Here are 8 things to plant in your August Kitchen Garden
If you aren’t planting in your Texas raised bed kitchen garden year round, I think you should! If you skipped one month, July is the one to do it, so I bet you’re excited to get going again. If you spring garden is looking sad from the brutal heat we got this summer, it’s time to freshen things up.
Fall is NOT the time to take a break from gardening, it’s our favorite time to plant! Our mild winters, less need for irrigation and fewer pests make it so much fun. And you can still enjoy those warm season crops like tomatoes and peppers and plant cool season crops to last for months!
If you live in central Texas, there is a ton you should plant now. Here are 8 plants perfect for the raised bed vegetable garden:
#1: Tomatoes.
Tomatoes will last happily until the first frost, which in most years isn’t until very late November or even often December. Most tomatoes take about 70-80 days from seed to harvest, so if you plant a transplant, it’s probably only 6-8 weeks from providing fruit, so you have plenty of time! And the mild temps may bring even happier flowers and better production that the hardest June temps did this year.
#2: Peppers.
Peppers do great in the heat of August and just like their distant cousin the tomato, they will grow and product until the first freeze. And, also like tomatoes, if you have a little cover for them, then a light freeze in November would be perfectly fine. New Year’s Eve salsa anyone?
#3: Lettuce.
August is the unofficial start to salad season here in Texas and if you are growing in raised beds you can eat salad for 6 months a year from October-March. Your October harvests start with August seeds. Plant salad greens toward the end of August and keep them watered 2x daily until they germinate and daily with a drip irrigation is ideal until the establish good roots and the worst of the heat is over. Then sow more seeds every few weeks until spring for a continual harvest! No more wilty, slimy bagged salad going bad in your fridge and no more wasteful plastic bags or boxes harming the planet!
#4: Spinach.
Like lettuce, spinach should be started from seed toward the end of the month and sown every week through winter. But unlike lettuce, which can be a bit wimpy in a hard freeze (where temps drop below 27 degrees) spinach is a champ and can grow without cover in ice and snow, providing your family with rich, organic nutrients and crucial trace minerals all cold and flu season.
#5: Broccoli.
If the 90+ degree heat drags on well into October, which is does some years, broccoli can have problems. But in the average year, were get get reliable highs around or below 80 degrees in the early fall, planting broccoli seeds in late August can be a great strategy to get a head start on this long-to-maturity crop that will perform magically in the coldest months. Ours survived the infamous Texas Snowmageddon of February 2021 with only a small frost cover as a blanket.
#6: Carrots.
Carrots take a very long time to grow and mature, and they also love the cold, so we like to get a head start with seeds in late August. Sow carrots every 3 weeks to stagger your harvests in late winter and spring. We definitely recommend trying out unique and rare varieties of carrots that you can find as seed, which you will never find in the store.
#7: Swiss Chard.
Another super food to give your family a health boost when you need it the most this winter, swiss chard can grow and produce for many months. Harvest the lower outer leaves when you want them and the plant can continue to grow and grow. It’s a beautiful addition to any raised bed kitchen garden and also a very easy plant for beginner gardeners to grow.
#8: Perennial Herbs
Speaking of beginner gardeners; if you are at the start of your kitchen garden journey and want to boost your confidence and dollar-for-dollar get the most out of your growing space, stop buying plastic bag fresh herbs from the market - grow your own! Any perennial herb (those that grow year round in all weather for years) can be planted now and do really well, establishing roots before the harsh cold and establish even stronger roots well in time for next year’s summer heat. Our favorites you should consider as either plants or seeds include: sage, thyme, oregano, mint, marjoram, rosemary and lavender.
What else can I plant?
The What To Plant In August list is actually super long and we have two really nifty guides to tell you more about it. If you want to dive deep into the care and harvest info of specific plants, check out our plant care guide here. If you want a month-by-month guide of what to plant, how to care for it and what you can be harvesting for a year round garden, we have that easy guide with important tips here.
If you need more Fall garden planning tips and links to purchase the right seed varieties for our central Texas climate, check out Fall Garden Guide blog post here.