What to plant in your vegetable garden in July and August
Can you believe that it’s July? We don’t know about you, but summer seems to be speeding right by! With summer flying by, has your spring garden taken a backseat? Maybe you didn’t get a chance to plant your early garden during May or June because of a busy schedule. Maybe you had an early garden, and your early planted crops are a bit past their prime and you wish you had more.
Late Garden
No matter your situation, don’t fret! You have plenty of time to seed and plant your late garden! In doing so, you will have fresh crops long past the heat of summer. Late gardens are typically seeded in July and/or August. Read on and we’ll help you to get your late garden started.
Our July garden.
July Fall Garden
Now that we’ve given you permission to start your fall garden or extend your gardening season, you may be wondering what crops would be best to seed. July crops are warm-weather crops and have a shorter season than early gardens but can still provide a bountiful harvest for your family.
If we were starting a fall garden for the first time in July, we would choose a few crops from the list below.
July Seeded Crops
Beets
Broccoli
Cabbage
Carrots
Cauliflower
Cilantro
Cucumbers
Dill
Green beans
Kale
Onions for green onions
Potatoes
Summer squash
Swiss Chard
Zucchini
This is just a starting point. There are many other warm-weather crops that can be planted as well. If you’re unsure what to choose, look for crops that require less than 70 days.
Potatoes harvested from a July garden.
August Fall Garden
August crops are cool season crops that enjoy the cooler nighttime temperatures. The best part about August crops is there is reduced insect pressure. What this means to you is that you’ll spend less time dealing with insects and more time actually growing your garden. If we were starting a fall garden for the first time in August, we would choose a few crops from the list below.
August Seeded Crops
Beets
Carrots
Peas
Radishes
Turnips
All types of greens:
Arugula
Broccoli Raab
Chinese cabbage
Endive
Kales
Lettuce
Mustard greens
Spinach
This is just a starting point. There are many other cool season crops that can be planted as well. If you’re unsure what to choose, look for crops that require less than 70 days.
Greens growing in one of our August gardens.
Our Farming History
If you’ve read this far and know that we are flower farmers, you may be wondering how a flower farm knows all this vegetable garden information. In our former farming life, we specialized in growing culinary herbs and salad greens. We grew hundreds of pounds of the above crops for fall harvest. We supplied restaurants and a 100+ member subscription CSA (Community-Supported Agriculture) for over 10 years before we switched to growing flowers exclusively.
Green beans harvested from one of our late gardens.
Zones and Freezing Grounds
We seeded most of the August seeded crops list direct into the fields in mid-August. We then harvested these through heavy frosts with no damage to the plants. The radishes, carrots, beets, and turnips were harvested through December in our region, which is Zone 6. The trick is knowing when the ground freezes in your area for your last harvest. If it is going to be below freezing for an extended period, you need to harvest your bounty.
Germinating Greens
With the heat of summer, it can get tricky to germinate your greens, but we have found a few tricks that can help with this. The soil needs to be kept cooler for many seeds to germinate. You need to mimic nature. Germination should only take a day or two with the following steps for most greens.
1. Trick 1: is your house air conditioned or do you have a cool basement? If you do, put your seed trays in the coolest area until the seeds germinate.
2. Trick 2: place your seed trays outside on the northern side of your house under a bush. Make sure you don’t have any bunnies around.
3. Trick 3: place your trays in the refrigerator during the daytime and pull them out at night when the temperatures are cooler. We found this worked the best for spinach, lettuce, and endives.
4. Trick 4: direct sow seeds in your garden water well and put a shade cloth over the freshly seeded area. This will keep the soil cool, which will help the seeds to germinate.
Seeds to Sprouts
As soon as the seeds sprout, they need to have approximately 6 hours of bright daylight or sun. Be sure to keep them watered, as they need to stay moist. Once there are 2-3 sets of true leaves, you can then plant them in the ground.
Tender, young Red Russian Kale ready for harvest.
Pro Tip
A salad blend was one of our customers’ favorites. We combined several types of lettuce seed together and direct-seeded it, fairly thick. Because lettuce grows much slower, it needs to be seeded a week before the other greens. A week later we combined these seeds:
· Endives
· Arugula
· Mustard greens
· Several types of kale
· Beet
We direct-seeded these thickly as well. We found we had our best crops early in the season and again with the later plantings. Remember these are to be harvested when they are only 3-4 inches tall. If you enjoy larger leaves, seed them all with a little more space.
Several types of lettuce seeded together to create a salad blend.
If you don’t have any seeds, take a trip to your local hardware store to purchase some seed packs. We order our vegetable seeds online and our vendors of choice are:
We hope this article will motivate you to get your late garden started! If you know July will be too busy, develop a plan for August and start your garden then. What do you plan to plant? Let us know in the comments below. We wish you a bountiful late growing season!
