17 Crops You Need To Start in August

I don't know about you, but August is that month in the garden where I get slightly burnt out of it. And that is what this video is here to prevent. Myself, Jacques and many members of the Epic Gardening team have some amazing picks for August that will keep you excited to grow. And my first pick is one you're either going to love or hate. So my pick is one that you've heard me say many times and even many ways. This is a plant that I've planted, I think once in my garden, and it keeps coming back. This is of course, the wonderful and the lovely chamomile. And yes, I know it's not pronounced chamomile, but here at Epic Gardening, it is. And so you're just gonna have to deal with it. This is a plant that smells amazing. It kind of smells like a green apple candy kind of vibe, very satisfying smell. Of course it is amazing for teas. That is the primary thing I would use it for. But the beautification of the garden is good enough reason. It also brings in a lot of the smallest beneficial insects. Things like your hoverflies, which make great work in the garden in all sorts of different ways. So to me, it's kind of a staple that I like to put in. Now the variety that I'm going to recommend is the German chamomile. There's also a Roman one. It's a little bit less common. When in doubt, go with German chamomile. I personally find it to be a sort of self-sowing type of plant. Now you can start it in cells and if you want to, I would say go for it. But these seeds are tiny. We've had a ton of success picking a spot like this little flower patch right here and saying, Hey, I want some chamomile right where I'm standing. Pop that pack open, sprinkle it out and you're good to go. If there's one major thing I've learned as a gardener through the years is that planting things at the wrong timing window will entirely change the outcome of that plant. You cannot plant a field of sunflowers in the middle of winter and expect them to bloom into a giant beautiful mass as you see right here. This was planted in the spring for summer. So what do you need to plant in the summer for winter to guarantee it gets the biggest bloom possible? Well, I've got one very popular pick that I know many of you like to grow and maybe you've been planting at the wrong time. This is a flower that gardeners and florists both love. There's so many different colors out there and it is the snapdragon. Now if you look very closely at the packet, it says blooms heaviest in cool weather. So what's the problem here? Well, you want this to get established. You want it to grow into a large plant before that cool weather comes here in San Diego. That cool weather is really December, January into February. So I can't plant this in the springtime and expect to get heavy blooms. If I plant it in the springtime where most people do, I will just get a mediocre bloom of snapdragons that still looks cool, but is nothing compared to what you will get when you grow them over winter. I am talking about a mound of snapdragons that took over my four by four bed covered in blooms. I have never seen anything like it. And I have a couple of really cool picks that I want to share with you guys. The first is the magic carpet blend. This is a much smaller variety. It won't take up as much space or like crowd your beds. Perfect for borders. It comes in a nice mix of colors. But for me, I am such a sucker for orange flowers and the orange wonder has easily become my favorite snapdragon to grow is a standard one. It's a bit taller, but if you want a snapdragon that everyone will Marvel at and see from great distances, then you're going to want to go with the tall maximum blend. Again, it comes with a nice mix of colors, but it still has that height. Now starting snapdragons can be a little tricky because the seed is so small. And the other thing you want to look at is that light aids germination. So this is a seed you want to surface. So do not bury in soil. And there's another little tip here right on the packet, which says freezing seeds for 48 hours prior to sowing can also aid in germination. So check your seeds in the freezer for two days, then surface sow them in your six cells and you should get a really good germination rate and you'll get some monster monster blooms. You will be truly shocked at the difference. We are in the thick of the summer in the low desert here. We have temperatures reaching up to 110 already 112. So a lot of people think you cannot grow anything in the month of August here in the low desert, but that could not be further from the truth. One of my favorite things to start growing in August, if yours already didn't self seed from last year is Holly Hawks. Holly Hawks are one of my favorite flowers to grow here in the low desert. Now Holly Hawks usually are biennial, meaning they put on green growth first year and flower the second. However, there are varieties that are first year flowering, which includes the Indian Spring Holly Hawks from Botanical Interest. These are showy flowers, beautiful flowers. They come in all kinds of colors. This is a must grow in my garden every