michigan peat.

Most plants used for hanging baskets can also be "revived" by cutting them back to within 8 inches of their main roots. Among plants that can be treated this way are Episcia, Impatiens, Angel Winged Begonias, Christmas, Thanksgiving and Easter Cacti, Coleus, Bougainvillea, Lipstick, and Goldfish Plants, Ivy, Pothos, Heartleaf Philodendron, Geranium, Peperomia, Bridal Veil, Purple Queen, Wandering Jew, Shrimp Plant, Dwarf Chenille, Ornamental Peppers, Periwinkles, and Lantana - to name only a few. Most hanging basket ferns can be revitalized by pruning their fronds off back to the media surface or to their rhizomous runners. Once they have been repotted and pruned back, a little soluble fertilizer will get them off to a good start.

Seeing that the lawn receives enough water is critical when day temperatures are in the nineties. Don’t overdo it, however. Let the grass "tell" when it needs water. According to Dr. Laurie Trenholm (Turfgrass Specialist with the University of Florida), watch for when the leaf blades start to fold in half lengthwise or when footprints remain visible in the lawn long after being made. Irrigate then when at least 30% of the lawn shows these signs, unless rain is forecasted in the next 24 hours.

Watering grass during the early morning hours (3:00am until around 8:00am) reduces lawn diseases - the grass is already wet from the dew at that time, so you are not adding to the wetness level that disease organisms need for rapid spread.

Being sure not to mow when the grass is wet is important to reducing disease spread as well. If you have a spot in the yard that looks suspiciously problematic (perhaps diseased because it is yellowing), be sure to mow that spot last - just as a "cautious thing" to do. Keeping the mower blade sharp also slows disease spread by reducing the size of the wound that the whirling blade causes as it "bashes" the tips of the grass off.

Our modern day mowers don’t really "cut" as the old reel type mowers did when one blade sliced across another. Instead, the blade on our rotary mower simply "tear" through the grass. When the edge of that blade is dull, the tear will be ragged, presenting a much larger wound site for disease organisms to enter and also a wound slower to heal than a cleanly made one.

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