All the Gardening Jobs You Should Do in August
August is a turning point in the garden. It’s too late to try to fix what went wrong – you just need to leave what worked and focus on the fall. You can finally start enjoying the best gifts of summer: tomatoes, peppers and corn. The days are full of the “best berries” which in my opinion are blackberries, boysenberries and blackcaps. As you walk through your garden, you may begin to see a long road to cleaning ahead. If you’re like me, the garden can look chaotic at this time of year, with plants spilling over the edges of garden boxes making paths difficult to navigate and trellises becoming clogged with greenery. It’s time to start cleaning.
Harvesting berries
If you haven’t figured out your strawberry patch yet, now is the time to do it. Every year I mow the strawberry patch to stop them sprouting and focus on root growth. As long as I don’t thin out the strawberries, it’s possible, but I think it’s better to leave them for the fall. After pruning the strawberries, I apply a good dose of slow-release fertilizer and mulch the bed. I use wood chips, but straw will work, and I’ve really enjoyed using leaves in the past.
Last year I made the critical mistake of waiting too long to prune my raspberries, and I paid for it. You want to prune them now that you can clearly see the difference between the green vines and the brown ones. The brown ones are in their second year and should be cut back to the ground. I trim them all down to six feet and make sure they stack back up in neat rows tucked between the trellises. Once the blackberries and boysenberries are out of season, I’ll do the same. The rows are given a slow release fertilizer, then I add a healthy dose of compost to the rows and then mulch.
Once your blueberries stop producing fruit, it’s time to take a step back and inspect the bush. You want to leave four really strong new branches and prune the rest to get nice big berries instead of lots of tiny berries. You want to ensure that none of the branches cross or grow inward, so choose wisely. Blueberries need special acid fertilizers, which are only available at your garden center for blueberries and azaleas.
Fruit trees
Right now I’m enjoying the first harvest of my plum trees of the year, and I’m sure many of us are doing the same with peaches, plutes, and other stone fruits. However, cherry season is over and it is important to prune your cherries before the first rains begin to prevent bacterial diseases. This should be thinning pruning only, meaning you will only be trimming entire shoots back to the original branch, and you don’t want the process to be a chore. The goal is an open canopy. Other cuttings can wait until winter when the plant is truly dormant. I’ve been impressed with the growth of my four-sided cherry tree this summer and can’t wait to do some much-needed branch pruning.
Plant your lawns
I’ve long discussed my aversion to traditional lawns and am quite happy with my clover lawn, but no matter what methodology you choose, late August and September are prime times for reseeding and planting lawns, so start planning now. Consider whether you need to aerate your lawn, what seeds you’ll need, and most importantly, how you’ll water it properly.
Cut and collect seeds, and trim flowering shrubs and vines.
I spend time each morning sweet-talking to the snapdragons and zinnias to keep them alive for the next six weeks, and encourage more growth by removing dead shoots from them and cutting off whole stems. Dead roses at least once a week, and if you don’t want foxgloves and hollyhocks everywhere next year, trim the stems when they dry out and carefully remove those seed spreaders from the garden. Your echinacea and bedspread will also thrive despite some tough love obstacles. However, as you move around the garden, be sure to collect seeds from those flowers and plants that you love and want to propagate or share. The poppies will now be dry and the sunflowers may begin to fully form, as well as arugula, celery, lettuce and herb seeds.
As for pruning, your desired roses now need a reality check, so reduce them by about a third to liven them up.
Pest Control
By now, nasturtiums have conquered my garden in such numbers that aphids have no chance. However, with cabbage moths the situation is different. While I can never just squeeze them to death, I always have a giant butterfly net with me to catch them. Once I do that, I place the net on the ground and stomp them. The cabbage moth has no positive qualities; they are just here to eat your beautiful, beautiful cabbages. Be bold in your endeavor.
Harvest fruits and vegetables
We’re nearing the end of the summer harvest, but the continued harvest of fruits and vegetables means the plants will be signaled to produce more. When the tomatoes show signs of ripening, pull them out. The only benefit that can be gained by leaving them to “ripen the vines” is exposing them to sunburn and pests. Cucumbers become bitter if stored for a long time. Nobody wants your seven-pound zucchini.
Remove and plant in autumn
When clearing areas of spring crops, clear the space of weeds, add a layer of compost and begin autumn planting. Cabbage plants galore, more lettuce, more radishes, more beets and onions everywhere. Be generous with Sluggo if you live somewhere that has slugs or snails. Bury some fall peas in the ground.
Check your watering
August is cruel; even with irrigation, I sometimes have to supply water. Most importantly, check your watering once a week to make sure there are no leaks or broken lines.
Take notes
The most important task you can do this month is to get out your gardening notebook and write down notes for next year. You’ll forget every clever thought you had while out in the sun this month, so save these notes for next year’s planning: where you’ll rotate crops, which trellises worked and which didn’t, what to plant more or less, where you need more color, which varieties worked and which didn’t. These notes are essential to see improvements year after year.