The main jobs in the vegetable garden this month are harvesting, watering, and pest control. There's still time to plant warm-season crops like tomatoes, squash and corn. Also plant basil, mint, oregano, parsley, rosemary and thyme. All summer vegetables can be planted now, especially the heat lovers, but most gardeners prefer to wait this month out and start planting winter crops in mid-September. Most vegetable gardens in interior zones get pretty well burned up by the end of August.
Start seeds for cool-season crops. By midmonth seeds can be started in flats or peat pots for bedding plants to put in the ground in fall. Keep them in semi-shade. Good candidates are celery and all members of the cabbage family, including broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, and Brussels sprouts. Home-grown transplants will be ready to put out in the garden in late September or October.
Learn about good varieties for your zone, and ask us about good varieties to start from seed or grow from transplant. We carry a large selection of high quality seeds.
Control corn earworm. If your corn is badly attacked by corn earworm now and you're not an organic gardener, try dusting the silks with Sevin. (Treat when the silks first emerge and continue to treat every three to five days until the silks turn brown.) Mineral oil on the silk has been tried with varying success by organic gardeners. If your corn is being rendered inedible by these pests, it could be that you are waiting too long to harvest the corn.
Corn needs lots of water while it's forming ears. Once you've picked them, cook the fresh corn no more than three minutes after the second boil.
Continue to harvest, and take stock for next year. This is the time of year when people who love to can and freeze are happily stashing away jars and bags of produce for winter use, and those of us who don't are giving away armloads of vegetables and perhaps vowing to plant less next year. By now first-time gardeners have learned that you don't need a whole row of zucchini to feed a family of four - three plants are plenty, but you never can plant enough corn-- it goes fast.
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