Gardening Tips: August

August:The Year-Round Garden

I. SEEDS

Below is a list of the vegetables my favorite expert (Steve Solomon, founder of Territorial Seed and author of “Vegetable Gardening West of the Cascades”) suggests you can still start from seed this month in the Maritime Northwest - for winter or early spring harvest. 

Entire Month:  endive, spinach

Before the 15^th : overwintering cauliflower, loose-leaf lettuce

After the 15^th : overwintering bulb onions.

Territorial Seed’s Winter Gardening chart suggests seeding arugula, cabbage, mache, endive, kohlrabi, spinach, lettuce, and a few typically fast growing greens that like the cooler weather coming up, plus turnips.

II. TRANSPLANTS

Due to the hot weather, I didn’t get my leeks transplanted from their little nurse bed, so I plan to do it as soon as the weather gets out of the 90’s!  I also have some rather pathetic looking starts to transplant out through the first half of August for:  Broccoli, Brussels Sprouts, Cabbage, Cauliflower, Collards and Kale.  Again, I could not see the point of transplanting in the high temperatures. 

Territorial Seed’s Winter Gardening chart suggests transplants can still go in for: fall broccoli, sprouting broccoli, Brussels sprouts, fall and winter cabbage, fall cauliflower and Chinese cabbage.

You may find starts and seeds at Portland Nursery, Buffalo Gardens or the Urban Farm Store.  You may also see starts from Wildcat Mountain Farm at either People’s or Food Front Co-ops.  Just keep an eye out.

Crops that go through the winter need to have some good growth on them before the cold slows or halts growth.  On the other hand, they should not be fully mature either, or when regrowth starts come spring they’re likely to quickly go to seed.

Consider putting up some sort of cloche or row cover for certain veggies if you want them to get through our typically incessant rains from fall on; including mache, endive, lettuce, mustard greens, spinach, Swiss chard.

>> August Recipe: Wilted Asian Greens
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