August may be considered the last or the first month of the vegetable growing season. Very few vegetables can be grown in our summer heat but several can be started to get a march on the upcoming productive months.
Sweet peppers are heat lovers and with care can be sown from seed in August for early harvests. They should be started in pots or trays that are placed in a location where light shade is available for most of the day. Once established, the seedlings need to be hardened off by gradually extending the amount of direct sunshine they receive.
Any flowers that are produced early – before the plant is strong enough to hold fruits clear of the ground – should be nipped off. If you have a couple of dozen plants, of course, you can let one or two of them produce early but these often bear just one fruit and then remain stunted in growth. Keep your main harvest disciplined.
Tomatoes do not set fruit until the night time temperature dips below 70 degrees, which usually occurs in late October. The trick with tomatoes is to have plants at the flowering stage by mid or late October to take advantage of a series of cool nights.
Tomatoes sown in mid to late August should be at the flowering stage within two months. I like to grow hybrid tomatoes at the beginning of the season because they tend to be more reliable during autumn when days are growing shorter instead of longer, which the plant would prefer. Early Girl is a good choice for the first tomatoes of the season.
The summer ornamental garden should be in full flood with hibiscus, bougainvillea, chenille plant, heliconias, bridal bouquet and crepe myrtle the most outstanding. Royal poinciana is still in full bloom with some green seedpods showing while Peltophorum, erroneously called yellow poinciana, is joining in the party with its beautiful upright panicles.
Guava trees are producing fruit and guava duff will be on the menu in both restaurants and homes. Even those without a garden will be able to snack on coco plums and seagrapes, especially near the shore. Mid season mangoes such as Kent are ready to enjoy and late season Keitts are beginning to look very tempting. The star fruit season is under way and will be with us to past the end of the year.
One of the great rewards of summer is to mow the lawn. Grass grows prodigiously in our rainy season and a few days after mowing our lawns look ragged and unkempt. But the sight – and smell - of a newly mown lawn is a special pleasure in itself.
The foliage of August flower – rain lily, zephyranthes – much resembles St. Augustine grass and the plants like to spread in lawns. Whenever that happens I tend to mow around them.
Not all is well in Eden, however. Although the hurricane season officially starts in June it is August when we begin to take a real interest in storms developing in the eastern Atlantic. This year has been busy already and we have been affected by several tropical storm systems.
I read in the Tribune a few years ago that the island of Abaco is the most visited by hurricanes not only in the Bahamas but in the world. It seems that every tropical disturbance contains Abaco in its projections.
A tour of your garden with a critical eye will help you identify possible problems. Medium sized shrubs should be thinned of central branches to allow wind to pass through easily. Tall trees that could hit buildings if they were toppled should be severely hat-racked. Judicious pruning and thinning out solves most of the problems in the garden ahead of a hurricane, but really large trees should be dealt with by a professional with the right equipment.
• gardenerjack@coralwave.com
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