An easy monthly checklist for August garden chores including tasks for the fruit and vegetable garden, flower garden, and basic lawn and yard care. Use this and the printable download as an overall guide adjusting as needed for YOUR yard & garden and YOUR schedule.
Are you tired of watering yet?
August usually sees me dragging garden hoses from one soaker to another and setting timers and sprinklers multiple times every week.
Then I take a break for a couple days before the cycle starts again. Whew.
UPDATE: Not anymore! Check out this simple pvc DIY automatic watering system we created - I'm LOVING it.
Okay, why are we doing this gardening thing again?
Oh, yeah...the tomatoes... and the cucumbers, peppers, green beans, and zucchini.
In fact, most of our meals in August consist of garden produce - eaten outside with bouquets of garden flowers on the table and the bees visiting the flowers in the beds, if I have my way!
A little watering is worth all that, isn't it?
Want my best vegetable gardening tips and techniques to keep it simple and manageable? (Yes, it CAN be done!)
This list of August garden chores is a bit lighter on tasks than some of the other monthly lists (thankfully, since it is often HOT).
Other than harvesting and watering, most August garden chores consist of simple basic maintenance like deadheading and watching for signs of disease or bugs.
The one big thing to do in August is to plant for a fall garden if you're in an area that doesn't see it's first frost until October. Which is me - I better get busy!
I've created a handy checklist of the tasks listed in this article!
Grab this free printable by clicking the image below to open in a new window and then download, print, and add any of your own specific chores to the notes section:
Don't forget to add this page to your Gardening Notebook Journal!
All the monthly garden chores checklists are also available in the Subscriber VIP Library - subscribe using the box at the top of the page to gain access to these and a lot more!
August Garden Chores
Vegetable & Fruit Garden
- Water on a regular basis (as if you needed a reminder of that...); mulch helps keep the ground moist longer. Also, remember from last month: watering deeply once every 4-7 days (more in hot weather, less in cooler) encourages deep roots and healthy plants versus light waterings daily or every other day (deep watering = 2-4 hours with a soaker hose, or until the soil is moist an inch down).
- Harvest as fruit and vegetables ripen, gathering fallen fruit to limit spread of disease and wasps.
- Pull vegetable plants that are done. Amend soil and replant if able with a quick-growing crop like spinach, mache, or lettuce.
- Depending on where you live, in addition to lettuce there may be time to direct sow seeds of kale, swiss chard, beets, bush beans and even short carrot varieties like “Thumbelina” as well as plant transplants of broccoli, cauliflower and cabbage.
- Dry herbs for winter; harvest in the morning to retain the most flavor.
- Lightly prune blueberries; cut any blackberry and raspberry canes that have produced fruit; clean & fertilize strawberry beds.
- Monitor shrubs and trees for mites, moths, etc. and treat organically as needed (this spray is amazing and worked on whatever was eating the basil, trumpet vine, marigolds and beans in my garden).
Flowers
- Clip (deadhead) spent flowers from plants that you don’t want to reseed as much - typically aggressive sowers like rose campion, lemon balm, cleome, oregano, and Joe-Pye Weed (don’t compost these or you’ll have them coming up in your garden!).
- Continue deadheading to keep flowering plants producing for fall.
- Add plants of sunflowers, zinnias & marigolds for fall color.
- Long blooming perennials and container plants will benefit from a mid-season fertilizer boost to make it into fall.
Other Tasks
- Start fall lawn repair, reseeding as the rains return.
- Repot houseplants for the coming winter, especially if they've summered outside.
- Start orders for fall bulbs and plants while the selection is good.
You can see all the month-by-month garden chores lists here.
Laura Ryan says
Hi Jami,
Have you found a supplier for cold weather crop starts? Or do you start them from seed yourself?
Thank you for all of your great information.
Jami says
I usually start them myself, though some home stores have started carrying fall starts. It's a limited choice, but if you've missed the window for starting your own, it's a good option (locally, I'm thinking of Jerry's and BiMart). Also some nurseries will carry fall starts.