The French call August Août, which is pronounced ah-OO, a fair approximation of the cry of a sunburned gardener in this, our hottest month. By August, many spring annuals are completing their life cycles, and spring perennials (such as columbines and bearded irises) are finished blooming and are ready to be cut back and divided.

Grasshopper presence escalates (got Nolo™ bait? if not, ask for it at either Payne's store). Summer-flowering butterfly bushes (Buddleja x davidii) are in full fragrant bloom — if you don't have one (or more) we have plenty in stock and once established they are low-care, drought toleraent and pest resistent. As tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants come fully into their own, along with cucumbers and summer squashes, watch for tomato hornworms, squash bugs, and cucumber beetles. Come in to either of our retail stores for advice on organic pest controls.

Annual weeds start setting seed now, so in order to make next year's garden weed-free, pull them now before they scatter their seed.  “Monsoon” season  continues in August so you’d think watering would be superfluous, wouldn’t you? Unfortunately, it isn’t, particularly for lawns, and for any trees, shrubs, vines, or perennials that you planted this year.

August Annuals

Keep deadheading your annuals — you’ll get lots more bang for your buck if you do. Why? An annual is a plant that completes its life-cycle, from birth to death, within one year. Annuals’ goal in life is to get fertilized and set seed for next year's generation of flowers. The way you keep them flowering until frost is to frustrate that need by removing the fading flowers before the seed development can trigger an end to the plants’ bloom cycle. Fertilize your annuals regularly with a high-phosphorus plant food so they keep pumping out the blooms.

Foliar feeding is a great way to ensure that your annuals (and your perennials and vegetables, too!) get all the nutriments they'll need to produce their best. Foliar feeding is feeding plants through the tiny stomata or pores in their leaves. You do it by mixing a water-soluble plant food in water according to the directions on the label (anywhere from 1 tablespoon to 1/2 teaspoon per gallon of water), and applying this diluted liquid fertilizer to both sides of the leaves and stems. You can sprinkle the fertilizer mix onto the plant with a regular watering can, use a hose-end sprayer, or use a hand-held pump sprayer. Apply the fertilizer until it drips off the leaves. If you have any diluted fertilizer left over, you can pour it onto the ground around the plant.

IMPORTANT: Apply foliar fertilizer spray only in the cool of the day, ideally before 10 a.m. Daylight Savings Time (9 a.m. real time). There are two reasons for this: firstly, many plants' stomata close around this time; and second, applying fertilizer, particularly high phosphorus fertilizer, in the heat of the day can result in fertilizer burned leaves and stems.

Payne's offers a wide range of liquid fertilizers usable as foliar foods. They include Carl Pool BR-61™ with Chelated Minerals;  Fox Farm™ Cha Ching 9-50-10; Fox Farm™ Open Sesame 5-45-19; Fox Farm™ Tiger Bloom Extra Strength 2-8-4; Green Light™ Super Bloom Flower Food 12-55-6 with 10% Chelated Iron; Jack's Classic™ All-Purpose 20-20-20; Jack's Classic™ Blossom Booster 10-30-20; and Miracle-Gro™ Liqua-Feed. We also carry Super Thrive™, a highly concentrated growth stimulant.

Consider sowing the seeds of cool-weather annuals this month, such as lobelias (Lobelia erinus), fragrant mignonette (Reseda odorata), column stocks (Matthiola incana), and sweet alyssum (Lobularia maritima).

August Bulbs

Feed your dahlias! If you want bigger blooms, remove all but the main bud in each cluster. Stake the tall sorts so the monsoon winds and rains don’t blow them over.

Turn, turn, turn, turn that compost pile. In Switzerland, they build three bins side by side, and turn the compost by pitchforking it from bin #1 to bin #2, then to bin #3 when bins #1 and #2 get full. If your heap’s gone stinky, you might want to rebuild it completely, using layers of straw or shredded black-and-white newspaper to increase aeration. If your pile just isn’t heating up, mix in some manure, blood meal or commercial compost starter — all available at Payne's — and water thoroughly. Remember, your pile will rot more easily and quickly if you cut the organic matter into small pieces. The smaller the pieces, the quicker the rot!

Keep watering your heaps. Moisture from the monsoons rarely penetrates deeply enough into a pile to do much good. If in doubt, stick your hand in up to the wrist. Aside from the amusing insects and slimy vegetable peels that will adhere to your fingers when you withdraw them, you’ll be able to gauge the pile’s dryness. (Remove any loose jewelry before you do this, or you could end up having to go through every inch of decomposing plant matter looking for your treasures. On the other hand, this would ensure proper compost aeration…)

Container plantings mature this month. Keep fertilizing (I like Osmocote™ 14-14-14 time-release plant food) and deadheading if you want windowboxes and tubs to continue producing flowers and foliage until first frost (which in Santa Fe can come any time between September 15 and October 15). Now is a great time to take photos of your combo pots so that you have a record of what worked (or didn’t) for next year’s planning.  And if some of the flowers in your pots are looking sad and dreary, come on by one of our stores for some plug-in replacements!

Check the depth of the mulch around your garden. It should have rotted down sufficiently by now to require another couple of inches spread on top of it. Three to four inches is the optimum for protecting root-systems and soil from sunscald and water loss. Remember not to let mulch push up against trunks and plant-stems; it’ll encourage fungus disease, to which everything is liable during the monsoon season.

Fertilize your trees, shrubs, and perennials one last time before fall. Do it by the 15th of the month — if you wait till September, the food may force new growth just in time for it to be blasted by first frosts. For information about Payne's organic fertilizers and soil amendments, click here.

