August is always a super windy month here in South East Queensland, and usually dry. This August was no exception.
What was growing
Front yard mandala
We harvested our Garlic in the last week of August. A bit ahead of what I was expecting, you can check out our 2020 garlic harvest here. Pretty happy with the overall results (you can see the whole process from start to finish below). I was planning peanuts here, but I am not sure I am brave enough to let them take over.
I've removed most of the broccoli, aside from one going to seed. The cherry tomatoes are starting to kick into gear since doing this.
The royal blue potatoes are starting to die back and we will hopefully get to harvest these soon.
Front yard – the stage
Lots of harvests on the tomato front, although the parrots have discovered them and are taking their fair share too. The winter tomatoes are starting to finish up, and the cherry ones are starting to fruit.
We've planted some new beetroots and carrots in this area, but mostly it's a sea of daikon radish flowers and cosmos. The bees love them.
Aquaponics
I haven't planned anything for the aquaponics as there are plans to reconfigure it over summer, so I am just letting everything go to seed and jamming random things in. We've been getting loads of spider mites in here.
Strawberries are doing well in there, and we've got a few decent heads of broccoli as well as loads of lettuce and herbs.
Back raised beds
We harvested our potatoes out here, a fair effort but not anything substantial. Better than previous attempts. But still not really worth the effort. I am still trialling in grow bags and growing a little later.
Here is the video with our potato harvests from start to finish in a container, raised bed and in the ground.
We've made a head start on our lettuce production as well as cucumbers (or it could be rockmelon as I didn't label the seeds we saved!).
We've got one last run of sugar snaps in so hopefully we'll get a few before it gets too hot.
The vegepod
The beans finished up and I've started a better succession plan (instead of planting heaps at once I am planting half a dozen every few weeks). We've been enjoying the fennel out of here, who knew it would be a favourite with the kids! We did have issues with aphids in here, you can see our video on YouTube about how we handle it below or read our blog here.
The food forest
We're starting to pump up the water in this area again, it feels like a fruitless task as the trees in the park next door are just sucking the life out of the bed. I am tempted to give up and convert it to lawn, but that would probably mean losing trees we've planted unfortunately.
What I planted in August
We mostly made a head start on our warm season crops, capsicums, eggplants, cucumbers, zucchini, butternuts and lettuce - loads and loads of lettuce. Plus some beetroots, beans and carrots. I planted the last of the tomatoes for the year, some tiny tims that can either go in the aquaponics or vegepod.
If you want a full list of things you can plant in August you can head to my lists here.
Harvests for August
I originally didn't think we harvested much this month, but we harvested 19.5 kgs of produce, the big one this month being tomatoes from our 6 tomato plants and that excludes the garlic because I didn't get around to weighing it. That's double what we did in July.
I had a go at canning some tomatoes, but I definitely think I'll plant more san marzanos next year to cover our needs.
- Eggplant
- Tomatoes (San marzano, Mortgage lifter, Tropic, Brandywine, Tigerella)
- Purple Podded Peas
- Carrots
- Swede
- Beetroot
- Broccoli
- Chilli
- Kohlrabi
- Beans
- Celery
- Snow peas
- Potatoes
- Fennel
- Lettuce
- Pak choi
- Mustard Greens
- Swiss Chard
- Garlic
- Pineapple
Pest watch
Spider mites have been my main issue on the bug front in August but aphids finally got under control towards the end of the month. We've also seen a few shield bugs around but we haven't noticed much damage.
The cane toads are back as well, digging up seedlings or directly sown seeds which is annoying more than anything.
We've also had birds eating our tomatoes and possums eating our passion fruit.
General observations
No rain this month and the tanks are almost dry. We're hoping to see a bit of that predicted wet spring or at least a few showers to top the tanks back up.
After harvesting the potatoes we cleared the bed out and noticed how much the neighbouring trees were sucking out of our beds. This is a major issue and the thought of converting most beds to wicking beds is on the cards.
You can see our winter garden tour in this YouTube video here.
Plans for September
We're hoping to get a new raised bed setup (replace one of the birdies metal ones and collection of pots we have) along with a raised bed along the fence for our raspberry.
Dirt lovers can access my masterplan inside along with a bunch of spring planting plans of what I've got planned for Spring.
If you're looking for things you can plant during September you can find the lists for that here.