single year. If I plant them now in August, they will bloom in February and March in my yard. Another flower that does absolutely fantastic in our climate is the Gomphrena. Gomphrena handles the heat like a champ and is a staple in my garden every single summer. But you can still start Gomphrena well into August and still get a bloom before the cold comes. If the cold comes, I know last year we didn't even get a frost here in Buckeye where I'm at. August is a month of contradictions in the gardens of those of us with short growing seasons. The temperatures are very hot. The days are long. In fact, I have to cover most of my beds with shade cloth to protect from the intense sun. While the garden is thriving in August, I'm looking ahead to a fall garden. I can expect my first frost possibly at the end of September and definitely by the middle of October. But that still gives me time to grow a pretty good selection of plants. And one of them is the red Russian kale. Now this is a sweet and tender variety of kale that will germinate pretty quickly in the warm soils of August. And then as it begins growing within three to four weeks, I can expect to harvest some of those baby leaves. When I allow it to continue growing, it can shake off the frost. It can handle snow. Now if a hard freeze threatens, by then the shade cloth is gone and I'll cover my beds with plastic just to help give a little bit extra heat. But the kale is going to do great. In fact, when it is exposed to frost to those cold conditions, it's actually going to taste better. A fall garden in August is the way to go. August in Florida is marked by intense heat and the threat of hurricane season. None of this really screams gardening friendly weather. And indeed most of my month of August, I'm going to be cleaning up after summer's chaos, flipping beds, just sort of improving my garden before fall and getting things ready for fall planting. But there are some crops that are essential to get started in the month of August. And my first choice almost feels like planting seeds of hope for a cooler season to come. I'm talking about carrots. It feels insane to talk about sowing carrots in the month of August. This is the hottest month of the year. It's disgusting out here right now. But if we wait until the last week of August, we can get our carrots sown. And then in the subsequent months it's going to cool down and it's going to be perfect carrot harvesting weather. So our very first succession of carrots get started in the last week of August here in Florida. Choosing varieties. I mean, you really can't go wrong. Cosmic purple for the colorful carrots, the shin Carota, any of the Carota types, super sweet. They're a little bit of a fatter carrot. Oh, they're delicious. It truly can't go wrong. Atomic red is one that I love to grow over the middle of the winter in Florida because it's a winter carrot. Lots of options. Pick your choice. You can have rainbow carrots, definitely one of the crops that you can't miss. You should not miss in the month of August, but don't forget last week of August, don't start them early. Don't try to get a jump. It won't work. It will not work. It'll just be too hot for them. So last week of August, get them going. Hi guys. I am here at the epic homestead. It's so surreal. And I'm going to tell you guys about a crop that I kind of messed up as a baby gardener, as one does. I didn't really know how to plan it correctly, but I'm going to show you guys how to plan it correctly so that you don't have the same mistake. And that is winter radish. So my mistake when planting these for the very first time is I planted them in the spring. That is actually a huge no-no because they're called winter radish for a reason you're supposed to plant them in the fall. And in North Carolina, they can actually overwinter quite well for us. So I'll plant them in the fall. They'll grow all winter long. And then I'll harvest really, really early in the spring, usually around February or so. Whereas with summer radish, they're really quick growing like seed to harvest in like three weeks. These take a lot longer upwards of 50 or 60 days to get a good harvest. So my favorite varieties are daikon radish. And then I also love a watermelon radish. It's just really beautiful radish. I like to use the daikon in soups and stuff. And so here's my method of planting daikon. I do a little bit of chaos gardening and please don't tell Kevin. He doesn't know that I'm chaos gardening in his garden right now. Keep it a secret, but we're just going to do a little sprinkle, sprinkle. We're going to go in between these lettuces in North Carolina. This would make a lot of sense because as the lettuce kind of die out for the winter, the daikon will grow up and it'll get nice and big. I don't know what Kevin's going to do with this lettuce, but the daikon is probably going to take over because I'm just sprinkling it everywhere. And he's going to have a lot of daikon over the winter. You're welcome, Kevin. Hey there, it's Gray. I'm out here in the Lone Star State and it is obscenely early in the morning because let's face it, when we're