Crops You Can Plant in Late July - Early August for a Fall Harvest

what is going on everyone welcome to another very exciting episode right here on the mi gardener channel in today's episode i'm going to be addressing a very common question that we get asked right around this time and that is luke what going to be planting in late july early august in preparation for fall and if you're a lot like me that's something that we start thinking about right now because fall is coming even though it's nice and hot even though the you know the the melons are producing the the tomatoes are ripening and peppers are coming on all your summer crops are just coming into fruition you don't want to start thinking about fall you don't want to start thinking about cold weather but if you're a gardener you do have to think one step ahead or i guess one growing season ahead as we start pulling off some of our summer crops like our well our garlic which is a summer crop it's actually considered a mid-season crop which we'll get into as we start pulling off our garlic and that bed is is empty or let's say our beans fizzle out from the from the summer heat we've already harvested a lot from them we might want to plant something else there maybe another bean harvest we'll get into that um or maybe you had like a late season uh just like a like a late harvest of carrots something like that we just started pulling our carrots so once you start pulling those mid-season crops off and it's uh you know mid to late july early august you want to start planning as soon as you start opening up that bed space because the more food you can grow number one the less weeds they're going to be because if you have a bed bear mother nature always finds a way to grow something there and it's almost always a weed but also when you cover it with food you're going to be growing more food in less space because we're not expanding our garden we're just staggering our harvest so we're getting more of a prolonged harvest now what i really want to touch on first is the topic of early season mid-season and late season vegetables this is really going to hopefully help you kind of wrap your mind around plants that you can grow because as soon as i harvest my garlic in like around 4th of july my brain is already thinking what can go there and the first step that you have to think about is what is the time of year what is coming next what season is coming next how long do i have until that season is over and also what is the weather like that's going to get to that season so because we're in the you know the hottest part of summer right now when we're going in well we're just now going into the hottest part of summer i wouldn't want to plant what's an early season vegetable in a where i have kind of a mid-season left early season is broken down by anything that takes up to about 35 to 40 days to mature so that could be things like radishes spinach lettuce very quick turnaround crops there's tons of them out there but usually up to 30 35 to 40 days to mature those are very quick turnaround crops and they typically like cooler weather because they do mature very quickly they'll go to seed very quickly if they're exposed to hot weather then you have mid-season crops and mid-season crops are anywhere from about 40 to 45 days up to about 60 to 65 days and those are mid-season crop and the reason why is because they typically take for most growing areas a half a season it's a mid-season now do not get this confused with early season mid-season and late season things like cabbages tomatoes potatoes stuff like that there are early season mid-season and late season cabbages but that's not what we're talking about this is a classification of vegetable that you can that you can put into this class to help you better um help you better plan what you're going to grow there next and so uh again things from about 40 to 45 days up to about 60 to 65 days that window in there that could be things like cabbages broccolis kale swiss chard it's a huge group there's so many things that are mid-season vegetables there's also mid-season vegetables that require overwintering like garlic being primarily one of the biggest ones that is a mid-season vegetable because you plant it in the fall but you harvest it halfway through the growing season the following year and so it's still a mid-season vegetable just because you just because it takes longer to get it there doesn't mean that it's not a mid-season vegetable so there's a lot of different types of mid-season vegetables and what i really like to do well then also there's late season vegetables which is 65 days and plus so that could be you know that could be 65 days 90 days 110 days something like that and these are typically crops that you plant in the spring and harvest in the fall now you can have like a late season tomato which is like a beef steak that can take 100 to 110 days that's a late season vegetable but you can also have mid-season tomatoes as well and that's why it's very important to break down these classifications because you know they're not they're not all created equal if you plant two beef steaks uh they're gonna take or if you plant a beef steak wait for that beef steak to mature and then pull that plant out after it matures and plant another beef steak there there's no way in a billion years at least here in michigan you're going to get a harvest from that second plant it might start growing and it might get a foot and a half tall before the frost knocks it out but that's not producing that's not maturing and that's because we don't have 220 days in our growing season and so what you can do is with things like a mid-season tomato with things like a cherry tomato you can start them very very early and then by like the fourth of july once they start producing pull them out by the end of july early august but have another seedling ready and we talked about that start start your your tomato seedlings your very fast maturing seedlings start them say like mid-june late june have a seedling ready ready to go in a pot so that you when your tomato plants are kind of fizzling out from the summer heat you can pop another one right in their place and that's going to be a good fall harvest that is piggybacking off two mid-season varieties and that's why it's so important to understand the terminologies and how it applies to your garden so late season varieties like i said typically varieties you plant in the spring harvest in the fall things like celery things like parsnips they take a whole season to grow i don't really love growing these crops because they take so long to grow but i will grow a few here and there but it's just they take so much time and they require so much of my bed space to get uh you know to get a harvest off that i'd rather go to farmer's market and and just support a local farmer for those types of crops so back to what i was talking about now that we know the different classifications and kind of the the maturity dates within that classification we can look at a bed that's bare say in late july early august and we can say okay i know that i'm in the hottest part of summer so i can't plant an early season vegetable yet i can wait i can wait until things cool down but then i'm going to leave my bed bare so what i'd really like to do is i would really like to plant a a faster maturing mid-season variety something like a beet beets they take they typically take about 45 to 60 days perfect mid-season vegetable for our case right now they can take the heat they can tolerate the heat they can take the cool weather as well so if we want to harvest them very quickly we can pull them off at 45 to 50 days have smaller sized beets like a little a little bit bigger than a golf ball or we can