First August. The dog days of summer. By the end of this month, we will have lost three hours of daylight since the solstice. Time for gardeners to focus.
It is the school and vacation weeks when more of us are absent – although perhaps less this year. If you are lucky enough to be on vacation, ask friends or neighbors to water and harvest.
The weather in August can be muggy and may even bring with it heavy rain. High time for the fast, greedy forage plants, the zucchini and summer squash, which now have to be picked often. Unless you’ve learned to love Mark.
If you are lucky enough to be on vacation, ask friends or neighbors to water and harvest
It is the main month for harvesting roots, fruits, and flowers that you have tended since spring. It should be sacks of beans and peas and beetroot. Salads, corn, tomatoes, cucumbers, chilies and peppers are quickly prepared and ripened. There will be chard and lettuce and other lettuce leaves, maybe more than you could easily manage.
This is the time when Henri looks at me suspiciously as I smugly dump sacks of wet grain into the kitchen like a cat bringing home an impressive mouse.
Stone fruits and late berries will ripen. Plums and oaks, plums, berries and currants, maybe even early apples and pears.
We are running out of time to sow, but Italian chicory – Treviso, Castelfranco, Radicchio, Chioggia, Puntatelle – are well suited. The same goes for winter spinach and beets. Continue to sow radishes into the opening.
Think about saving seeds. I have paper packs and envelopes on hand, and I keep an eye out for the perfect plant or flower – marigold, nasturtium, and marigold. I also save dill, herb fennel and coriander seeds as well as very special peas and beans.
Remember, please try to slow down. Take a moment To stop. Appreciate your harvest. Watch as the late sun sets and dusk sets in earlier and earlier.
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