growing out here in these warmer months out in the state of Texas, this is the prime time to be out in the garden. Warmer months. Who am I kidding? It is ungodly hot right now. Thus for my first pick for the month of August, it's going to take us inside. So plant something you may not have considered and it's sitting right inside our pantry. And that's going to be some black eyed peas, sometimes referred to as cow peas. So with these black eyed peas, let's go ahead and get it started up in here. And now black eyed peas like all of your legumes are going to be a direct sow for show plant. So what we're going to do is we're actually just going to cut down all of our corn that is completely died out here. And we're going to make room for our black eyed peas. Now the reason why I'm cutting down as opposed to trying to pull them up is because I want to leave these roots in place for organic matter for next season. And that's the whole reason why we're even planting our black eyed peas. We want to have more organic matter. We want to have more nitrogen so that we can plant our crops again in the spring. Now, as far as direct sowing, I'm going to take my hoary hoary here and I'm going to go about an inch, inch and a half deep down in a soil. And I'm just going to kind of drag it across my soil to create the rows that I want for my black eyed peas. Now, do you have to actually plant them in specific rows? No, you can totally do a little bit of chaos sowing as well. It just depends on your particular style of gardening and what you're comfortable with. Now, as far as using your grocery store, black eyed peas, it truly could be a mixed bag because in this bag, you can have anything from bush style, pole style or even hybrids because it really truly could be a toss up, but that's okay. Because the whole reason why we're doing this is for nitrogen fixation, as well as a nice harvest of black eyed peas come fall time. And now for my spacing, I'm going to actually just toss two to three peas down about every six inches or so, so that we get a nice crop of black eyed peas growing in this space. Then simply cover and give it a good drink. And then you're good to grow. And as far as our old corn, we're going to put that in our compost bin so that we can start making some soil for next season. I harvested my garlic from this bed last month after light amending and mulching. It's been sitting waiting for another wonderful fall crop. And that crop is early wonder beets. I'm going to fill this bed with beets. This is a wonderful crop that loves those cool conditions. It's going to germinate quickly in the warm soil. So about six to eight weeks before the first frost date, get those seeds started. It's still hot. So I'll leave the shade cloth on for those young seedlings. So they don't get too much of the intense sun. But after the plants are actively growing, I take the shade cloth off and the cooling days will be perfect for the beets. Within about three to four weeks, I can start harvesting those baby leaves. You don't have to grow beets just for the roots. Grow them for those delicious leaves. As the plants begin prospering, I'll choose a few that I'm going to leave in the ground over winter, because this is a biennial plant. And by leaving those roots in the ground next year, I can expect flowers and seeds to keep the process going. They love the cool temperatures. That first frost just means they're going to taste better. Snow? No problem. Even when it begins to get very cold, you can leave the beets in the ground as like refrigerator storage. Just make sure you harvest them completely before the ground freezes. Another crop that is a no brainer in the low desert of Arizona is sometimes often overlooked in a home garden, but it's cotton. I like growing cotton, not necessarily for the cotton itself, but I love the green it provides in the summer. The flower is absolutely stunning. And I think it's a beautiful addition to a low desert Arizona garden. It does fantastic in native soil. And if you know, our soil is very heavy clay and very, very compact, and it has no problem growing whatsoever. My next selection is a crop that has definitely stumped many gardeners over the years. It is truly challenging to grow big honking celery stalks like we see at the grocery store. Now us Florida gardeners, we're going to start our celery same time as we start our carrots last week of August. No sooner. Celery, unlike carrots, celery needs to be transplanted. You want to start them in seedling trays in ideal conditions, and then you're going to carefully transplant them out to their final growing space. You want nice, juicy celery plants. Start them in trays indoors, baby them along with consistent watering. Celery seeds take a really long time to germinate probably twice as long as carrots. You've got to be patient and don't lose hope. They are not dead. They are just taking forever. Once we see those little seedlings germinate, we are going to either step them up into a four inch pot for a little more babying and indoor care, or we're going to transplant them out into the garden. We are going to get them on