Late August is the time for sunflowers and dragonfly’s in the garden. 
Its also the time for most gardeners to smile. All the hard work of planting, tending, watering and weeding are paying off. This is the week you can start taking a salt shaker to the garden and “graze”. If you have never had the pleasure of tasting the difference between a sun warmed early girl or a super sweet patio tomato you are missing a piece of homegrown heaven. The cucumbers, squash, onions, eggplant and peppers are all starting to produce in our garden. Its time to add all of these to your menu in their native form for optimal taste and nutrition. I’ve offered a marinated bean salad using some fresh green beans and herbs from your garden. The bean salad is a cool treat that is high fiber, low calorie and super crispy crunch for your summer menu. Some other great uses of green beans in panang curry or put up some dilled beans.
Its also time to start putting up pickles for winter as the cucumbers are on! Locally cucumbers have been as economical as 8 for $1. A simple $4 of cucumbers turned into 32 pints of pickles both dill and bread and butters. That makes good money sense for our family as the pickles we prefer are over $3.00 a jar in the store. Between putting up our own pickles and tomato products we need from year to year we not only help our budget we ensure we have homegrown taste as a bonus. The old-fashioned value meal starts at home in this house.
Have you ever??? This is the mystery that came up when I pulled my first round of snow peas out. I have grown peas for years but had never seen the like, any idea’s? Of course I took them down to the diagnostic clinic at Ogden Botanical Gardens (Wednesdays 3-5pm) and asked. Mr Goodspeed and Dori (garden manager) both had a look and decided that believe it or not, its a good thing. The growth is simply nitrogen gathered and set by the pea roots. I had read and heard that pea’s set nitrogen in the soil, but had never seen it before now. Please, send a comment or email if you have had a similar experience.
Its time to consider fall plantings, if you haven’t already. The idea is to garner another group of 60 day crops before the frost comes. Options include lettuce, mesclun, bush beans, radishes, snow peas and greens (collards, chard, etc.). All of these will be harvest-able in approximately 60 days. The seeds germinate quickly in the heated soil and growth is predictably fast. The fall “salad bowl” is amazing and with some care will last you into October. Remember to replant garlic in September for a June/July harvest for next year. Snow peas are another great fall crop as they will actually continue to grow past frost if you cover them lightly on frost possible nights. We have seen snow peas into November in years we have an “indian summer” here in our little 4 letter state.
We just had our local county fair here. As a gardener if you ever want to find out what grows well locally, your county fair is the perfect spot to visualize what you could grow next year. Everyone who brought crops in commented on what a wet June we had and how it slowed crops growth, the general assumption was that as an average gardens are about 3-4 weeks behind last year. The stand out crops were squash, onions, green tomatoes and corn. We had a wagon load of turnips show up that you could have drilled holes in and bowled with! Good Heavens, what does someone do with a 10lb turnip? We had the typical banana squash that would float a small child to safety if split and hollowed out as a boat. Amazingly the yellow squash was bigger than the zucchini this year. We also had nice blackberries and grapes entered. Someone got really creative and grew a pumpkin in a gallon bottle….why? I have to assume because they could – no idea what good it was for other than a conversation piece which it was. Personal brag – my herbs won three blue ribbons this year.
