August is an awkward month in the North Texas garden.

Most of our summer plants are exhausted. It’s too hot to spend much time outside. And yet, the planting season for fall and next spring is already beginning.

One of the biggest mistakes gardeners make is waiting until the weather feels like fall to start planting. By then, we have missed valuable growing time.

Here’s what to focus on this month:

Plant a second round of warm-season vegetables.​
August is the time to sow summer crops such as bush beans, corn, cucumbers and summer squash for a fall harvest. Choose varieties with shorter days to maturity and keep the seedbed consistently moist while the seeds germinate. I will be sowing Sophy zucchini and Corinto cucumbers. To start your fall vegetable garden with confidence, watch the replay of Best-Ever Fall Vegetable Garden, and then use "Ask Callie" to get individualized advice. (Available now to all enrolled students.)

Start fall vegetables indoors.​
Broccoli, cabbage and other brassica transplants can be started by seed indoors this month and transplanted out in September. I will be starting several mini broccolis including Happy Rich, Sidekick, and BC1611 in order to compare performance. Happy Rich is already a favorite, but the other two need additional testing. I will also be starting Fioretto 70 sprouting cauliflower, Minuet Chinese cabbage, and a few different kales.

Start cold-hardy annual flowers indoors.​
This is also the time to begin starting many of the flowers we will plant outside this fall. Cold-hardy annual flowers such as poppies, snapdragons, foxglove and delphinium establish roots during the cooler months, survive the winter, and bloom much earlier in spring than flowers planted after our last frost.

It feels strange to think about spring flowers while it’s 100 degrees outside, but this is exactly when the process begins.

On August 19 and 26, I’m teaching Cottage Cutting Garden with Cold-Hardy Annuals. It's a two-part class, and I’ll cover which hardy annual flowers grow well in North Texas, when to start and plant them, and how to plan a garden that produces armloads of flowers next spring.

The class is included with enrollment in The Dallas Garden School. You can attend live or watch the replay whenever it works for you.

Fall gardening starts earlier than most people realize. A little work now can completely change what your garden looks like over the next several months.

Callie