August is here! It’s officially the height of the summer garden season, and we’re growing and harvesting some healthy and beautiful crops here in Lucille’s Garden. The summer staples like zucchini are producing, and lush green fills the beds.

The rain, however, is not cooperating. According to the National Weather Service, in June and July, Delaware County received almost 40% less rainfall in inches than we usually do for this time of year. At the same time, we saw days where the real feel temperatures topped 100 degrees Fahrenheit.

All of that absolutely had an effect on our gardens. In Lucille’s we spent countless hours dragging hoses around, trying to keep all of our plants watered even with the extreme conditions. Luckily, I have a team of amazing volunteers who don’t mind getting soaking wet in the line of duty, so we’ve mostly succeeded in keeping on top of it. Even so, the crops are showing signs of drought stress.

To combat that I top-dressed beds with a thick layer of leaf compost. This is a good way to retain some moisture in the soil below, and keep the roots of the growing plants cool. That, combined with all the watering, has definitely helped keep our crops growing and happy. I’ve also started flats of fall crops indoors on my grow tower. The temperatures in the soil were just too high to allow some of these cool season crops to germinate. So, to keep my seedlings from overheating and drying out, I’ll keep them inside until conditions are right for them to go out in the garden.

We have yet to harvest a ripe tomato, however, and the main peppers producing right now are ‘Sishito’ and ‘Aleppo’. That’s because tomatoes don’t ripen at temperatures above 85 degrees. In fact, the ideal ripening temperature is between 70 and 75 degrees Fahrenheit. So if your tomatoes at home are still green on the vine, don’t despair! Once temperatures reach a better threshold you’ll have more tomatoes than you’ll know what to do with.

Still, this is an important reminder to be kind to ourselves and practice patience. No one has the power to make the rain appear – though if you do please stop by and visit me. Sometimes nature has a different plan than one we had in mind at the beginning of the growing season. The trees agree, you can see the leaves starting to drift down even though autumn is more than a month away.

As we move into August, let’s hope for rain and cooler temperatures. Stop by and visit Lucille’s next time you’re at Tyler, we’d love to show you around the garden.