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August is one of the best times to plant fast-growing vegetables and cool-season crops for a productive late-summer and fall harvest. In this video, we'll show you five crops that are perfect for planting in August and explain how to help them thrive.
In this video, you'll learn:
The best crops to plant in August
Which vegetables grow quickly before cooler weather
Soil preparation and planting tips
Watering and fertilizing for healthy growth
Common mistakes that reduce your harvest
How to maximize your garden space
Whether you're growing in raised beds, containers, or a backyard garden, these easy planting tips can help you enjoy fresh, homegrown vegetables in the months ahead.
🌱 If you enjoyed this video, Like, Subscribe, and Turn on Notifications for more gardening tips, seasonal planting guides, and organic growing advice.
#Gardening #AugustGardening #VegetableGarden #PlantInAugust #GrowYourOwnFood #GardenTips #OrganicGardening #HomeGarden #FallGarden #ContainerGardening
August is one of the best times to plant fast-growing vegetables and cool-season crops for a productive late-summer and fall harvest. In this video, we'll show you five crops that are perfect for planting in August and explain how to help them thrive.
In this video, you'll learn:
The best crops to plant in August
Which vegetables grow quickly before cooler weather
Soil preparation and planting tips
Watering and fertilizing for healthy growth
Common mistakes that reduce your harvest
How to maximize your garden space
Whether you're growing in raised beds, containers, or a backyard garden, these easy planting tips can help you enjoy fresh, homegrown vegetables in the months ahead.
🌱 If you enjoyed this video, Like, Subscribe, and Turn on Notifications for more gardening tips, seasonal planting guides, and organic growing advice.
#Gardening #AugustGardening #VegetableGarden #PlantInAugust #GrowYourOwnFood #GardenTips #OrganicGardening #HomeGarden #FallGarden #ContainerGardening
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00I know just how you feel in August.
00:02You are tired, the garden chores have worn you down, the heat is a misery, and a part
00:08of you is ready to call the season near done and rest.
00:11But do not lay down your trowel yet, for I am going to tell you something that changes
00:16everything.
00:18We are only a few weeks from the finest growing weather of the whole year, those cool, gentle
00:24days of fall that so many of the best crops love above all others.
00:29And what you do right now, in the heat of August, decides whether your garden feeds you beautifully
00:35clear through the fall and deep into the winter, or whether it quits on you in October and leaves
00:42you buying at the store through all the cold months.
00:45So today I am going to give you the five crops you must get started in August, the five that
00:52will carry you through, and if you plant nothing else, plant these.
00:58My name is Elias Yoder, and I farm here in Lancaster County in Pennsylvania.
01:02And I will tell you, a garden that goes on giving you fresh food right through the fall
01:08and into the winter, when the rest of the world has gone gray and cold and bare, is one
01:14of the great quiet comforts there is, a thing that lifts the spirit through the dark short
01:20days like almost nothing else.
01:22It is worth a little sweat in August to have it.
01:27I remember my grandmother's kitchen table in the deep of winter, snow piled against the
01:32window, and fresh green kale and sweet carrots and a crisp head of cabbage on it, all of it
01:39out of the frozen garden not a hundred steps from the door, while the neighbors were eating
01:44from cans and the store.
01:45She had done her work back in the hot end of summer, when it would have been far easier
01:51to sit in the shade, and all winter long, she ate the reward of it.
01:56She used to say, the lazy man's garden ends in September, but the wise woman's garden never
02:03quite ends at all.
02:05I have never forgotten it.
02:08Before I go on, I will say this once and then leave it be.
02:12I gathered the whole of it, all these old ways of growing your own food, into a book.
02:18You can find it at EliasYoder.com.
02:22The book is the long version.
02:24If you want it, it is there.
02:26I will not mention it again.
02:29Now one plain word before the crops that shapes all of them.
02:34When your first hard frost comes, decides your timing.
02:38So know your own country.
02:40If you get your first frost early, in October, you must move now, this first week of August,
02:47to give these crops their time.
02:49If your frost holds off until November or later, you have a bit more leeway and can plant into
02:56the back half of the month.
02:57Know when your cold comes, count backward, and plant so these crops come to their harvest
03:04in the cool, but before the killing freeze.
03:08Keep that in mind through all five.
03:11The first crop, and the big one, the very heart of the fall garden, is the cabbage family.
03:17The brassicas, the old folks would just say, the cabbages and their kin.
03:22And it is a great tribe, cabbage itself, broccoli, cauliflower, brussels sprouts, kale, collards,
03:32bok choy, mustard greens, the whole lot of them.
03:36These are the backbone of eating through the cold, for they are wonderfully hardy against
03:41frost and freeze.
03:42And many of them, the kale and collards especially, are sweetened by the cold rather than harmed
03:49by it, growing better as the weather turns than they ever did in summer.
03:54Now these you start as young plants first, not sown straight in the ground, for in early
04:00August it is still too hot and too buggy to sow them out in the garden.