a regular organic feeding schedule. You can use something like a SPOMA garden tone or whatever you have. That's a balanced fertilizer. We're going to make sure that we feed them regularly. These plants are nutrient hungry and if we don't give them regular feeding, they're going to become tough. They're going to become kind of, um, almost spicy in their flavor, which isn't a bad thing. But if you want more grocery store celery, feed them regularly, water them generously and deeply. We're going to make sure that the plants are adequately spaced out and we're going to put a nice layer of mulch around each plant. So they don't have the competition of weeds and keep the soil moisture and temperature a little bit more even. And one last note, celeriac or celery root and celery are grown in the very same way because they are the same plant. Celeriac is just a celery plant that was selected and perfected for big fat, gnarly and delicious roots. While celery plants are selected for their big fat, juicy stalks. So it's the same genus, same species. They just have a different piece of their anatomy that has been focused on for breeding. And so you can follow all the same rules for your celery plants when you're growing celeriac and you're going to get beautiful results. And now the next vegetable for me is going to be a little bit of a classic. My classic meaning that I grew it just last spring and then the season before that. Reason being is because it grows so prolifically well out here in North Texas. And yes, that is going to be the Chico broccoli. Reason being is because this broccoli performs so well for me. It's clearly becoming my favorite broccoli. Now broccoli is going to be a crop that's going to really benefit from a nice rich soil, rich in organic matter, well-draining and high in nitrogen. And while it is totally August out here in Texas, I am not going to be planting my broccoli just yet because I want to really wait to about mid month or so, because our planting window out here in North Texas is going to be anywhere between August 15th up to about September 30th so that I can ensure that I can get a nice fall crop. In the spring, I actually started it indoors and then eventually transplanted out to my garden. Reason being is because we hadn't gotten past our last frost date out here in Texas, but this go around, it's going to be a direct sow for show. And now what really makes the Chico broccoli the star of the show for me, it's going to be its extended harvest. So you can anticipate a harvest of about 45 to 50 days or so after your initial planting. And you'll know when your heads of your broccoli are ready to harvest because there'll be about three to four inches in diameter and you'll get some nice, real tight florets. But now here is where the Chico really steps up to the plate because of its side shoots. The side shoots on the Chico allows you to get multiple harvests, multiple heads off of this broccoli. And I can clearly say that out here in North Texas, Dallas, Fort Worth area, I was able to harvest my Chico broccoli up until about maybe mid May, maybe even longer. And that's why it's my favorite. Now when it comes to planting any of your broccolis, do remember that broccoli is a full sun loving plant. So plant it in a spot that's going to get nice adequate amount of sun. And yes, even Texas sun. Also make sure it gets a nice consistent amount of moisture because broccoli really does like having that nice moist, well draining soil. And now while I'm going to be direct sowing my broccoli, it still can be transplanted. So you can totally still start indoors. And if by any chance you actually miss our planting window, don't worry, because the Chico broccoli has a cold tolerance up to about 20 degrees. So even if you miss your window, you still got a while before it really gets cold out here in Texas and then get ready to have more broccoli than you know what to do with. But you know what? The Chico is my favorite broccoli. What's yours? Have you tried to grow broccoli and just not had much success? Broccoli is one of those plants that doesn't like temperatures above 80 degrees Fahrenheit. And so for many of us who try to grow it in a spring garden, it just gets too hot too fast. The little heads of the broccoli are actually a lot of little flower buds. And when it gets too hot, those buds are going to begin to flower. Going into the cool temperatures of fall, you're not going to have that issue. You can start broccoli and just about the time the heads are beginning to form, the temperatures are below 80 degrees and you can expect that they're not going to want to flower. I like the Bell Star broccoli variety that I'll be growing this year. It not only has nice tight six inch heads, but it has extra side shoots. So if you start it in early August, you can anticipate that you'll have side shoots and a head. The head may not reach full size before you harvest. It can handle the frost. It can handle the cool conditions, but you do want to make sure you harvest before a hard freeze. Broccoli, you like it? Can't grow it? Think about starting it in August. I know it's super