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00:00Come August, most folks look out at their gardens and see the beginning of the end.
00:05The spring crops are spent, the summer plants are getting tired and leggy and starting to give out,
00:10and the common notion is that the season is winding down and there is nothing left to do
00:15but harvest what remains and let the beds go empty toward fall.
00:20But that is a mistake and a costly one, for it leaves a good third of your growing year unused.
00:26The plain truth is that in most of the country, there is time yet in August
00:31to plant a whole second round of quick-growing crops that will be ready to pick
00:36just as your summer plants die away, carrying your fresh eating clear into the fall.
00:41An empty garden bed in August is wasted ground, and wasted ground is wasted food.
00:48So today I am going to show you what to plant right now
00:52and how to fit it in even when your beds look full.
00:55My name is Elias Yoder, and I farm here in Lancaster County in Pennsylvania,
01:00and this idea of never letting the ground sit idle,
01:04of always having the next crop coming on as the last one finishes,
01:08is one of the oldest and most important notions in all of gardening.
01:13The old market gardeners called it succession,
01:16and it is the difference between a garden that feeds you for four months
01:20and one that feeds you for eight.
01:22My grandfather could not abide an empty bed.
01:25I remember him walking the garden of an August evening with a handful of seed in his pocket,
01:31the way another man might carry his pipe,
01:33and wherever a plant had come out or died back and left a bare place,
01:37he would stoop and work the soil with his fingers and drop a few seeds in,
01:42hardly breaking his stride.
01:44He said bare ground was the garden telling you that you were not paying attention.
01:49To him, a patch of empty dirt in the growing season was very near a sin,
01:55a waste of good ground that the good Lord had given to grow food on.
01:59I have never been able to look at a bare spot in a summer bed since without hearing him,
02:05and reaching for the seed.
02:07Before I go on, I will say this once and then leave it be.
02:11I gathered the whole of it, all these old ways of growing your own food, into a book.
02:17You can find it at EliasYoder.com.
02:20The book is the long version.
02:22If you want it, it is there.
02:24I will not mention it again.
02:27Now let me answer the first thing you are surely thinking, for I can hear it already.
02:31You are thinking,
02:32Elias, my beds are full.
02:35I have got no room to plant anything new.
02:37Well, hold on, because that is not near so true as you think, and there are two answers to it.
02:44The first answer is that your beds are emptier than they look.
02:48Go out and walk your garden slowly and really look.
02:51Here is a spot where the spring lettuce bolted and you pulled it and never refilled the hole.
02:57There is a gap where the early peas finished and came out.
03:00Here is where a plant died back and left a bear patch.
03:04All through a midsummer garden, there are these little holes, these empty pockets, and you have simply stopped seeing them.
03:11Those gaps are your new garden.
03:13You do not need a fresh, empty bed.
03:16You need only to start tucking your new plants into the holes that are already there,
03:21one here and one there, all through your existing beds, in among and between the plants still growing.
03:27And the second answer, for when you truly are short of ground, is to grow upward instead of outward.
03:35A vining crop like a cucumber, that would normally sprawl all over and eat up a great patch of bed,
03:41will grow just as happily straight up a trellis, taking hardly any ground at all.
03:46So even a full garden has room, if you use the air above it.
03:50And a trellis need not be a bought thing.
03:53I make mine from a few straight saplings or stout widths cut from the hedge,
03:58pushed into the ground and bent over into an arch, or lashed into a frame,
04:02with twine or wire run across for the vines to climb.
04:06It costs nothing, and it lasts for years,
04:09and an arch of cucumbers over a bed is a handsome thing besides.
04:13So between filling your gaps and growing upward, you have far more room than you supposed.
04:20Now before I name the crops, one word that matters for every one of them.
04:25That soil you are about to replant into has already grown a crop all summer,
04:31and in doing so, it has been drained of much of its goodness.
04:35So you cannot just poke a new plant into that tired ground and expect much.
04:41Before you set anything new, work a good handful or two of rich compost
04:46or well-rotted manure into each spot.
04:50You are refilling the larder for the new plant.
04:53Skip this, and your fall crop will be as tired and poor as the soil you put it in.
05:00Feed the ground first, always.
05:04And one more thing to understand about planting this late, for it governs everything.
05:09You are now racing the frost.
05:12Every one of these crops must grow up and give you a harvest
05:16before the cold weather comes and ends the season.
