Plant a Mid-Summer Garden
Mid to late summer season is a fantastic time to plant a second garden. It can easily be as productive as your first plantings you did in the spring.
For a yummy, nutritious cornucopia of fall dishes, mid to late summer is just right for planting juicy lettuces, fragrant natural herbs like dill, garlic chives, chervil, cilantro, arugula—oh, and don’t forget parsley. You can plant hearty greens like beets or kale, baby pak choi, and other asian greens. You can get another crop of carrots, beets, leeks, greens, green onion, spinach, radishes, fennel and all cruciferous vegetables.
Benefits of a mid-summer garden
Late grown plants have less competitors from weeds and parasites which means less work in the garden. Here in the Frederick, Hagerstown Maryland area you’ll have terrific produces in time for Thanksgiving and numerous crops will hold completely through a light winter season without becoming seed plants or getting that bitter taste they can get in the summer. I have sometimes gotten broccoli to last clear through a Maryland winter.
It could appear odd to you to be beginning a new planting when a great deal of your summer plants like squash and/or tomatoes are still bursting at the seams, yet it’s well worth the clearing out the space. For great harvests in cooler weather, plants need to be well established with a mature root system. If you get them in mid-summer this should be no problem and in the fall these plants will basically store themselves right in the garden where you can harvest them when you need them.
Plant your crops in well-prepared wet dirt and do in in the evening or on an overcast day so they will have the advantage of cooler temperatures levels. This will greatly reduce transplant shock. If daytime temperature levels are still in the high 80’s, shelter your newly transplanted plants with row covers or a shade cloths for a few days so they adjust to the environment.
One quick word about the plants at The Vine Garden Outlet, our plants are stored outside already, so if you get your plants from us you will not need to cover them with anything. They should thrive right from the start.
If you start your second garden mid to late summer, you should be enjoying your garden through thanksgiving and some plants maybe all year.