hot out and the last thing we're thinking about right now is cool season because we are far from that time. However, after the 15th of August is a great time to start your cool season plants indoor because we have such a short growing season when it comes to cool season crops that the earlier you get them started, the more harvest you're going to be able to get before the brassicas and things like that start blooming. After August is halfway done. That's when I start my first succession of broccoli. And my favorite broccoli to grow in our climate is the Sun King. And I can get a few successions out of these if I start as early as August. So my first succession, if I sow in late August, I will get a harvest around Thanksgiving. It's August. It's easily the hottest most disgusting month of the year in North Carolina. So we're probably not thinking about our cool weather crops because we're all just like inside probably crying. But we have to start thinking about our cool weather crops as gardeners. We're always looking for the future. And one of my favorites that I plant every single year without question is cauliflower. I have two varieties that I love to grow. We've got a twister, which is really cool because it kind of the leaves kind of grow in this twisted kind of fashion. It's just one of those crops where people are like, Ooh, I've never seen that grow before. The other one I love is this alien variety called Romanesco. It literally looks like it doesn't belong on this planet. It's highly debated between, is it a broccoli? Is it a cauliflower? No one may never know, but we usually start these indoors in late July, early August, because brassicas, especially cauliflowers, they take kind of a long time to get started. We want that. We want to start them about eight weeks or so before we're planting them out. And so we're going to start those in seed trays. So for my next pick, we're actually going to change locations and move over to my container garden because this is a little bit of a favorite of mine that I grow just about every single summer. And I grow it because of its drought tolerance and its heat tolerance out here in Texas. And that's going to be red leaf amaranth. And now the reason why we're moving over to my container garden is because I actually have a volunteer growing this season. I mean, check this guy out. He actually just started kind of growing with my lilies. And the interesting thing is I didn't plant it. So this is definitely a happy volunteer. Now the reason why I love growing red leaf amaranth is because let's face it, I'm a sucker for color. So any chance I get to put nice pops of red and purple in my garden, I'm all about it. And red leaf amaranth delivers on all occasions. Secondly, it's going to be because of its flavor. I mean, it's a nice spinachy kind of taste, but it has a nice little bit of sweetness to it. It's great to saute. And honestly, when it comes to our spinaches, like our Bloomsdale and so forth, you know, it's a little bit too hot out here in Texas to start growing it right now. So red leaf amaranth will be a definitely a close contender. And now as far as sowing and growing is concerned, it actually does the best when we direct sow. We're going to direct sow at a depth of about eighth of an inch deep. Since an eighth of an inch is so hard to measure, visually speaking, I'm just going to drizzle a little bit of my soil right over the top here and that should be good enough. Now, as far as our germination, we're probably looking at about a good five to 10 days or so. In the meantime, I'm going to make sure that I keep the soil nice and evenly moist so I can make sure I definitely get that germination. As far as our harvest dates, we're probably looking at around maybe 50 to 75 days. So we're looking at two and a half months or so scenario. So that should put us like right around October, which is going to be perfect. But with that being said, since we have a short timeframe before our plant will go to full maturity, this is a perfect opportunity to practice a little succession planting. Why not next week plant a little bit more and a little bit more of your red leaf amaranth. That way, once October comes around, October and November, you're going to have red leaf amaranth all over the place. One of the biggest things that separates a good garden harvest from a great one is getting your timing right. So I'm here to tell you that if you're in zone seven and up, right now is the most important time to get all of your alliums and onion started. Before I show you how to start these seeds, because they do take a long time to grow. We are starting them in August, but we're probably not planting them all the way out until October, or maybe even November. You need to know if you're growing the right type of onion. If you look at any onion packet, it should say something like this, short day, intermediate day, or long day variety. Now that is entirely dependent on how far North or South you live or what latitude you're at here in San Diego. Since we're at the very bottom of the United States, generally short day onions are the ones that