Gardeners Checklist: Here Is What to Do on the Week of August 14

By Ron Kujawski

• Sow seeds of Chinese cabbage (napa cabbage and bok choy) for fall harvest; the plants will mature in mid-October. Chinese cabbage grows best as a fall crop. That’s because it thrives as the days get shorter and the nights get cooler. Light frosts in early fall will not hurt the plants.

• Shred cabbage for sauerkraut within the first 24 hours after harvesting the heads. Waiting too long to shred the cabbage will result in limp sauerkraut. Not many people make sauerkraut at home these days, but it is not difficult. Check any recent reference book on pickling for an up-to-date recipe.

• Plant annual ryegrass as a cover crop between rows of remaining crops and in the vacant areas of the garden. Usually, I plant winter rye at this time of year. However, annual ryegrass dies with onset of cold weather and will be decomposed in time for spring tilling. Winter rye, on the other hand, will renew growth in spring. I have to wait a week or two after turning it under for it to decompose before I can plant vegetable crops.

• Take a few moments to evaluate your perennial borders. Specifically, look for gaps in bloom. If there are few plants in flower, this is a good time to buy and plant August blooming perennials such as Russian sage (Salvia yangii), Oriental lilies, turtlehead (Chelone), boltonia (Boltonia asteroids), and the three Hs, i.e., Helenium, Helianthus and Heliopsis.

• Cut back the flower stems of perennial geraniums, or cut back entire plants if you see new growth occurring at the base of the plants. You should get another round of blossoms from these plants. This usually does not have to be done if you’re growing the variety ‘Rozanne’ since it blooms continuously through the summer.

• Deadhead garden phlox (Phlox paniculata) to keep the plants from reseeding. Plants that grow from the dropped seeds typically revert to pale mauve flowers.

Keep picking beans every other day. Don’t worry if you yank off some immature bean pods. It’s better to pick young beans than it is to let them get to the stage where the seeds have swollen to the size of bowling balls — that was the description our kids used for over-mature beans. Once you leave too many mature bean pods on the plants they’ll stop producing. If you pick some immature beans, cook them the same day since the young bean pods tend to shrivel if they sit around for more than a day.

While on the subject of beans, one of the best tasting beans I’ve ever grown is the bush form of ‘Roma,’ a popular pole bean. I like the fact that these flat-pod beans remain tender even when they get a little over-mature. Another thing I like about ‘Roma’ is that the pods release readily when picked. With other bean varieties, sections of the flower stem with young beans and flowers often get yanked off during harvest. Put ‘Roma’ on your seed list for next year.

Ron Kujawski began gardening at an early age on his family's onion farm in upstate New York. Although now retired, he spent most of his career teaching at the UMass Extension Service. He serves on Berkshire Botanical Garden’s Horticulture Advisory Committee. His book, Week-by-Week Vegetable Gardener’s Handbook, is available here.