let them get fully mature size at about 65 to 70 days and uh you know and they're gonna be nice and big and that will still leave some uh some time left in our growing season for uh something like a radish or or spinach so it definitely gives us that verse that versatility if we are planting something like a broccoli or a cabbage another wonderful set of crops to grow and that's because these crops like the warm weather they don't mind they don't mind the cold but they also don't mind the heat and broccoli is something that if you plant them in the cold weather and it gets hot too fast they'll bolt but if you plant them in the hot weather keep them well watered and they grow into cooler weather they're actually going to do better and so with things like with our bed that has the uh the garlic that we just harvested i might plant half the bed out with some uh some broccoli i might plant the rest of the out rest of the bed out with some late season cabbages and what i mean by late season cabbages is i might plant out cabbage for a late season harvest again do not get that confused with early season mid-season late season cabbages there are definitely those types of cabbages but none of them really matter because they're all a mid-season type cabbage they will all take roughly that that 50 to 75 days or so and so they still all kind of fit within that mid-season category now what i really love to do and what i really would encourage you guys to do is to mix up your crops because not everything is going to work out you know when like i said when i look at what i'm going to plant here i look at the fact that i'm going into the hottest part of summer and certain things like carrots you know you could you have enough time to plant carrots but they might it might be so hot it might be so dry that your carrots don't germinate well and so if you want to grow some carrots designate a little space give it a shot try it but don't designate a whole bed to it because then you're going to have patchy germination you might not have them sprout at all and you don't want to waste all of that precious time to necessarily dedicate to a crop that yes could grow but based on how it grows and its growth habits it might not do the best for you and so it's very important to kind of diversify mix up what you're planting i might plant things like cucumbers i might plant things like a late harvest of zucchini and the reason why is because right now our zucchini is kind of taking a toll from the high humidity and high heat but as the high heat and high humidity kind of fade and we get into more of a dry heat the sure the zucchini might not love it but as it gets cooler it's going to actually start producing into the cooler weather we've talked about planting a fall harvest of zucchini so many people avoid planting these crops because they think it's a it's a hot you know hot weather summertime vegetable and they don't see it growing in the fall in most people's gardens and that doesn't mean that it won't grow for you it just means that a lot of people don't plant it and so like i said if i um if i harvested some space let's say i harvested my my beans behind me let's say i harvested my beans well the beans right now are doing pretty well but in about a week or two the summer heat pretty much inevitably is going to knock those out beans are a great mid-season crop and i want to i want to add another mid-season crop onto that and another mid-season crop that i might plant it would be uh some zucchini there so it's just very important to remember that that it's not there's there's an endless list of things you can plant but you have to ask yourself does it do well in the time that i'm planting it do i have enough time to plant it to get it to maturity and if those two check boxes are well if those two boxes are checked or whatever if those two check boxes are checked i'm having a great day uh always i'm in the garden but if those two boxes are checked you can plant it i think there are just so many people that that they get so overwhelmed and they get so flustered and concerned about what can't i plan is it going to do well will it not do well do i have enough time it's very simple ask yourself does it mind the hot weather and is it a mid-season crop if so i can plant it right now i want you guys focusing on your mid-season crops don't leave a bed bare until late season time comes where you have 30 to 45 days until your first frost don't leave a bad bear that long because there's so much that you can be growing and i'm just going to go through a blistering fast list because i know you guys want to get out in the garden i know you guys want to start planting and so we're going to do that so the following are crops that i really want you guys to focus on these are mid-season crops that as soon as you harvest something you can feel safe putting them in your garden so i want you guys to plant things like bush beans pole beans broccoli cabbage cucumbers zucchini beets and even some quick turnaround herbs like basil you want to plant a lot of these crops don't plant a whole lot of things like melons you're not gonna have time don't plant things like carrots because they don't like the really hot heat and the germination rate is going to be very poor wait until like late august early september so that weather starts cooling down and you can keep them better watered and it's not so hot we're going to have better germination rate but still have time to grow some of those crops also things like kale plant things like parsley they can tolerate the heat they do just fine collard greens another one wonderful do not plant things like brussels sprouts those are a late season crop they are an abra they are in the brassica family but they are a late season crop that takes 110 days to mature so do not plant those also plant things uh plant things that are going to uh that are not going to mind the heat like a seedling a tomato seedling plant those right now you're gonna have plenty of time to get a cherry tomato to mature i know it sounds crazy but a cherry tomato only takes about 65 days to mature and right now you have plenty of time if you're starting from seed however don't even try you have you do not have enough time to get it as a seedling up you should have started your seedlings uh say about uh i don't know three to five weeks ago in order to get them to fully mature size so don't give those a shot but if there's a greenhouse that has them on clearance or you know if you already were ahead of the curve and you have yours started now is a good time to get those in the ground and with that that is your list of crops that you should be focusing on right now for a mid-season harvest for sorry for a fall harvest in mid-season like late july and early august i hope you guys enjoyed i hope you all were able to wrap your mind around that concept once you understand just how versatile crops are and how easily you can kind of switch them out and swap them out and get a harvest even now and preparing for the fall it is so it's so freeing because you don't have to worry you know there's so many things that people worry about but there are so many crops you can still grow and so i hope you guys enjoyed i hope you learned something new if you did make sure to throw a like up there it helps spread this video around to more people if you have not yet subscribed make sure to do that and join the mi gardener family and as always we'll catch you all later see ya bye

Channel: MIgardener

Views: 575,387

Keywords: crops, crop, late july, migardener, growing food, Premiere_Elements_2018, Fall garden, garden tip, growing a garden, august, plants

Id: xTlAK8NDqGg

Length: 14min 11sec (851 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 14 2020