For gardeners, fall’s harvest starts with today’s work

August is a month to be endured.
It’s hot. It doesn’t have a national holiday or even a good party day like St. Patrick’s or Cinco de Mayo. It’s very hot. School starts back again (OK, that one’s for the kids).

And did we mention August tends to be beastly hot?

Even in the garden, there’s not much happening, producewise -- though if you’re tuned into the growing calendar, August is the month to get your garden ready for an autumnal bounty of beets and broccoli, peas and potatoes.

“I like to say the stuff you plant in September will be on your Thanksgiving table,” says David Holmes, director of the Marion County Extension Service.

But wait too long to plant some things, adds Alachua County environmental horticulture extension agent Wendy Wilber, and you could be heartbroken “if we get an early freeze.”

But first, as in any other worthwhile endeavor, preparation, preparation and, um, preparation is key.

“Hopefully, you will already have been solarizing your garden,” Holmes says. This is a process of clearing the garden of all vegetation, moistening it and sealing it beneath a sheet of four-ply clear plastic for a few weeks.

“This helps kill off fungal spores, weed seeds and helps reduce nematodes,” Wilber says. “What’s best is if there’s no roots at all for nematodes to live on.”

So why not black plastic instead of clear?

“Black absorbs the heat, while the clear lets the sunlight in,” Wilber says. Holmes adds it can get up to 140 degrees under the plastic.

While the garden is cooking is a good time to craft a garden plan, notes Norma Samuel, Wilber’s counterpart in Marion.

“Lay out what you want to plant where, and how you’re going to rotate your plants,” she says. “If you had tomatoes in one section last year, put in cucumbers or something different.”

What should you plant?

Among the cool-season veggies are beets, carrots, cabbage, radish, English peas, lettuce, onions, spinach and turnips. Some of the heartier varieties such as broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts and greens can be planted as late as October, Wilber says, though that might be pushing it.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture lists Gainesville in growing zone 8B, described as “a temperate climate with relatively mild winters and a long growing season.”

A complete list of hot- and cool-season veggies and when to plant them is in “Vegetable Gardening in Florida,” a book by James Stephens available at the Marion Extension office in Ocala and the University of Florida/IFAS bookstore in Gainesville. The list includes yield and days to harvest.

A full list also is part of the “Florida Vegetable Gardening Guide” that can be downloaded free from the UF/IFAS Web site, at www.edis.ifas.ufl.edu/vh021.

The first week in September is the target date for planting most cool-weather veggies, Holmes says. And it’s a fairly short window -- about two weeks. “When the soil temperature and night temperature drop, the growing slows,” he adds.

“About a week before you plant, add some supplemental fertilizer. We usually recommend a 6-6-6,” he says. It generally comes in a 50-pound bag. “Use about half of it for a 25-foot-by-25-foot garden. That’s a good size; if it gets too big, you can get discouraged. And a garden produces more than you might think.”

Wilber is a fan of raised garden beds. “You can customize your soil, rather than working in our sandy soil, which is nutrient-lacking.” Also, she recommends Alachua gardens be at least 30 feet from laurel oaks to avoid root competition.

Wilber suggests August is an excellent time for a soil test. A pH of 6.5 “is ideal for growing vegetables,” she says.

The test can be arranged through either extension office. In Marion, the Master Gardeners will test pH for free; the same test costs $3 in Alachua because it’s sent to a lab at the University of Florida. A more extensive soil test by UF is $7 in both counties.

So it’s time to plant.

Seed depth depends on the size of the seed, Holmes says. Once the seedlings break about an inch or so above ground, “side-dress them,” Holmes says. Essentially, this is adding a small bit of fertilizer -- remember that half bag left over from earlier in the month? -- along the side of each plant. About five ounces per 10 feet of row is recommended.

Or you might opt for seedlings, Samuel says: “Just make sure you start with healthy seedlings.”

They can be purchased at most garden supply stores.

Holmes agrees: “The advantage of seedlings is somebody else has already put in about four weeks on them, so you get a four-week jump.”

Then, it’s just daily watering -- “A quarter-inch a day is about right,” Holmes says -- and watching for pests before harvesting.

Samuel adds that, should your garden produce more than you can use, can, freeze or share the extra with a neighbor or a food bank “so it doesn’t go to waste.”