we're going to be growing, but also intermediate day onions will do just okay in our area. But long day onions are literally impossible to grow. They will not both. Now there is an exception in the allium world because things like leeks, they don't care. They could be grown in any zone. It doesn't matter the variety. They will do just fine. And they're also a great thing to start right now. So now let me get into the sowing techniques and tell you how you're going to keep these alive and keep them thriving so that they're ready to plant when the time is right. When it comes to actually planting onions to grow in your garden, one thing that you need to know is that you're going to want a lot of them. You're planting these onions like three inches apart, which means that you could fit hundreds in a single raised bed. So when it comes to sowing them, we're not going to be sowing like one seed at a time. Although if you have something like a 16 cell and you're not trying to grow too many onions, you could individually try to sow each one, but it will be a little challenging to keep something like this well hydrated. If you're starting seeds outside, if you're indoors, this is a great solution, but here's what I like to do instead. I'll take an onion packet. And also another thing you should know about onions is that the seeds do not last. They do not store well. Oftentimes germination rates plummet. Even after just a year, that's just the way that onions are. And so what I'll do is I'll take a bunch of seeds like this. I'll take a pinch of them and I'll just drop like literally 20 to 30 onion seeds on every single one of these six cells. So I could split an entire packet of onion seeds into an individual six cell. And what this does is it makes it super easy to actually maintain the watering of the system. All we're going to do is bury it with some super crispy dry soil. You should probably use something a little bit more hydrated than this, but don't worry. I'll water it after. And what's going to happen here is you're going to get basically a little field of onion grass. And once they're like this tall, we could start ripping them apart and planting them as individuals in something like a 16 cell. This makes life a lot easier, allows the onions to grow really nice root systems. And once it comes to planting, it is a lot easier to separate out each individual onion from something like this instead of ripping and planting the clumps at the time of planting. Although that is also an option. I added this fence around my garden this summer, primarily to keep animal pests out, but also because I had a specific plant in mind to actually grow along the fence. That plant is a mammoth melting snow pea. It's a pea that has vines four to six feet long. So this wire fencing will act as a trellis for my snow peas along this fence in the full sun. Peas don't like temperatures above 85 degrees. But by the time I hit the middle of August, my temperatures are going to stay cooler than that for the rest of the season. The peas are going to grow up this trellis and they're going to shake off all of that cold. They're going to shake off the snow. They'll continue growing until the temperatures begin dropping down into the teens, which gives me a pretty long time to be harvesting peas. Snow peas are the kind of peas that you want to harvest when the pods are flat, when the pea inside has just barely begun to form. So as soon as you see that happening, harvest those snow peas. And if the temperatures are warm enough, you'll see a continued growth of flowers and more pods until the extreme temperatures of winter begin to hit. This next pick is one that I definitely mentioned here before on the channel and maybe even in a guide like this, but this time I'm growing it for a completely different reason. I was in Japan earlier this spring and I had the experience of dyeing indigo using naturally fermented indigo vats. The peas is amazing. I kind of got really hooked on this idea of what else can I grow that will impart some kind of color to a textile, a dyer's garden, if you will. So what I'm growing this year for the purpose of dyeing is calendula. Now there's three different varieties for growing that I think would be great for any of you watching. The first one is going to be resina. This is the one that has the highest resin content. Maybe if you're more into the herbalist medicinal approach, this one would be good for you. For color, you could go with the Pacific Beauty blend, or if you want a more abnormally colored but still beautiful one, I would maybe go with the Zeolite. What I can say is this is a fantastic one to get in the ground in August in a lot of different zones. But also, at least for me, you're going to see this in next season's garden as something I'm going to use to try to dye a fabric a beautiful bright yellow. So let's see how that goes. And if you want a full guide on growing calendula, you can check out this video right here. All of our seeds are available at botanicalinterest.com or at 5,000 stores around the country. And until next time, good luck in the garden and keep on growing.