7 Gardening Tasks You Should Do Right Now for a Better Harvest in the Fall

By the time August rolls around, your garden is hopefully looking pretty lush, green, and beautiful. But as August is the hottest month in many places, your garden still requires plenty of love throughout the final weeks of summer.

With this in mind, we’ve rounded up everything you should start to do in August to increase your gardens’ health and happiness for the rest of the season, and beyond.

Harvest Summer Fruits, Veggies, and Herbs

If you have a veggie garden, you should absolutely continue to make the most of it through the rest of the season. This includes staying on top of harvesting your fruits, vegetables, and herbs.

Harvesting your summer crops now only encourages growth to continue, so don’t let it lag. When you stay on top of it, your fresh produce output should carry on through the end of summer and, for some plants, into early autumn.

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Weed Any Beds

Unless you’re going for a true wildflower garden, August is a great time to brush up on your weeding. If you’ve let anything get unwieldy, take a few days to strategically pluck out leggy stragglers that may have gotten too comfortable.

This is especially true as any increased humidity in the final weeks of summer will only encourage weed growth. This might even lead to seeding, which can make these weeds even trickier to control in the future.

Adjust Your Watering Schedule

Depending on where you live, you might have had a long, dry summer or relentless heat, and it’s possible that won’t ease up in August. In this case, it might be time to adjust your watering schedule, as well as your technique.

Aim for more depth and less frequency, and consider changing to a morning watering routine if you’ve been doing it in the late afternoon or at night. 

If you plan to travel during August, make a plan for neighbors to stop by and check your beds or ensure your irrigation system is set up and working correctly.

Add Mulch and Fertilizer

August is a great time to add mulch to your flower beds, as well as do a round of fertilizing. This can serve as both an aesthetic top-up and important plant maintenance.

If you’ve planted anything brand new this summer, mulch helps your established root systems stay cool and well hydrated, while fertilizer can replace any nutrients your plants have sucked up throughout the earlier part of the season.

But along with helping your plants in the hotter days, mulching now will also benefit your plants in the cooler months. This is because mulch locks in moisture to cool your root systems in the heat of August, and protects root systems from the harsher elements in cold weather, too. 

Check for Pests

Even if you’ve had a drama-free summer of no pests, you should do a spot-check in August to make sure this is still true.

There are plenty of late-summer pests who might appear, as some are more prone to arise with increased heat and humidity. These include aphids and spider mites, as well as caterpillars. 

And if you do spot signs of invaders, don’t panic. There are plenty of eco-friendly ways to deter pests and maintain your garden’s health.

Plant Cool-Weather Crops

If you’re hoping to continue your vegetable garden into autumn, August is an ideal time to sow seeds for cooler weather plants. These can include most plants in the brassica family: cauliflower, broccoli, cabbage, and kale, as well as Brussels sprouts.

Make a Winterizing Plan

You don’t need to winterize anything yet, obviously, but by late August you should have your game plan down. Consider whether frost cloths are needed, and take a peek at any potted plants that can be moved around and protected come winter.

You can also use this time to assess your summer gardening tools and declutter anything you can’t or won’t use again. Then, make space for anything you’ll need this winter to keep your garden safe and protected until it’s time to thrive again next year.