Mid-South: August 2016

I know, I know, it's not August yet! One day... close enough, lol!

In my garden, the tomatoes are at a standstill due to the heat. I've got a couple of eggplants, ants found one of my cantaloupes, the honeydew & other cantaloupes are doing okay, watermelon's trellised itself, a couple of onions bolted... But even with the drought & my neglect, everything looks pretty lush. So I guess even though I found quite a bit of sand in the Ecoscrapes, it's pretty good compost to add into the mix.

We've got power & water to the new greenhouse & are ready to start putting on side & roof panels. (Although maybe it would be easier to build the seeding table & bed first... Thoughts, comments, rude remarks?) But with this heat, we're kind of at a standstill on that as well...

I have NOT started my fall seedlings yet. But gardenate.com gives the following for zone 7b:


Beans - climbing (also Pole beans, Runner beans, Scarlet Runners) Plant in garden.
Beetroot (also Beets) Plant in garden.
Broccoli Plant in garden.
Cabbage Plant in garden.
Carrot Plant in garden.
Cauliflower Plant in garden.
Chinese cabbage (also Wong bok, wong nga pak) Plant in garden.
Chives (also Garden chives) Start undercover in seed trays and plant out in 4-6 weeks.
Collards (also Collard greens, Borekale) Plant in garden.
Cucumber Plant in garden.
Kale (also Borecole) Plant in garden.
Leeks Plant in garden.
Lettuce Start undercover in seed trays and plant out in 4-6 weeks.
Mustard greens (also gai choy) Plant in garden.
Pak Choy (also Pak choi) Plant in garden.
Rocket (also Arugula/Rucola) Plant in garden.
Rutabaga (also Swedes) Plant in garden.
Squash (also Crookneck, Pattypan, Summer squash) Plant in garden.
Turnip Plant in garden.

Urban Farmer Seeds (No, don't know anything about them... Anyone else?) gives us this:

August

August is an ideal time to plant seeds for a second gardening season that can be as productive as your major early spring plantings. Late summer is the time to plant these vegetables and herbs.

Beans:
Start planting both bush and pole beans now that the soil and air are warmed up. Try a continual 7-10 day sowing of different varieties. This will give you continual bean crops and not one large harvest with wasted crop. Early August is the last practical sowing date.
Suggested variety: Contender, Kentucky Wonder, Topcrop

Cover Crops:
A great way to add nutrients to your soil for the following year is by growing winter cover crops this fall. Start in August so they get some good growth before winter comes.
Suggest variety: Winter Cover Crops


Cucumbers
Fast growing vine or bush cucumber plants can produce an abundance of cucumber fruits. Be careful to pick a variety for the space you have in your garden. Vine cucumbers can be the best tasting but need far more space than bush varieties.
Suggest variety: Spacemaster 80, Muncher, Marketmore 76

Flower Bulbs
August is a great time to plant those fall flower bulbs. There are many varieties that can be planted this fall and start blooming early spring. Flower Bulbs

Kale
Planting kale mid-July through mid-August will yield an excellent harvest in the fall and winter.
Suggested variety: Dwarf Blue

Lettuce
Sow lettuce in August for a fall crop. Try growing early harvest varieties that will produce a harvest before cold weather rolls in.
Suggested Varieties: Buttercrunch, Salad Bowl

Peas
Green peas and sugar peas are good to plant in August, and will produce a moderate fall harvest.
Suggested variety: Sugar Ann

Radish
A quick and easy vegetable to grow. Plant now and you can have them ready in 30 days.
Suggested variety: Cherry Belle

Spinach
Spinach is more of a cool weather vegetable and is great to grow in August.
Suggested variety: Bloomsdale, Samish


And while looking through some new sites (for me) for more info on what can be planted right now, I found that growveg.com has a WHOLE bunch of growing guides on specific fruits & veggies. I see some more reading in my future...

So, please chime in & tell us what's happening in your corner of heaven in the Mid-South!!

Got a little rain last night! YEA!

We got a few drops yesterday mid-day.  Not enough for me to even stop working in the garden.  It did cool off for a bit.  The official rainfall around me from the weather station was 1.31 inches in June (average is 4 inches) and 1.65 inches in July (average is 5 inches).

Hi!
I tried planting a few things last month from seeds, but with the heat and dryness they did not do well at all. So, I have started some kale, collards, boc choy, arugula, and lettuce in flats in the house by a window a couple of days ago. Most of them are already jumping up and eager to grow! Once they get a little bigger I will move them to the back porch which just gets morning sun until they are big enough to plant in the garden. I did that with broccoli last month and transplanted it to the garden yesterday. They are doing really well.

Woo-Hoo! That's great to hear, Leone!

What part of TN are you in? I've got friends & family all over TN... :-)

AtlantaMarie wrote:Woo-Hoo!  That's great to hear, Leone!

What part of TN are you in?  I've got friends & family all over TN...  :-)

We are just a couple of miles north of the Mississippi border and about 70ish miles east of Memphis. This is our first SFG and we LOVE it.

We've got family in Jackson, Gates, Forked Deer. Don't think you're TOO far from them...

The days are definitely getting shorter here.... It's 7 am and the sun's not up yet.

Well, that's depressing. I looked up a US latitude map to see why the sun isn't rising there until after 7 AM. California has lats from Mid GA up to CT. From short day up to almost long day. I'm in the mid day zone and still looking for appropriate onions to try.

Gee... I guess you'll just have to keep experimenting... Have you found anything that does or does NOT work for you?

sanderson wrote:Well, that's depressing.  I looked up a US latitude map to see why the sun isn't rising there until after 7 AM.  California has lats from Mid GA up to CT.  From short day up to almost long day.  I'm in the mid day zone and still looking for appropriate onions to try.

I answered this question on another thread to try to keep it where it could be found by a search.  Near the bottom of page 1.

https://squarefoot.forumotion.com/t20511-the-sfg-journey-onions-how-to-grow-when-to-harvest-how-to-harvest-storage-the-life-cycle-of-an-onion#251234