We have already arrived in the middle of August. A month in which plenty can be harvested but also sow a lot! Most gardeners forget that you can start sowing a lot of seeds in August. So you can also enjoy your vegetable garden harvest in the fall, winter, and early spring. 

Late summer sowings are sown after the flowering season, and therefore plants concentrate on growing leaves, potentially over many months.

By mid-august, we started our rocket seeds for a harvest in the autumn. If some plants manage to shoot up some flower stems because due to warm autumn weather we quickly remove those. We will do the second sowing by the end of August to see if you manage to overwinter them for an early spring harvest. 

We sowed 3 different spinach varieties to compare them. We sowed them in the 77 cell trays with 3 seeds in each cell of Nores, Winter Giants, and Securo. Although the advice for Nores is till the end of July we are giving it a try. 

Did you know you can grow your salad in the autumn and winter? Despite our last sowing still being in full production, we started a range of Charles Dowding CD60 seed trays with different lettuce varieties we like. We will grow them to regularly pick the outer leaves. We have been giving away our salad mixes to many neighbors, friends, and family so we probably won’t have any trouble with our large harvest. Last winter, in our just newly made beds we overwintered perfect lettuce with a thin layer of horticultural fleece (we had snow and -15 for one week!). 

Raymond was very excited to finally sow the pak choi as well, but when the moment was finally there he realized he lost the seeds! 

Besides spinach, rocket, lettuce, and pak choi you can sow much more! here is a quick list of seeds you can start in August:

mustard, tatsoi, coriander, dill, chervil, turnips, mooli radish, onions, spring onions and potentially spring cabbage to overwinter as small plants.

Nicole has been busy sowing many hardy biennials to flower next spring and summer. The list is endless but here are some of her favorites you could definitely give a try:

All varieties of Digitalis, Sweet Rocket (Hesperis matronalis), violas in many colors (great to add color in the winter and spring), forget me not, hollyhocks, Delphiniums, Canterbury bells, columbine, money plant, and Sweet William. 

Overall a great month with a lot of summer vegetables giving you their fruits, and if you are not overwhelmed by all your harvest definitely give the August sowing a try. If you like, let us know what you are, or already have been sowing! We always love to hear about your garden adventures.