Mike Dunton’s Maritime Northwest Edition Victory Gardener’s Almanack for the month of August
By August, the planting season is nearly over and the yard and garden are in harvest and maintenance mode. Take time to sit, relax and enjoy the produce you have fostered from your plot of this Earth.
In the Vegetable Garden
- Dig potatoes as soon as the tops have died down. Depending on your locale, they may store better in the ground than indoors or in the cellar.
- Pick lima beans while still green.
- Harvest and eat the early onions first. The white and sweet varieties generally do not store well, whereas the yellows typically store the best.
- Thin late beets now.
- Keep mature peppers and eggplant fruits picked, so that the smaller fruits will develop.
- Continue to sow endive, spinach, and lettuce seeds.
- Blanch cauliflower heads by pulling the leaves around the heads and fastening with string.
- Pick cucumbers as soon as they are large enough. Keep them well watered to avoid bitterness.
- Place developing melons on a board so that they are protected from rot and insect attack.
- Harvest many herbs now, before they flower and are at their spiciest. Dry thoroughly and store in airtight containers in a cool, dark place for best results.
- Remove raspberry canes after they are done producing, but be sure not to injure the developing shoots that will be next year’s producing canes.
- Empty ground should be planted in a good cover crop. Sow early so that it gets well established. Turn into the soil next spring as a green manure.
Mike Dunton is the founder of the Victory Seed Company and one of the early signers of the Safe Seed Pledge. The Victory Seed Company works to preserve rare, threatened, heirloom seeds and to make them available to home gardeners. Mike is an entrepreneur, farmer, lifelong gardener, and seed saver interested in “old-timey” ways, historical agriculture and biodiversity preservation. From his ancestral farm in Liberal, Oregon, he focused all of these interests and founded the mission-driven Victory Seed Company in 1998. He works to locate, grow, document and preserve rare, threatened, heirloom seed varieties keeping them available to gardeners nationwide. You can find them online at www.VictorySeeds.com or email him at info@victoryseeds.com. Your support is greatly needed and appreciated.
