433 - August Garden Tasks + What to Plant

The Beginner's Garden with Jill McSheehy

Jill McSheehy

Gardening, Garden, How To, Education, Organicgardening, Home & Garden, Leisure, Homegardening, Beginninggardener, Vegetablegardening

4.4 • 734 Ratings

🗓️ 5 August 2025

⏱️ 22 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Depending on where you live, August can be a month of harvest abundance or extreme garden fatigue—or both. In today’s episode, I’m meeting you where you are. Whether you’re coasting through harvests or struggling with heat, pests, and burnout, this is a chance to regroup, reset, and prep for fall without overwhelming yourself.

Here’s what we cover:

🌱 Reset & Reassess
August is the perfect time to take stock. Are your summer crops still producing, or is it time to pull them out? Clear space now to get ready for fall. (More on this in episode 199!)

🛒 Fall Garden Prep
Don’t wait to grab your seeds and supplies! And if you’re unsure about timing, today is the last day to grab my Fall Garden Mini-Course for $10 off with code FALL25 → journeywithjill.net/fall-course

🥕 Harvest & Preserve
Keep up with harvesting what’s still producing. Eat it fresh, give it away, or get ready for next week’s episode on preserving your bounty.

🌼 Tend What You Can
Early morning or evening is best for weeding, pruning, or removing diseased plants. Remember—less effort now means fewer problems later.

🌿 Mid-Roll Sponsor: Organic REV
Need a soil recharge? I turn to Organic REV to keep my raised beds thriving through late summer stress. It’s especially helpful for reviving tired plants and giving fall transplants a strong start. Use code JILL10 at OrganicREV.com to save.

🥒 Planting in August
Still time for fast-maturing summer crops: bush beans, squash, cucumbers
Start thinking fall:
– Direct sow carrots, beets, leafy greens (late August)
– Transplant broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, lettuce
– Plant herbs like basil, dill, parsley
– Bonus: It’s a great time to plant strawberries (episode 386)

💛 Permission to Pause
If you need a break—take it. August is tough, but a reset now can give you the energy you’ll need for the (less intense but still busy) fall season ahead.

🎧 Listen now and give yourself grace as you head into a new season.

My Products:
2025 Complete Garden Planner (plus several new editions!)
https://shop.journeywithjill.net/

Vegetable Gardening for Beginners Book: https://amzn.to/3TZeJux

Products I recommend:
Recommended Brands & Products page:
https://journeywithjill.net/recommended-brands-and-products/

https://www.amazon.com/shop/thebeginnersgarden

Connect with Jill:
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YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/JourneywithjillNet/videos

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Link to Beginner's Garden Podcast past episodes: https://journeywithjill.net/the-beginners-garden-podcast/

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Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hey there and welcome to the Beginners Garden podcast. It's August and you're here, which says a lot
0:07.4	about you as a gardener. Depending on where you're gardening, August can be an interesting time in the
0:14.0	garden. For some of you, you're just now starting to finally harvest in earnest, but for many others like me, August is probably the
0:24.4	most challenging month in the garden with relentless heat, pest pressure, tired plants, and let's be
0:31.6	honest, gardener burnout. In today's episode, I'm going to be gentle and not give you a huge
0:37.3	task list. For many of us,
0:39.4	this is the month that we need to take a reset and we need to take a breath. Still, though,
0:45.6	there are some tasks to be done and ways to continue caring for the garden that you have worked
0:51.5	so hard for. So today, let's talk about tasks that you can be doing
0:55.3	in your August garden even if you're on the verge of burnout. Hang in there with me, you can do it.
1:02.3	The task list I have for you for August is going to be short, mainly because like I said before,
1:08.3	August can be a tough month. A lot of us are exhausted from the heat,
1:13.2	but our to-do lists are also running pretty long, maybe in other areas of our lives.
1:17.6	Whether we have schools starting back or different things going on, August can be quite busy.
1:23.3	So this task list is going to be fairly short, but it will also set you up for not only enjoying
1:29.2	what you've already worked so hard for, but also looking toward the future.
1:32.9	Which brings us to task number one, and that is to look toward the fall garden.
1:37.8	I know that this is a big ask, especially if you haven't even thought about the fall garden
1:42.3	yet, which I hope you have, but I know that
1:45.4	everything in your body this time of year sometimes can scream, I am done. But try to eke out a little
1:51.9	bit of energy to look toward the fall garden. I mean, we're looking toward fall anyway, right?
1:56.4	We're looking toward the cooler air and the beautiful atmosphere that fall brings to many of us.
	...

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