Regional Gardening Guide - Zone 7-8
August 1 to August 31-- Discover what you should be doing right now. Our experts share gardening advice, techniques, news, and ideas to make your garden the best ever.
Here’s what’s happening in your gardening region:
August is one of the hottest months for southerners and not a time to do heavy garden chores such as pruning or making a new garden bed. Keep all your activity to the morning hours or evening when the temperatures are slightly more tolerable. So most August work is tidying the garden and getting ready for a long, hopefully cooler fall season.
Kate is an avid veggie gardener and writer.
She is a board member of the Garden Writer's Association. She authored 2 books: The Downsized Veggie Garden (Feb 2016) and New York & New Jersey Month by Month Gardening (Aug 2016).
To see What's in Kate's Garden Click Here!
1.) Continue To Plant For Fall.
1. Fall weather is cooler and frequently has more rainfall. For southern gardeners, we have a whole season to grow cool weather plants like broccoli, cabbages and Brussel sprouts. Start these indoors to give them cool temperatures for germination. Calculate the time these plants take to mature and aim for them to mature in late September – through October and beyond.
All About CabbageRead moreCabbage is a cool season crop - sow seeds indoors 6 weeks before your last hard frost. You can direct sow a crop for fall harvest in mid-summer.
All About Brussels SproutsRead moreBrussels sprouts are relatively easy to grow and take up little space in the garden. They must be started indoors 4 weeks before your last frost date.
Planting BroccoliThe flavor of garden-fresh broccoli is beyond compare to anything you find in the supermarket. This cool-season favorite is best grown in spring and fall.Watch video
2.) Great Fall Flowers
2. Yellows and oranges are the traditional colors for fall flowers. Fall flowers last well in vases and many can take a light frost. Plant toward the end of August and into September and water well.
3.) Summer Plant Care
3. Garden plants do not like really hot weather any more than gardeners do – learn some hot weather tips and know what to expect as well as when to harvest all those great vegetables that you grew. Droughts are just another hurdle for gardens in the summer, and we have some great tips for summer plant care.
Harvesting VegetablesWhen harvest time comes, it comes big-time. For the gardener, the challenge now may be to keep ahead of a tsunami of vegetables. Learn some harvest tips from Burpee.com.Read more
Drought Plant CareGiven the magnitude of the drought in the Midwest and continued drought in the south, many of us may face watering restrictions or bans for much of the growing season.Read more
4.) Grow Pansies & Violas For Fall
4. Pansies, and other violas, are great for fall containers and flower garden and are easy to grow but they take a long time to get big enough to put outside and flower. Start seeds indoors or in a special pansy bed where you can keep the soil moist while the seedlings mature.
5.) Preserving The Summer Harvest
5. Sometimes the garden produces more than we expect and we want to save some of those great plants for fall and winter use. Have the right tools to harvest and preserve your vegetables.
