Checklist for Your Vegetable Garden in August. Preparing the Harvest
Many of the vegetables planted in your garden will begin to ripe in August and there’s still a lot of work to do to enjoy rich, healthy crops. So here’s a checklist for your vegetable garden in August, to help you get ready for the harvest.
Water your vegetable beds every day.
Remove the top of the bean stocks once it reaches the tip of the stake, to encourage the growth of new pods and to make it easier to harvest.
If you have eggplants, remove the tip of the plants once they bear 5 – 6 vegetables. Harvest them while they’re still young and shiny.
Examine the cabbage as it may host caterpillars you will have to remove manually, if you don’t want to use chemicals to exterminate them.
Use a fertilizer with a high content of potassium for vegetables like peppers, cucumbers and eggplants.
Checklist for your vegetable garden in August. Tomatoes
Fertilize the plants to grow a rich harvest and remove the leaves at the base of the plants to help air circulate and prevent diseases.
Remove the tip of the plant to favor fruit growth. You should have no more than 5 – 6 tomatoes on one plant.
Carefully examine every plant and remove them or the vegetables that are affected by disease to avoid it spreading.
Aromatic plants
Harvest aroamtic plants to encourage their regeneration. Dry or freeze them to have them available when you need them.
Space out the parsley keeping a 25 cm distance between the plants so they can form a strong root before the cold season.
Cut branches from rosemary or sage plants to reproduce them. Place the shoots in pots with well fertilized and drained soil.
Choose a sunny day to harvest the seeds of plants like dill, fennel, caraway etc. and put them out to dry in the sun.
Checklist for your vegetable garden in August. What’s good to go
The carrots and beet you planted in spring can be harvested or left to grow some more.
You can start to harvest potatoes as the leaves and stem begin to wither.
Pick corn for cooking on the cob.
Take out onions and garlic as their leaves turn yellow. Store them in a cool, dark place.
Harvest beans and peas to avoid pods breaking and having to pick them up from the ground.
Don’t let cucumbers get too large before harvesting.
Credits: agroland.ro
Photo credits: rodalesorganiclife.com
