The Garden In August

I've been doing what the knowing Gardener About Town does in August: beginning the processes for putting the garden to bed for the winter.  I'd like to do it right just once, to say I've done it.

If you think it's too early even for the frozen north, you'd be surprised at all there is to do, and how slowly and carefully I do things I'm trying to do well.

All of my plants in pots need to come out of their pots.  I can store any plastic or metal pots in the garden shed, but clay pots only survive the winter in the house or in the garage ( on shelves off of the ground).  I empty my pots and wash them out in a big tub.  This takes awhile with my dozens of pots.

If they're a potential houseplant or tender perennial I'd like to overwinter, they need time to acclimate to their new surroundings.  I am beyond guilty of having a garage full of plants in November that still look sooo nice, surely I should bring them inside.

If they're an annual or herb, I will be giving them a spot in a garden bed where they can finish out the season.

There is the wisdom that hitting the weeds hard late in the season doesn't give them time to drop seeds or recover before winter.  I've been working on that, but as you can see in the pictures below, they are wily and determined.

I have some new daylilies and a few perennials that have been getting a start in the vegetable beds this season.  They need their own spot in the garden, and many established plants are overgrown and crowded and really need to be moved.  There's time between now and about September 26th to move, water in and establish new plantings.  That date is my own measure of the earliest date that I've seen the garden get shut down by the early arrival of winter.

I'll need to clear everything out of the vegetable beds once things finish there so it's all ready for spring plantings.  

It's time to update my garden maps so I know what might be added in the spring, and what is currently where.  I've gone back to trying to know each plant in the garden by its common and botanical names.

See why I need an early start?  Here's how things look today: