What's going on guys? Kevin from Epic Gardening here.
Today we are talking about what to plant in August.
Now most gardeners are probably winding their summer gardens down,
getting ready for good harvests and not thinking about planting something new.
But in fact, in most areas of the United States,
you can plant something new and in some zones you can actually get a really nice
fall crop going of many, many different plants. So let's get into it.
Before we get into exactly what to plant,
let's talk about plant hardiness zones.
Now most of you are probably already familiar with plant hardiness zones and you
know which zone you're in. But for those that aren't,
it is basically a way to categorize the climate of your area and put that into a
single number that will tell you basically what you can and can't grow during
different times of the year.
So I'll put a link in the video description that will let you figure out exactly
what zone you're in.
You'll just type your zip code in and it'll spit out the zone. But for now,
let's hop into every single zone.
So I've got zone three to zone 10 because those are the common zones in the
United States. Let's start out with zone three.
So in zone three we got spinach.
Spinach is a very easy crop to squeeze in at the end of your growing season.
So you're going to want rich, well draining soil,
a pretty standard pH slightly on the lower end.
Space them about a foot apart and then you're going to want to plant them
basically right now, six to eight weeks before your first frost,
which is going to come fairly soon if you're in zone three.
Obviously most people already are familiar with spinach,
but it's a fantastic crop. It grows very quickly and it is a big, big producer.
So let's hop into zone four. In zone four, this is a cool plant.
This is something I wasn't very familiar with before I started researching.
It's called corn salad or mache, I hope I'm pronouncing that right.
And apparently there are over 60 varieties that all grow really delicious fresh
greens. So again, this is very similar to spinach.
You'll want to plant it in rich rich,
well draining soil 6.5 to seven pH, this time six inches apart.
Uh, the one tip though is that it is a slow germinator at 10 to 14 days.
So if you want to put this into your fall harvest,
then you're going to want to plant it basically right now because again,
that first frost in zone four will be coming up shortly. All right,
zone five. Beets or beta vulgaris. Uh,
beets are slightly heavy feeders.
They need a lot of potassium to produce and they also need a loose soil because
they are a root crop.
So you don't want any rocks or heavy bits of compost or anything like that
getting in their way. So make sure that you loosen up that soil,
make sure it's nice and friable.
They need a 6.2 to 7 pH. You can,
you can space them relatively close and then you can plant them 10 to 12 weeks
before the first frost. And in zone five, if you plant right about now,
you'll have enough time to squeeze these babies in. Zone six,
we've got broccoli.
This is actually a romanesco-style with the fractal design in it,
which is really neat, but you don't have to grow it.
You can grow a more standard type of broccoli if you want. Again, broccoli,
rich loose soil, six to seven pH.
These babies grow pretty large and the greens sort of fan out,
so you're going to want to space them at least one and a half feet apart and
plant them 85, a hundred days before the first frost.
In zone six that's right about now,
but you could probably get away with going a little bit later. Zone seven,
carrots.
These are a tricky one to grow if you're a first time carrot grower because they
grow, again, as a root crop,
but they also grow much deeper than most common root crops like onions or beets.
So you're going to want to make sure that you loosen the soil,
you clear it of any debris or rocks or hard pieces of of compacted soil to at
least a foot down.
Because otherwise they'll either fork or they'll grow misshapen and while that's
fine, you may want to, you know, grow a nice long straight carrot.
So it's up to you,
but I would recommend definitely loosening your soil and clearing it of all
debris. Again, they require 6.0 to 6.8 range pH,
which is fairly common with most of the stuff that we're covering.
Space these boys three to four inches apart and then plant them two to three
months before your first frost. Zone eight,
we've got squash or the field pumpkin actually is the more common name for this.
These guys grow in a hill.
You plant usually two to three seeds per hill.
Get them in the ground early August in zone eight and you'll have a nice harvest
right around Halloween-time if not a little before, a little later,
depends on your region specifically. They need again,
a relatively common pH of 6.0 to 6.5 and you're gonna want to space each hill
about two to three feet apart. Onto zone nine.
So you can still grow cherry tomatoes in the fall in zone nine because
effectively the fall is just a bit cooler summer in zone nine. So,
these guys, give them a lot of nutrients in the soil.
Make sure that it's nice and moist, keep that pH in the standard range.
They'll harvest,
they'll start flowering from seedlings in about a month or so and then they'll,
they'll start popping out fruits about two months from then.
And then you can just keep harvesting it until the frost date comes along and
you move into real winter in zone nine. Finally zone 10,
garlic. This is actually the zone that I'm in,
so I'm going to start getting some garlic in the ground. Garlic takes forever,
almost half a year sometimes,
to actually produce full ready garlic heads.
So it's good to get it in the ground as soon as possible.
You can overwinter these in zone 10 because zone 10 basically doesn't have a
winter. So keep them in well draining soil, make sure that it's cool. Again,
pH six to seven,
spacing of the cloves that you plant about six to eight inches apart.
You can grow these in rain barrels, in rows.
I mean there's so many different ways to grow garlic, it's really up to you.
So that's what we have guys.
Those are some cool plants that you can add to your garden in August to make
sure you squeeze out as much yield as possible. So if you like this,
definitely hit Subscribe, hit Like, share it with your friends.
And leave comments on the types of videos that you want to see because I'm
releasing two a week now, Mondays and Thursdays.
So let me know what you want to see and I will definitely hustle to get those
out for you. Alright, Kevin from Epic Gardening guys,
keep growing and I'll see you later.