Late Summer Gardening

I love my spring and early summer garden. Everything looks so fresh and new. I revel in the light green colors of the tender new shoots and the expectation of things to come.

Then, early summer brought me the joy of watching the new shoots turn into productive food-bearing plants. One of my favorites of God’s miracles is watching large plants emerge from tiny seeds. I never get over the wonder of it.

I’ve loved heading outside every day to see what treasures are hiding beneath the green leaves and I’ve picked, and picked, and picked some more. I have made uncountable meals around what I’ve foraged from the garden and that has made me so happy.

PC: Ann Kirsten

But it is late summer now, and my garden is looking a little worse for the wear. Many of the plants have gone to seed and others have withered and turned brown in the hot weather. It’s hard to remember that just a few months ago things were lush and plentiful.

PC: Ann Kirsten

I’m not done playing in the dirt yet and I want to continue planning meals around my homegrown produce.

The good news is that we can! Late summer is the perfect time to plant a fall garden.

In the past, fall gardening for me meant running to the hardware store and picking up some mums and ornamental kale plants and sticking them in the ground. Unless I wanted to chew on a kale leaf (and I don’t) gathering dinner from my yard was a thing of the past.

I was thrilled to find out that I have been underestimating what an autumn garden can be.

According to one of my favorite seed companies, late July and August are the perfect times to plant your next wave of vegetables. These are the plants they recommend: carrots, beets, lettuce, radishes, peas, cucumbers, spinach, kale, cabbage, broccoli, turnips, beans, chard, green beans, zucchini, cauliflower, and potatoes.

GettyImages: Filkina Natalia

Does that give you enough to choose from?

I can’t wait to try this. This will be my first official fall garden. I have already pulled out my gone-to-seed plants (and, saved seeds for next year). I’m going to amend my soil and plant some more FOOD! I may even use this time to plant varieties that I don’t normally grow. This will be an experiment for me after all.

I think I will also add some fall-flowering beauties, like: chrysanthemums, goldenrod, flowering sage, bee balm, sedums and pansies.

In the empty spaces, I will tuck in bulbs. Fall is the perfect time to plant bulbs for early spring blooms, like: crocuses, tulips, hyacinths, daffodils, alliums, lilies and bluebells. A homely brown bulb stuck in the ground now will provide me with so much beauty in the spring.

But maybe you are tired and glad that your garden has stopped producing. Perhaps you just want to pull everything up and be done for the season. Fall can be the perfect time for that too. How about using this time to hang and fill a bird feeder instead? Or, how about buying some garden art and placing it in your empty plots?

Whatever you choose to do, know that late summer doesn’t have to be a time of lying fallow. It’s always the time for growth in His garden.