All posts by Jordan Charbonneau

Garden Advice

Garden Checklist: August

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It’ll be August in just a few days! Late summer is such an exciting time in the garden. Harvests are pouring in, flowers are blooming, and fall planting has begun. Here’s a checklist to help you stay on track during this busy time of year.

Buy perennial onions, garlic, shallots, and bulbs.

Perennial onions, garlic, shallots, and many flower bulbs are all planted in the fall. Exact planting dates may vary depending on your hardiness zone, but here in Virginia, it’s best to plant them between September 15th and November 15th.

If you’re hoping to choose varieties from a wide selection, it’s best to get your order in early.

Keep up with harvesting.

It can be tough to keep up with the harvest, especially if you’re a new gardener, but it’s essential if you want fresh food for as long as possible. Many plants like beans, cucumbers, and summer squash will stop producing when you stop harvesting.

If you can, it’s best to harvest in the morning while it’s still cool. You’ll be more comfortable, and your produce will be crisper and stay fresh longer. Greens should be immediately dunked in ice water when harvesting during warm weather.

If you’re struggling to keep up, offer to share some veggies with friends or neighbors. Host a picking and preserving party to make the most of surplus produce. Find more tips for using produce:

Plant fall crops.

Exactly when you plant will depend on your hardiness zone, but August is crucial for planting fall crops here in Virginia and much of the Southeast. Finish transplanting cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, and collards seedlings for fall. Sow radishes, kohlrabi, turnips, carrots, beets, herbs, kale, collards, and Swiss chard. Pam Dawling’s guest post from last year is an excellent resource for those looking to grow fall root crops.

Water consistently.

August in the Southeast is hot! It’s no time to slack off on watering. This is especially true for young fall crops like carrots, beets, and cabbages, which you’ve just got started in the garden. Crops like sweet potatoes, watermelons, tomatoes, and winter squash will produce best when watered thoroughly.

It’s also important to remember to water perennials like fruit trees and flowering shrubs, giving them the occasional healthy soaking, especially if you just planted them this spring.

Watch for pests and diseases.

Keep an eye on tomatoes, eggplants, and squash, watching for hornworms, flea beetles, and squash bugs. Treat with handpicking and diatomaceous earth.

Fungal diseases thrive in the heat and humidity of late summer and the south. Keep an eye on plants for diseases like Downey Mildew, rust, and Fusarium wilt. Remove and burn any diseased plants.

Weed and apply more mulch.

August is an important month to keep up with weeding. You’ll see better production from plants if they’re not competing with weeds for moisture and nutrients during this period.

If the mulch around your plants is starting to break down, it’s a good idea to add another layer. It will help conserve moisture and block weeds.

Take notes.

August is an excellent time of year to take some notes in your garden journal. Jot down what varieties performed well and what didn’t. If you haven’t done so already, sketch out your garden layout so that you can plan crop rotations and cover crops. 

Put up storage crops.

Many folks are beginning to harvest storage crops in August. It’s important to harvest, cure, and store them properly so that they keep well. Check out:

Plant fall cover crops.

As summer crops finish up, it’s important to protect and improve your garden soil for the next season. Sowing red clover, oats, Austrian winter peas, and rye as fall cover crops can help protect your soil from erosion, create habitat for beneficial insects and fungi, and add organic matter and nutrients to the soil. Read more about why you should consider fall cover crops here.

Garden Advice

7 Steps to Saving Cucumber Seed

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Cucumbers are one of the most iconic veggies of summer! There’s nothing like a cool, crisp cucumber that you’ve grown yourself. If you love cucumbers as much as we do, you might want to consider saving some seed from your favorite variety. Cucumbers are an excellent plant to start with if you’re new to seed saving.

  1. Make sure you’ve isolated your varieties.

    If you planted multiple cucumbers and want pure seed, they need to be isolated. You can use time to isolate them by growing one variety early and another late. You can also use distance, keeping varieties separated by 1/8 mile for home use and a minimum of 1/4 to 1 mile for pure seed.

    However, if your varieties aren’t isolated perfectly, you can save seed anyway. You may end up with a cross you love.

  2. Make sure you have enough plants.

    You can save viable seed from a single cucumber plant. However, to maintain a variety over time, it’s best to grow at least five plants. If you’re saving seeds to preserve a rare variety, we recommend you grow and save seed from at least 25 plants.

  3. Select your best plants.

    You should try to save seed from plants that have performed the best through the season. Select those that are healthy, vigorous, and disease free with good-tasting fruit. You can find a list of other traits you may want to consider when saving seed here.



  4. Let your cucumbers ripen fully.

    Don’t pick seed cucumbers at the same time you pick them for eating. For seed saving, you want cucumbers to be fully ripe. They should be large, rounded, and yellow to orange.

