AUGUST in SO CAL and the Livin' is easy - what to plant

August is the lightest month for planting. Too late for a lot of the summer crops and too early for the winter/spring ones. As we all know, it can tend to stay hot thru October some years, but no guarantees.

What to plant:
Beans, Bush
Beans, Pole
Beets
Carrots
Celery
Lima Beans
Squash, summer

Not that you cannot plant anything else, mind you, but waning light and uncertain weather make these the most dependable. However, if you were to find a half grown tomato or pepper plant at your local nursery it might just have a chance.

In my own little adventure, I have landed yet again. This time I am renting a casita (literally little house) that is a detached one room/bathroom/counter for kitchen activities w/ a mini fridge. The owner has two neglected raised beds about 4X8 or so each and I have offered to bring them back to life. So, I may be gardening again soonest. As always, have to start from scratch with MM, trellises, etc but I know the drill. Expensive though.

One of the boxes was an herb bed but it was taken over by mint so that should be a laugh riot to clear out. The other one is filled with grass so also a bear, but I am excited to do it. Right now it is so stinking hot that I can't even think of it, but will start accumulating what I need.

What has worked best in your garden this summer so far? My guess is all of our failures may be the same crop - some years are good and some are bad.

snip What has worked best in your garden this summer so far?

Wish I knew

Congrats! You have a garden and a place to lay your head.

Kay

Pumpkins are great for planting. And we got some beans planted. I think they're the white beans... =x

I always dismiss pumpkins because it is probably too late to see any by Halloween. However, there is always Thanksgiving...

Then don't discredit them just yet. I might have them ready for thanksgiving! Homemade pumpkin pies to take with us? oh yes!

Yeah I don't think ours will be ready for Halloween either. Although, the older ones look like they want to blossom...but I'm not 100% sure on them. o.o

Woohoo!!! I was right! Our pumpkin vines have their first flowers!!!! At bud about to open stage but they're flowers!!!!!! Holy cow!!!

Congrats on the pumpkins.

My raised bed that got turned into a construction zone has been returned to me. Unfortunately, I did not get to remove the MM before the dig through happen. One 18 deep dug through the long side of a 12x2 foot bed. The work crew did a good job of attempting to keep the back half of the bed intact.

The front half, well, I now have a mix of MM and my clay laden central OC soil.

Beans, carrots, here I come. Is it too early to plant my shallots?

oh no on the box. That sucks.

Chopper wrote:In my own little adventure, I have landed yet again. This time I am renting a casita (literally little house) that is a detached one room/bathroom/counter for kitchen activities w/ a mini fridge. The owner has two neglected raised beds about 4X8 or so each and I have offered to bring them back to life. So, I may be gardening again soonest. As always, have to start from scratch with MM, trellises, etc but I know the drill. Expensive though.

One of the boxes was an herb bed but it was taken over by mint so that should be a laugh riot to clear out. The other one is filled with grass so also a bear, but I am excited to do it. Right now it is so stinking hot that I can't even think of it, but will start accumulating what I need.

What has worked best in your garden this summer so far? My guess is all of our failures may be the same crop - some years are good and some are bad.

It sounds like you have an adventure ahead of you, lol! I don't envy you! My broccoli worked best for early Summer. My potatoes did pretty well and my daughter and on another day a grand daughter dug potatoes and we had fun! I am going to plant potatoes more like what Josh does, kinda like double planting. Tomatoes and cucumbers are just kinda hanging out. Corn only came up half the height they should. Cantaloupe and watermelon are blossoming. One zucchini plant bit the dust after giving me a few zucchinis. The other was actually two plants in one pony pack. One of those died. The other I don't know if it wants to live of croak.

Can orange peels be placed around the plant to decompose and feed the plant?

of the garden this month.

First tomato plants:

Hot Pepper/Jalapeno Mix (Just below are the second tomatoes):

The First older pumpkins:

2nd set of pumpkins:

Tomato Flowers:

Pinto Beans:

First Tomatoes far shot:

I planted some bush beans in little peat pots around 12 days ago. I soaked them over night first. Only 2 of the 24 pots are showing any sign of life. Am I being too impatient or is there a problem?

The pots are kept outside in the shade and they are kept moist. I put in two seeds per container. The soil was a mixture of soil from my veggie garden and potting soil (roughly 50-50). Any advice??

Thanks.

pwilliam wrote:I planted some bush beans in little peat pots around 12 days ago. I soaked them over night first. Only 2 of the 24 pots are showing any sign of life. Am I being too impatient or is there a problem?

The pots are kept outside in the shade and they are kept moist. I put in two seeds per container. The soil was a mixture of soil from my veggie garden and potting soil (roughly 50-50). Any advice??

Thanks.

neighbor. I planted bush beans about a month ago directly in the garden in Mel;s mix and they are going great. I plan to start some more Rattlesnake pole beans this week. I only soaked mine for an hour or so before planting.

Have you read Mel's book All New Squarefoot Gardening? Most of us here use it to giude usand do not use garden or potting soil but do use Mel's Mix of vermiculite, peat and a 5 way blend of composts.

Have you read Mel's book All New Squarefoot Gardening? Most of us here use it to giude usand do not use garden or potting soil but do use Mel's Mix of vermiculite, peat and a 5 way blend of composts.

Thanks Lindacol. One of my two raised beds was based on Mel's mix but I had difficulty filling the second bed (put in this year) the same way because Home D did not stock all the components this year (or I went shopping the wrong time). I tried beans last month too, unsuccessfully, and figured perhaps the beans were too old. I will take your advice.

Love the garden lonewolf! Thanks for the pics. I love pics of gardens.

As for the beans - after 12 days I would expect something. it has been so crazy hot those twelve days though, who knows. And beans can be put directly into the soil and it is better that way unless your summer is so short you have no choice. Above a certain temp things do not want to grow. Even Tomatoes have been known to simply stop and wait it seems.

You can always dig nto one of the pots and see if it even sprouted.

Try again directly in soil and I would expect better results. Especially now that it is cooling down a bit. You know it has been hot when 90 seems like it is cool.

I just planted bush beans weekend before last, they're all up and going strong. Used the same method as you, gave them a soak and lob them in, in warm weather, I usually see them up in 3-4 days.

I haven't posted garden pictures in a while. So here are current pictures of my garden today.

Bed 1 - tomatoes doing great and sweet potatoes with carrot week carrots getting overtaken. I have a few empty squares that I may try planting this week.



Bed 2 has been a problem bed. This small stand of corn is doing great and there are a few more stalks at the far end. I think a rabbit may ghave grazed the in between area but in general this bed has not grown well.



Beds 3&4 doing good. Bed 3 in front has delicata squash, bush beans (dragons tongue) gypsy pepper, chard and celery. Empty squares had onions and will be replanted soon. Bed 4 has yellow & butternut squash, bell peppers and carrots and onion. And some empty squares which also had onions.



Mystery onion. I planted a bunch of walla wallas which are yellow and this white one grew huge and has since split a couple of times and has not appeared ready to harvest yet. Is this some sort of a multiplier onion? It is very different than all the others.



The weather has cooled, only supposed to be about 90 today, I'm enjoying tomatoes, peppers and squash fresh from the garden and my compost is hot. Life is good!