05:20So the whole game is to choose only quick crops,
05:24the ones that go from seed to table in six or eight weeks,
05:29and to get them in now without dawdling.
05:32Count back from your first expected frost.
05:36Give yourself those six or eight weeks and a bit to spare,
05:39and you will see you have just enough time if you move now.
05:44So let me give you the crops, all of them quick, all of them right for planting in the late
05:50summer.
05:51And let me tell you plainly what not to plant now, so you do not waste your time.
05:58Do not plant your slow, long-season crops in August,
06:03the things that want the whole summer to come to fruit.
06:06A big beefsteak tomato started now will never ripen before the frost,
06:12nor will a melon, nor a winter squash, nor sweet corn, nor peppers from seed,
06:19nor anything that takes three and four months to mature.
06:22There is simply not the season left for them.
06:26You had your chance at those back in the spring.
06:30What suits now is only the sprinters,
06:33the crops that race from seed to harvest in six or eight weeks and can beat the cold.
06:40Know the difference, and do not break your heart planting something now that cannot possibly finish.
06:48The first is the cucumber, and this is the one I grow up the trellis I spoke of.
06:54A cucumber is wonderfully fast in warm soil, and late summer soil is good and warm,
07:01so it will sprout in a matter of days and come on quick.
07:06Choose one of the more compact, quick sorts rather than a great long-season variety,
07:12something bred to grow fast and small, for you have not the time for the slow kinds now.
07:19You can set out young transplants if you started a few,
07:23or, because they come up so fast in warm ground,
07:27you can simply poke three or four seeds right into the soil at the foot of your trellis
07:32and thin to the strongest.
07:35In fact, the wise thing is to do both.
07:38Set a transplant or two for the earliest picking,
07:42and sow a few seeds alongside for a later one,
07:46so your cucumbers come ready in waves rather than all at once.
07:51Plant them at the base of that trellis and let them climb,
07:55and you will be picking cool, fresh cucumbers well into the fall.
08:00The second is the bean, the bush bean especially,
08:05and beans are one of the finest things you can plant in succession all season long,
08:11right up into late summer, for they grow so fast.
08:15A bush bean asks no trellis and takes little room,
08:19so it is perfect for tucking into one of those gaps I told you to look for.
08:25Find an empty pocket in a bed, work in your compost,
08:29and poke the bean seeds in about an inch deep and a couple inches apart.
08:34They come up within a week or so in warm soil,
08:38and there is real pleasure in watching them push up out of the ground,
08:42and in six or eight weeks you will have a fresh picking of tender green beans
08:48just as your summer crops are giving out.
08:51Plant a short row of them now.
08:55The third is summer squash, the crookneck or the zucchini kind,
09:00and squash is another fast grower that will give you a crop before frost if you get it in now.
09:08Now squash does like a bit of room and full sun,
09:12so give it a sunnier gap with a little space to spread.
09:16But here is a trick for the tight garden, and it is a good one.
09:20If you are short of room, grow your squash up a plain wire cage,
09:25the kind of round cage folks use for tomatoes.
09:28You set the cage over the young squash plant,
09:31and as it grows, you gently tuck and weave its stems and leaves up through the cage
09:37instead of letting them sprawl out across the bed.
09:40It grows upward, takes a quarter of the ground it would otherwise,
09:44and stays up out of the damp besides.
09:46One squash plant tucked in now in a sunny spot or up a cage will feed you well into the
09:53fall.
09:54The fourth is not a vegetable but an herb, and it is basil,
09:59and if you grow no other warm weather herb you should grow this one,
10:03for it is quick and easy and there is nothing like a handful of fresh basil with your late tomatoes.
10:10Basil grows fast from seed and transplants without complaint,
10:14and it does not mind being planted in a close little clump rather than spaced out,
10:19which makes it perfect for tucking a bunch into a small hole or a pot by the kitchen door.
10:25Set a few little plants now, or sow a pinch of seed,
10:29and in three or four weeks you will have fresh basil to pick,
10:33and it will keep giving right up until the cold takes it.
10:36A pot of it by the door, where you can step out and pinch some for the supper pot,
10:41is one of the small, great pleasures of a garden.
10:45The fifth is chard, and I have saved one of the best for near last,
10:50for chard is a wonderful crop and too few folks grow it.
10:54It is a quick-growing leafy green, cousin to the beet, and it is tough as anything.
11:01Now here is what makes chard so fine for planting now.