Make sure your turf gets thoroughly watered twice weekly — the monsoons alone will not do the job sufficiently. Payne's has an excellent selection of all types of sprinklers for you to choose from. We also have some wonderful ornamental and native grasses in stock right now. Come by and see us!

If your basil keeps wilting despite well-drained soil and regular watering, your problem may be wilt disease, to which many strains of basil are prone. An exception is Ocimum basilicum ‘Nufar’, which was bred specifically to resist wilt disease. Basil seed may be sown until the middle of the month for continuous supply of tasty leaves. Now might be a good time also to sow seeds of cilantro (Coriandrum sativum), which prefers cooler weather.

Some late-blooming perennials that take center stage by mid-August are early asters, joepye weed (Eupatorium sp.), obedient plant (Physostegia virginiana), black-eyed Susans (Rudbeckia fulgida), and tall sedums (renamed by botanists  Hylotelephium but still usually found under Sedum). Payne's has all of these and it's a great time to get them in the ground.

Watch out this month for powdery mildew, a fungus disease to which coreopsis, phlox, columbines (Aquilegia sp.), and speedwells (Veronica sp.) are particularly prone out West. Consan™ is a powerful chemical fungicide I’ve used with success; others prefer neem oil based treatments.

Take advantage of the wetter weather and continue to plant container-grown trees, shrubs, vines, perennials, and biennials this month. The seeds of perennials, biennials, and cool season annuals may be sown outdoors now, such as rocket larkspur (Consolida ajacis), pansies (Viola x wittrockiana), Johnny-jump-ups (Viola tricolor), Oriental poppies (Papaver orientale), foxgloves (Digitalis sp.), hollyhocks (Alcea rosea), fragrant wallflowers (Erysimum sp.), and sweet Williams (Dianthus barbatus). Regional wildflower seed mixes are also popular.

Reserve a bed just for the seeds. Work organic compost (not peat moss) and composted manure into your seedbed. (For a list of Payne's organic soil amendments, see "Feed Your Plants With Payne's Organics" on the opening page of this site!) Rake your seedbed smooth, plant your seeds, cover them with a thin layer of soil (for most seeds, 1/4-1/2" of soil is plenty). Then water the seedbed with a gentle spray from your hose (Payne’s sells suitable hose-heads) and rig some shade cloth over the bed so it doesn’t dry out. Some of your seeds — if they’re from varieties that require a period of cold to trigger germination — may not emerge till next spring, so be patient. After the hot weather passes, remove the shade cloth so the seedlings can harden off before winter.

Alternatively, you can simply let your blooming plants form and scatter their own seeds. If your soil is well-nourished, and your watering consistent, you should get lots of “volunteers” coming up from this fall until next spring.

Transplant spring-blooming perennials this month. Before you dig up and divide the mother clumps, dig holes where you want the transplants to go. If the soil in the new location has not been improved, mix the soil you removed from the holes half-and-half with Payne's Organic Soil Conditioner. Add one-half cup of Yum Yum™ Mix organic fertilizer to the bottom of each hole. Mix the Yum Yum™ into the top inch or so at the bottom of the hole.

Perennials that are typically divided now are irises (both bearded and Siberian), Oriental poppies, peonies, and daylilies (Hemerocallis). Use a sharpened spade to divide the clumps. Plant them no deeper into the soil than they were before (peonies prefer to be buried with their crowns exactly two inches below the soil surface, use a ruler to make sure!). Firm them in gently, and water using a solution of SuperThrive™, a vitamin-hormone solution available at Payne’s that greatly reduces transplant shock.

Continue to plant shrubs and trees this month. Remember to do it in the cool of the day if at all possible, and to water them in thoroughly. Despite the monsoons, your shrubs, trees, and vines will continue to need regular deep watering (2 inches a week in the hot weather). 

For more information on planting trees in Northern New Mexico, click here.

Dig Yum-Yum™ Mix or other slow-release fertilizer into the soil around your existing shrubs and trees. Prune your flowering shrubs after they finish blooming. Use a sharp hand pruner, and remove any dead or diseased branches. Prune your hybrid roses to promote fall flowering: remove about a third of the vigorous canes, plus any stems that cross each other. Remove any spent flowers down to the first set of five-part leaves. (Click here to read more about caring for roses in Northern New Mexico.)

Fertilize your strawberries, both June-bearers and everbearers, particularly if you didn’t do it last month. Dig manure or organic fertilizer around your tomatoes, peppers, eggplants and corn plants raised for flour and posole to give them an extra boost that will carry them through to the end of the season.

Plant seeds or "starts" of fall and winter vegetables this month, including kale, green onions (scallions), radishes, winter cabbage, and early-green maturing varieties of beets, carrots, lettuces, peas (shelling, snow, and snap), and spinach. Fresh seeds are always available at Payne’s! Remember to keep the seedbed and babies shaded against the worst of the afternoon sun and do not let them dry out.

How are you going to preserve the abundant harvest you will reap from your August vegetable beds? Drying racks and canning supplies should be purchased or cleaned now so they’ll be ready for you when you need them.

Watering is best performed in the cool of the morning (before 10 am) or evening (after 6 pm). Remember, plants need 1.5-2 inches of water per week during hot weather, so get a rain gauge or listen to your weather report daily to figure out if the monsoons have given you enough precipitation to meet your plants’ needs. We’re talking about in-ground plants. Plants in hanging baskets, windowboxes, and other containers, which rain does not moisten effectively, will need regular watering — usually daily — even during the monsoons.

By the way, before you turn your hose on your plants, run all the hot water from the hose to keep from scalding the plants! (If you don't want to waste it, run it into a large container, then use it after it cools down.)