04:05So you sow them in a flat or a pot of good soil, a few seeds to a little cluster
04:11since
04:11not every seed comes up, and you set them somewhere you can tend them and keep them watered while
04:17they sprout in the heat.
04:19In about four to six weeks from sowing, they will be sturdy little transplants ready to
04:24set out, which puts them going into the garden in early to middle September, just as the worst
04:31heat is breaking.
04:33Set them out then in rich ground, well worked with compost.
04:37And if it is still hot and buggy when you set them out, give them a little help, a light
04:42cloth or a fine mesh over a few hoops of bent width to keep the bugs and the birds off
04:47the
04:47tender young plants until they harden and grow strong.
04:51Or a bit of shade cloth over them, if the sun is still fierce, until the cool truly settles
04:57in.
04:57And here is the honest thing to know about their hardiness, for it matters.
05:01These cabbages are tougher against a hard freeze than they are against frost forming right
05:07on their leaves.
05:08A mature, well-established plant with a light cloth thrown over it to keep the frost from settling
05:14on the leaves, will take a truly bitter cold and come through fine.
05:19But a small young transplant is far more tender.
05:22So the lesson is, get them out early enough to grow up strong and established before the
05:28real cold comes.
05:30And then, keep the frost off the leaves with a cover when the hard nights arrive.
05:34And they will feed you deep into the winter.
05:36The second crop is peas, and these are a joy.
05:41For unlike the cabbages, you sow them straight in the ground, no starting of plants at all.
05:46Peas love the cool and hate the heat, so the trick is all in the timing.
05:51You want them to come up and grow and mature as the nights turn chilly, but before the frost.
05:57So if your frost comes in October, sow them in early August.
06:01If your frost holds off to November, wait until the back half of August, so they are not trying
06:07to mature while it is still hot.
06:09For peas gone ripe in the heat, come tough and poor.
06:13You poke your holes an inch deep, a couple inches apart for the low bush kinds, and a bit
06:18more for the tall, climbing ones.
06:21Drop a seed or two in each, cover them, and water them in.
06:25Feed them only lightly, mind, for peas are one of those legumes that feed the soil themselves,
06:30drawing their own richness from the air, so they want no heavy feeding.
06:35They will be up in a week or so.
06:37And word on peas, for there are two troubles to guard against.
06:41The first is that though the pea plant itself takes the frost well, the pods do not.
06:47So time your picking to get your peas before the hard frost, or throw a cloth over them
06:52when a freeze threatens to save the pods.
06:55And the second is that the birds and the squirrels do love to nip off the tender young pea shoots
07:01just as they come up.
07:02So cover your newly sprouted peas with a bit of fine netting until they are half a foot tall
07:08and past being worth a bird's trouble.
07:11And after that, they are safe.
07:13Mind the timing and mind the young shoots, and peas are near the easiest thing there is.
07:18The third crop is lettuce, and here I mean the fine, upstanding romaine sort especially,
07:24the tall, crisp heads.
07:26For this is truly a better fall crop than a spring one, and few folks know it.
07:32Lettuce hates to mature in heat, it turns bitter and bolts to seed.
07:36But it loves to come to its head in the cooling weather of fall.
07:40And lettuce matured in the cool comes up sweet and lush and tender, dark green and beautiful,
07:47nothing like the bitter summer kind.
07:49And once headed in the cool, it will stand a good long while in the garden waiting on you.
07:54You start this romaine as little plants too, sown in a flat while it is still too hot to sow
08:00outside.
08:01Three or four seeds to a cluster for lettuce germinates spottily.
08:05And in four to six weeks, you set the young plants out when the worst of the heat has broken.
08:11Harvest them as they head up before the hard frost.
08:14But know this, for the romaine has one weakness among lettuces.
08:18It does not care to be frosted right on its leaves.
08:21A hard frost settling on those heads will damage them.
08:25So as with the cabbages, a light cloth over a few hoops to keep the frost off the leaves
08:31will let it stand through surprisingly cold nights unharmed.
08:35And hold in the garden weeks longer than it would bear.
08:38Cover it from the frost and you will cut sweet romaine long after your neighbors is gone.
08:44The fourth crop will surprise you.
08:46And it is one last wave of cucumbers and zucchini.
08:50And if you think it too late for those, you are wrong.
08:53And here is why.
08:55Cucumbers and summer squash are among the very fastest things that grow.
08:59In the warm soil of August, they sprout in but three or four days.
09:04And they can start giving you fruit in as little as five or six weeks from the seed.
09:09So a cucumber seed, poked in the ground now, in that lovely warm late summer soil,
09:15will have you picking cucumbers by the middle of September, easy, and go right on till the frost.
09:21If your frost is far off, you have time for another wave or even two, sown every few weeks.
09:28I have covered the growing of them in full elsewhere, so I will not repeat it all.
09:33But do so another round now.
09:35And here is the beautiful part.
09:37The reason a late planting of these is often better than the spring one.
