15 Vegetables to Plant in August

It's August and there is still so many things that you can plant in the garden. In fact, today I'm going to tell you 15 things that you can plant in your garden from seed to grow in August. And we'll talk about whether you're in a cold climate, a mild climate or a hot climate and what to plant in each one of those. So the first thing to figure out is how many days, how many months you've got until you hit your first frost. Now, if you're in a cold place, then August is probably two or so months, maybe even just one month away from your first frost. This means that you've got just a little bit of time left in the warm season and you're heading into the cool season. So we're going to focus on cool season crops for you if that's the case. If you have at least two or even three months until your first frost, let's say your first frost is in October, you're considered what I call a mild climate. This is where you've got a good season ahead of you, where you can still grow some warm season crops, but you're going to start heading into cool season in about a month or so, and you can even start to put some of those cool season crops into the garden right now. Finally, we've got our hot season people. These are people who are still pretty warm, really warm, and will not be having a frost anytime soon. In fact, your first frost might be November, December, you might not even have a frost for you. You're going to focus mostly on the warm season type plants that you can still start from seed and then you may be able to transition to some cool season plants later on. But we will not be doing any of that in August. So let's first talk about our cool season people. Everyone that's got a frost date that's coming up very quickly, you're going to want to plant these plants. So if frost is coming your way very soon, then you want to start with lots of leafy greens. Kale and Swiss chard are two that you can put in the garden right away and will start to be mature and ready to cut in about 45 to 60 days, just with small little leaves. And then they're going to get much bigger. Then we've got some lettuce, any kind of lettuces. Your spring mix is going to do great in a cool season as well. And then of course, spinach. This is the time when spinach really shines, is when that frost date is really Close. So plant spinach closer to the end of the month if you're in a cool area. And then finally, butterhead lettuce. This is a great one to grow if you're heading into the cool season right away in those colder parts of the country. All right, once you plant those lettuces, all those greens, you want to add in some root crops. Root crops that do great in the cool season are going to be carrots and some bunching onions, really any kind of onions, radishes, and then also beets. I ran out of beet seeds, but you can see all the lovely beets right here. This is time to put those seeds in the ground as well. So I've got our leafy greens and our root crops. And. And then if you're heading toward a cool season, then you want to grow snap peas as your fruit. So these can grow over your arch trellises, over your obelisk trellises, and these will grow. You'll be ready to pick these in about 60 to 75 days. So that's the list if you're heading to a cool season. If you've got a frost coming by September or early October, then it is time to put all of these seeds into the garden right now in August. All right. Now, if you're in a mild climate, if you've got a frost coming probably in October, then this means you've got all of August, all of September and most of October to grow a mix of warm season plants and cool season plants in general. I'll keep most of my warm season plants in the garden and start to tuck in my cool season plants. You want to kind of do this slower and start it later in the month, closer to the end of August rather than right away. Some greens that you can grow right now are Swiss chard and kale. These are biennial greens, meaning they want to stay in the garden for two years before they go to flower. And so these are great ones to start even if you're in a warmer spot and it's really not showing any signs of cooling down just yet. Another green that you can grow right now in August is arugula. And you can see we've got arugula all throughout this garden, even though it's quite warm here. We're actually in the 90s, even going into August. But arugula is a green that you can plant right now to enjoy August, September, October, even past your first frost. Now, if you're in a mild climate, then you can also plant those same root crops, carrots and onions and radishes and beets, but you want to plant these toward the latter part of this month. And you also want to plant these underneath some tall plants. So if you've got like a nice big row of peppers or kale or eggplant, then you want to slide those root crops right underneath them, making sure they still get some sunlight, but they get a little bit of shade coverage, especially in August, as they start to take root and begin to grow, they generally like the soil to be a little bit cooler. So growing them under the shade of the taller plants is going to be a secret to your success. For the fruiting crops, you still have some time to grow some bush beans if you want some. So you've got at least 60 to 75 days until your first frost. And so you could grow some bush beans in the open areas of your bed. So bush beans are a great fill in crop that you can just kind of stick anywhere. And you're going to get a harvest within about 60 to 75 days, which will be just right before you get that first frost. Finally, cucumbers are great to climb the trellis as a fruit because most of these are going to be 60 to 75 day crops. And you've got about that long before you're going to hit your first frost if you're in a mild area. So that's all you want to plant. If you're in a mild climate, you've got frost coming, but it's not going to hit until mid to late October. All right, let's say you are in a hot climate and you do not have any sign of frost coming anytime soon. In fact, your first frost date isn't until November, December, or maybe you don't have a frost date at all. Then you are going to probably prioritize mostly warm season foods. So you're going to be planting all the things that you planted back in the spring. August is the time to really replant those. So when it comes to the leaves, you're going to do the Swiss chard and the kale and arugula. Those are the greens that can hang on when it's hot outside. When it comes to your root crops, you could actually do a second set of potatoes. You can get some fall potatoes growing in the garden because you don't have frost cover coming anytime soon. You could also try your hand at growing possibly some beets if you're doing it right underneath the shade of other plants. But it is going to be a little tough because they like that soil temperature to be lower. Same with carrots. You could test it out, but again, they like the temps lower, so you'd want to do it under the COVID of some really tall plants. When it comes to your fruit and crops, you could try your hand at doing tomatoes one more time in the fall. And I didn't include tomatoes in this list because you can't grow them from seed at this point. But you can definitely try cucumbers and pole beans. Those are going to do great. And you can start them right now from seed. To get a crop that will go all the way through the fall, you'll probably get several harvests. You could probably even plant them again successively again in September to get a double harvest. So that's what you can grow. Even if it's hot outside and you have no frost coming, you still want to switch your plants up a little bit as you head toward the fall season. There you have it. Those are the 15 things that you can plant right away right now, no matter where you're growing. At Gardenary, we grow every day of the year, and so we're definitely going to be busy all month long in August, and we'll be guiding you through each and every step. If you want to grab our fall set of seeds or any set of seeds to help you grow the gardenary way, then you can find those in the gardenary shop. And we'll put a link to these seeds right below this video. And also, everything in this garden is completely shoppable. Our trellises, our raised beds, our obelisks, all the things you see here you can get from the gardenary shop. So we'll put a link to that below this video. Thanks so much for watching, for being part of Gardenary and bringing back the garden with me. It means the world to me and I cannot wait to see all the things you grow in the month of August. Tell me below which one you're going to try first.