Okey dokey artichokey. It’s been 93+ degrees for what feels like the last three weeks straight so you know what I’m thinking about… FALL! This happened to me last year. It’s August, it’s hot as heck, I’m tired of sweating from every crevice of my body so I start daydreaming about cool, crisp mornings and the leaves changing color. I’m basically the inverse of Olaf. I’m more of a Spring and Fall person now and could do without the blazing summer heat that makes it so I don’t want to be outside between the hours of 10am-7pm. Oh, and then there’s the mosquitoes. But please stop me. 

Planting cool weather crops in the heat of summer is a bit tricky. Seeds won’t germinate as easily in the warm soil. I know this because I put beet seeds in about two weeks ago in the shadiest spot of my garden and nothing happened. So I’ve been holding out for a few days where the temps will be slightly lower and next week looks like my chance. Honestly, I’m not sure if there is much urgency to plant at the beginning of August since the crops on my list should all be pretty frost hardy and can make it to early November. I’ll give it a whirl and may resort to starting them indoors just as an experiment.

Here’s what I’m planting from seed (and I’m zone 7 for what it’s worth). For fun, I’m also grabbing some Brussels sprout seedlings from a local nursery just to see if they grow.

• Beets
• Kale
• Peas
• Sugar snap peas
• Broccoli
• Cauliflower
• Lettuces

In other news, we harvested our first two meat chickens. Yeah, could have gone without that life experience. I’ll be pondering this for a bit before we decide to raise more next year. These guys were given to us and we did not know they were meat chickens so turned out to be more of a “gift” than we realized. Definitely makes my plant-based eating hit closer to home. I’m sure we’d all eat a lot less meat if we raised and butchered it ourselves.