11:04It loves the warmth and grows fast in it, so it will come on quick planted in the late summer,
11:11but it is also remarkably hardy against the cold, far more than most greens.
11:17So a chard plant that you get well established now, before the frost comes,
11:22will stand right through the cold and keep giving you leaves long into the winter,
11:27when near everything else in the garden is dead and gone.
11:31And it is a cut-and-come-again plant, which is the best kind, meaning you do not pull the
11:37whole plant,
11:38but just cut the outer leaves you need, and it keeps growing more from the center,
11:43feeding you off the one plant for months.
11:46The stems come in gorgeous colors, reds and golds, so it is pretty as well as good eating.
11:53Tuck a few chard plants into your gaps now, and they may well be the last thing feeding you when
12:00the snow flies.
12:01And I will give you one more to plant, a little bonus, and it is not to eat,
12:06but to serve the whole garden, and that is a flower, the zinnia.
12:11Now why plant a flower when we are talking of food crops?
12:15Because, as I have told you before, your late crops still need pollinating.
12:20The cucumbers and the squash especially will give you nothing without the bees.
12:25And by late summer, the flowers that drew the bees in earlier are mostly spent.
12:31So you plant a few zinnias, quick and bright and easy, tucked among your vegetables,
12:37to keep the bees and the good insects coming right through the fall.
12:41They will pollinate your late squash and cucumbers, and the blaze of bright color they give you
12:47as the rest of the garden fades is a gift on top of it.
12:52Never forget the pollinators, even at the tail of the season.
12:56Tuck in some zinnias.
12:58So there are your crops, five good vegetables and a flower, all of them quick,
13:04all of them right to plant in the late summer for a harvest before the cold.
13:09Cucumbers up a trellis, bush beans in a gap, summer squash in a sunny spot or up a cage,
13:16basil in a clump or a pot, chard to feed you into the winter, and zinnias to keep the bees
13:22at their work.
13:24Let me say a plain word about who profits from you letting your garden quit in August,
13:29and it is no dark scheme. Think on it.
13:32The store would far rather you believe your growing season ends in high summer,
13:37so that come September and October and November, you are back in the aisles buying your cucumbers
13:44and beans and greens, same as everyone. There is no money in a man knowing he can keep his own
13:51garden,
13:52feeding him three or four months longer than he thought, on a few cents of seed poked into holes he
13:58already has.
14:00Nobody advertises succession planting. Nobody sells you the empty gaps in your own beds.
14:06It is not that this knowing is hidden. It is only that there is no trade in it, no product,
14:13nothing to sell, and so it does not get taught and folks let half their season go to waste,
14:19believing it is over when it is not. The money runs toward the store shelf in the fall,
14:26and away from the packet of quick seed that would have kept you out of the store, and it always
14:32has.
14:33So there is the whole of it. Do not let your garden quit on you in August. Walk your beds
14:40and find the
14:41gaps you have stopped seeing. Feed those tired spots with fresh compost before you replant. Then get in your
14:50quick crops without delay, racing the frost, cucumbers and beans and squash and basil and chard,
14:58growing upward where you are short of room, and tuck in a few zinnias to keep the bees coming.
15:05Do that, and while your neighbors are looking at spent, empty beds and calling the season done,
15:12you will be picking fresh cucumbers and beans and cutting chard clear into the cold, having stolen
15:19yourself another whole season out of the very same ground. Tell me down in the comments what county
15:27you garden in, and what your first frost usually comes, for that tells you just how much time you
15:33have to work with, and whether you have ever tried a late planting like this before. And if you have
15:40a
15:40favorite quick crop for the fall that I have not named here, put it down, for there are many good
15:47ones,
15:47and I am always glad to hear what folks are planting. Next time out here I want to show you
15:54how to build a
15:54proper compost pile the old way, layer upon layer, so that you always have that black crumbly gold on hand
16:03to feed a tired midsummer bed before you replant it. For as I told you, that refilling of the larder
16:11is the
16:12whole secret to a good second crop. It is the foundation under all of it, and it is past time
16:19I showed you.
16:21But for now remember this. The ground does not know it is August. It will grow for you just as
16:29willingly in the cooling days of late summer as it did in the spring, if only you keep it working
16:36and keep it fed. A garden is not a thing with one season in it. It is a thing that
16:43gives and gives as
16:45long as you keep asking, right up until the frost lays it down to rest. The people who built this
16:53country
16:53with their hands knew that, and we are only just starting to remember it.
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