3 Tips to Extend the Growing Season in Your Maine Garden

Image: Gibby’s Garden

For some, especially those of us in Maine and the north, when August rolls around the growing season never seems long enough. So, how can we extend it and keep our vegetable gardens producing a little longer?

The answer is to pamper our vegetable plants by snipping away dead and dying leaves and vines, harvesting all mature vegetables and blanketing our most delicate plants with floating row covers.

Tip # 1: Say Goodbye to Dead and Dying Foliage

Before you begin snipping away dead and dying foliage, take a good look at your plants. Focus on the ones that are healthy and still have vegetables to bear. Snip off the yellowing and brown leaves and vines. For example, when cucumber vines begin to die off, snip them off from the main plant stem.

This move helps extend the growing season by refocusing plants on producing and maturing more vegetables instead of spending energy trying to repair damaged and dying plant parts. Remember, you don’t need to go crazy doing this. When all is said and done, toss the clippings in the compost pile, woods or whatever, but don’t leave them piled up in the garden. Leaving them in garden invites garden pests to over winter under them.

Tip # 2: Harvest all Mature Vegetables

Some vegetable plants, string beans for example, stop producing if their mature vegetables haven’t been harvested. So, harvest them when they’re ready to help extend their growing season. You put all that work into growing a garden, so why wouldn’t you want to harvest everything it produces?

If you end up with more vegetables than you know what to do with, freeze and preserve them, give them away to friends, family and neighbors or drop them off at the local food pantry. Someone is sure to enjoy them, even if it’s not you.

Tip # 3: Floating Row Covers

Why am I talking about floating row covers in August? It’s still summer right? Well, here in Maine, temperatures can dip pretty low at night, even in summer, especially towards the end of August. Floating row covers help lock in heat during the day keeping plants and soil temperatures warmer at night. Warmer temperatures encourage plants to keep producing, thus extending their growing season.

Floating row covers can easily be pulled back for harvesting during the day. You don’t have to cover all your plants, only those that are still healthy and producing vegetables.

A great time-saving tip is to snip away dead and dying foliage as you harvest. Yesterday, as I harvested my wax beans and the first of my burgundy beans, I pinched of the yellowing and brown, crispy leaves, though there were few of them. I’ll continue to do this as I harvest and weed as August moves along.

I’m always on the hunt for tips to extend the growing season; do you have any to share?

Organic Vegetable Gardening Tips for the Month of August

Image: Gibby's Garden

We Mainer’s typically refer to August as the “dog days of summer.” It maybe hot and buggy out, but our organic vegetable gardens are at the peak of production. August is the time to head outdoors and harvest the fruit of our labor and give our gardens that final push into the end of the growing season. Here are some ways to extend the season, control garden pests organically and preserve the harvest.

Tips for Extending the Growing Season in Maine

In Maine, we have a short growing season, as do our neighbors in the north. By following a few simple tips, we as gardeners can make the season a little longer and get more from our gardens.

Tip # 1: Pick all Mature Fruits and Vegetables

To extend the growing season, frequently harvest the garden picking all fruits and vegetables as they mature. Some plants, such as string beans, will stop producing if their mature fruits haven’t been harvested. Once mature fruits have been picked, plants can focus their energy on growing and maturing more fruit.

Tip # 2: Pinch Dead and Dying Leaves/Vines

Take a walk through the garden and pinch dead leaves and vines along with any that are beginning to brown or have been ravished by garden pests. Once these are gone, your plants may be smaller, but they’ll be healthier and will again focus on growing and maturing more fruits and vegetables. Also harvest any damaged or diseased fruit.

Handpick Garden Pests

Spray Affected Plants with Soapy Water

Replace/Refill Traps

Guide to Organic Pest Control for the Garden

This guide contains links to posts here on Gibby’s Garden about controlling specific garden pests organically (slugs, Japanese/cucumber beetles, squash bugs etc.) There’s a summary for each post included in the guide and each post lists ways to identify and control the pests the organic way.

Additional Gardening Tips for the Month of August

Remove Dead/Dying Plants: As plants begin to die off towards the end of August, pull them from the ground and remove them from the garden all together. Removing dead plants keeps garden pests from over wintering under them, which will lessen their presence in the garden the following growing season.

Freeze and Preserve the Garden’s Bounty:  Blanch vegetables before freezing them and can and preserve the rest to enjoy through to the next growing season.

Perhaps one of the best gardening tips for the month of August is to get outside and enjoy the garden in all its glory. Take pictures, jot down where which vegetables were planted and absorb another season of hard work. Breathe in the freshness of the garden, especially after a quenching rain, listen to the birds and crickets chirping with eyes closed and store everything away to remember later when all of Maine’s gardens are buried beneath a foot of white, fluffy snow.