    It’s best to leave them on the vine for a few weeks after the color change. They’ll begin to soften and should pull easily from the vine. If that isn’t possible, you can let them continue to ripen and soften in a basket out of direct sunlight. When you cut the cucumber open, the seeds should appear large and full.

  5. Harvest your seeds.

    To harvest the seeds, it’s easiest to cut the cucumbers lengthwise and scoop the seeds out with a spoon. Place all of the pulp and seeds into glass jars. Mason jars are ideal for this.

  6. Ferment and clean your seeds.

    In order to remove all the pulp from the seeds, you need to let them ferment a bit. Add a little water to your jars of seeds and pulp. The containers need airflow into them, so don’t put a lid on. However, you can cover them with a bit of cloth or coffee filter and a rubber band to keep out fruit flies.

    Let this mixture ferment for three days, stirring it once a day. It’s okay if you notice some mold growing on top. After three days, add a more water and stir the mixture again. The viable seeds will sink while the pulp and bad seeds will float, and you can pour them off the top. Drain your viable seeds.

  7. Dry your seeds.

    Lay your seeds on a single layer on paper towels, coffee filters, old window screens, or dehydrator screens (don’t dehydrate them, though). Let your seeds air dry naturally until they can be snapped in half.

  8. Store your seeds.

    Store seeds in an airtight container in a cool dark place. Cucumber seeds will remain viable for five years or more under the right conditions.

    Learn how to do a germination test here.

Are you saving seeds this year? Tag us on Facebook or use the hashtag #southernexposureseed on Instagram to show us your projects

Garden Advice

Summer Squash: Ways to Use & Preserve It

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Summer squash plants are incredibly productive. New and seasoned gardeners alike often grow much more than their families can use.

When you feel like you’re drowning in fresh produce, it’s easy to let some go or toss it in the compost bin, but there are other options. Here are a few ways we recommend to use up a large harvest of summer squash. 

Donate your excess. 

Home gardeners may get tired of summer squash, but fresh produce can be a luxury for others. If you have extra summer squash (or any other vegetable), we recommend donating some to your local food bank. Here are some resources you can use to find a food bank near you:

Ferment it.

Fermenting is an easy, safe way to preserve food. There’s no need to stand over a hot canner all day! Fermented foods are also full of helpful bacteria that are great for gut health. Check out this recipe for Lacto-Fermented Summer Squash from Cultures for Health.

Dry it.

If you’ve got a dehydrator, you can quickly dry large amounts of summer squash. It’s excellent sliced into thin strips and salted for a crunchy, potato chip-like snack. It and also be shredded or chopped and dried for use this winter in soups, stews, and baked goods. 

Prepare your squash as desired and lay it out on a dehydrator tray in a single layer. Then lightly salt your squash. Note: thicker pieces of squash will take much longer to dry.

Dry your squash at 130-140°F until your squash is completely dry and brittle. Store in an airtight container until you’re ready to use. 

Alternatively, squash can be sliced into rings, hung, and dried over an open fire or woodstove. 

To use in cooked dishes, add it to your recipe with a bit of liquid for the last few minutes of cooking. To use shredded squash in baked goods, cover it with warm water for about 5 minutes before adding to your mix.

Freeze it.

Like dehydrated squash, frozen squash is perfect for winter use in soups, stews, and baked goods. The first step is to shred or cube your fresh squash.

Blanching

To ensure it doesn’t get mushy, you need to blanch your squash before freezing. Place your squash in boiling water for exactly 1 minute. Then remove your squash with a slotted spoon and place it in ice water for one minute to immediately stop the cooking. Drain your squash on a clean towel.

Flash Freeze

To keep your squash from freezing into one solid clump, you can use a technique called flash freezing; this works best with the squash cubes or chunks. Spread your drained squash onto a cookie sheet with parchment paper and freeze for at least one hour before transferring to a container.

Alternatively, you can measure squash out for your favorite recipes ahead of time; this works best with shredded squash for baked goods and sauces.

Frozen squash will last up to 10 months.

Can it.

Canning summer squash can be tricky because it is a low-acid food. Ball canning no longer has recipes for canning it on their website or in their book. However, some people still do by pressure canning or adding acidic ingredients.

Pressure Canned Squash

If you’ve got a pressure canner, you can put up plain summer squash as you would many other vegetables. You can find a recipe here.

Pickled Summer Squash

Pickling summer squash is relatively easy and a lot like pickling cucumbers. Just make sure you follow the recipe.

Pineapple Squash

One of my favorite ways to preserve summer squash and zucchini is to make “pineapple squash.” Basically, you can your squash in pineapple juice, and the mild-flavored squash takes on the pineapple flavor. I love it for pizza and sweet and sour stir-fries. 

You can find a recipe here.

Recipes

There are so many ways to use fresh summer squash, and thanks to the internet, we now get to see so many creative recipes. Here are a few we thought you all might enjoy.