What to do in your garden in late August

It's Sunflower Season!

 One of the most frustrating things about writing a gardening blog is that the time of year people are most interested (summer) is the time your are most busy with what you're writing about (gardens). It's also the time of year when my lovely daughter is home from school so I'm looking after her. She likes to help in the garden for a few minutes at a time. Maybe when she's older. 

I didn't mention seed saving but now's the time for that.
Green bean seeds, like these, are a great place to start. 

Anyways, now that she's back in school I have more time to write and I thought now would be a great time to update you all on my garden and what you can be doing in yours. After the awful cicada apocalypse, it  ended up being an awesome year for vegetables. Spring veggies were delicious and prolific. I've had more tomatoes, zucchini, green beans and melons than I know what to do with. So it's been a great year for my neighbors too. I think one of the leading reasons for this is my soil. My ground soil is terrible but my raised beds have been established for a few years now so the more organic matter I keep adding, the better the quality. I also invented a new fertilizer mix that I might share some time. 

How about you? We've had lots of rain this august so if you've got a lot of fungus in your garden, it's no wonder. You can find more information about dealing with that here.  If your plant is no longer producing fruit and is covered in fungus, then remove the whole plant from your garden. Unfortunately, unless you are a composting expert who keeps track of compost temperatures, then you shouldn't compost your diseased plants as the fungus will linger and spread. I throw them out in the trash. If you've gotten a decent harvest from a plant already, then don't feel bad about loosing the plant. All plants die eventually, it's just part of the garden. Clearing out the plant can make room for new things...

It's also canning season which is not my favorite gardening 
task but I do love the canned goods later!

This leads me to the next thing you can do which is plant fall leafy greens. It's probably too late for carrots or peas but you can still start lettuce, spinach, and kale from seeds and have delicious greens for the rest of the year! Just keep the seeds well watered in this hot weather. 

As the garden starts to wind down, it's also  a good time to plant cover crops. This is my first year trying this out and I'm planting crimson clover. It's a legume that should add nitrogen to the soil. When it starts to flower, I just weed whack the tops off and the plant will die down on the soil creating a natural mulch to keep weeds down and add organic matter. I'll update you all on that later. 

Finally, if you can't stay on top of the weeding, at least snap off the seed heads of the weeds to help prevent spreading. Your future self will thank you. I'd love to hear updates from your garden in the comments below!