09:41All those brutal pests that harass your spring cucumbers and squash.
09:46The squash bugs and the cucumber beetles.
09:49And worst of all, the vine borers.
09:52Most of them have finished their season by the back half of summer and are gone.
09:57So your late sown cucumbers and squash grow up in peace, free of the very plagues that
10:03tormented the spring crop, and give you more fruit for far less grief.
10:08Choose the quick early kinds if you can, the ones that come to bearing fastest, to be sure
10:14of a crop before frost.
10:15A last wave of cucumbers and zucchini, grown easy and pest free in the cooling days, is one
10:22of the happy secrets of the August garden.
10:25And the fifth crop is a choice, depending on your country.
10:28So I give you two, and you take the one that suits you.
10:32If you live in the warmer, milder country, plant onions.
10:35If you live in the colder country, where the winter bites hard, plant carrots and beets.
10:41Let me take them in turn.
10:42For the warm country, bulbing onions started from seed now will grow you the biggest, earliest
10:49harvest you ever had.
10:50You sow the tiny seed in a pot, for it is too fine to sow outside where the rain would
10:56wash it away, scattering it on top and barely covering it.
11:00And it is slow, taking a good eight to ten weeks to grow into transplants.
11:05So start it now, and do not delay.
11:08Set the young onions out in early fall to root and harden.
11:11Keep a cloth over them through the hard freezes, and where the winters are mild,
11:16they will sail right through the cold, and give you a great early crop come late spring.
11:22Onions are tougher against the cold than folks think, under a cover.
11:26For the colder country, where a bulbing onion could not live through the winter,
11:30plant carrots and beets instead.
11:32And here is a wonderful thing about them worth knowing.
11:36Carrots and beets grow sweeter the colder it gets.
11:39For the plant turns its starch to sugar to guard itself against the frost.
11:44So a carrot or a beet matured in the cold of fall is far sweeter than one grown in the
11:49heat.
11:50That is why they are a fall crop above all.
11:52Both are roots, and both must be sown straight in the ground, never started as transplants.
11:59For a transplanted root comes up forked and ruined if it lives at all.
12:03So sow your beets a half inch deep and a few inches apart to give the roots room.
12:08And sow your carrots in a shallow trench.
12:11Sowing thickly for carrot seed is poor to come up, and thinning later.
12:15I have a whole video on the growing of carrots if you want the full of it.
12:19Let them mature into the cold, and they will be the sweetest you ever grew.
12:24Let me say a plain word about who profits from you thinking the season ends in August,
12:29and it is no dark scheme.
12:31If you believe your garden is done when the summer heat fades,
12:34then all through the fall and winter, half the year near,
12:38you are back in the store buying every carrot and cabbage and head of lettuce you eat.
12:43There is no money in a man learning that his garden could feed him straight through to spring
12:47on a few cents of seeds sown in August.
12:50Nobody advertises the fall garden.
12:52Nobody sells you the cool season you already have coming.
12:56So folks who had half the year of growing go to waste,
12:59believing it over when it is only just turning to its best.
13:03It is not hidden.
13:04It is only never taught.
13:06For a garden that feeds a man through the winter is a store's steady loss.
13:11The money runs toward the winter grocery aisle and away from the August seed packet,
13:17and it always has.
13:18So there are your five.
13:20Start your cabbages and their kin as transplants now for the backbone of the fall and winter table.
13:27Sow your peas straight in the ground, timed to mature in the chill before the frost.
13:33Start your romaine lettuce for sweet heads the heat could never give you.
13:38Sow one more happy, pest-free wave of cucumbers and zucchini in the warm soil,
13:45and plant your fifth by your country, onions where it is mild, carrots and beets where it is cold,
13:52for roots that sweeten as they chill.
13:55Keep a light cloth ready to throw over the tender ones when the hard frosts come,
14:01and you will be eating fresh from your own ground long after everyone else has given up and gone indoors.
14:09Tell me down in the comments what county you garden in and when your first frost usually falls,
14:15for that is the whole key to timing all of this,
14:18and whether you have ever kept your garden going into the winter before,
14:23or whether this is the year you will try.
14:25And if you have a favorite fall crop I have not named here, put it down,
14:30for there are more good ones and I am always glad to hear them.
14:35Next time out here I want to show you how to build a proper compost pile the old way,
14:40layer upon layer, so that you have rich black soil ready to give these fall crops
14:46the strong start they need going into the hard part of the year.
14:50For a plant set out in the cooling days has less time and needs the best ground you can give
14:57it,
14:58is the foundation under all of it, and it is past time I showed you.
15:03But for now remember this, the garden year is far longer than most folks ever use.
15:10They quit at the first cool breath of fall, just as the sweetest, gentlest, most generous
15:17growing weather of the whole year is arriving, and the crops that love it best are begging to be planted.
15:24Do not quit in August, plant instead, and let your garden feed you clear through to the spring.
15:31The people who built this country with their hands knew that, and we are only just starting to remember it.
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