August reminds gardeners of autumn’s quick approach

August arrives with a certain amount of melancholy each year, bearing the burden of a season’s near-end on its shoulders. The month signals the last bit of summer’s glory and demands that the gardener indulge the senses in whatever remnants of color, form, fragrance and texture the flower garden offers. Although this is the month the vegetable patch spurts forth its luscious offerings, the hearty yield itself is a sort of reminder that August’s abundance is followed by September’s surrender.

We turn to each other and ask, “Where did the time go?” and “How did the summer fly by so fast?” It seems odd, doesn’t it, that we never ask ourselves these questions in March, when the pages of our time-trackers signal winter’s days stomping on. But summer gets whisked through our fingers by that greedy Father Time. He must delight in seeing us glance around the garden with worry and wonder. “Will there be time enough to harvest any artichokes or eggplants? How will I ever clean this all up before it snows?”

Turning the calendar to August this year seems more burdensome than ever. The lack of plentiful sunshine and the overabundance of fog and rain give us cause to gripe as much as we would in an arid summer. As the buds of the spurge plants begin to swell, as the chrysanthemums pop open with their autumn hues and as lifting the zucchini leaves reveals baseball-bat sized fruits beneath, the gardener sighs, “Ah, the end of summer.”

“Summer? What summer?” The words are discharged from the lips of a gardening friend with disgust. If anyone has reason to hold a grudge against Mother Nature, it’s the gardener. “My tomatoes are huge, massive green things with no fruits,” he reports. “My catmint is rotting at the crown. My beets are floundering in mud. I don’t even want to talk about what the groundhog did to my beans.”

The thing with facing the end of the season is that one must silently accept what Father Time and Mother Nature have willed in the garden. There’s no point in saying, “Don’t worry, things will dry out,” or “Next month things will look up.”

In August, the vegetable garden dictates certain obvious tasks, the reaping, the freezing, the preserving. One must avoid tiptoeing through the garden on wet or foggy days. Powdery mildew and other fungal diseases spread viciously in late summer and our moving about among the plants on moist days only helps their dispersal.

There’s no end to deadheading flowers in late summer. Even in late summer, a gardener might effectively trick a plant or two into tossing up another set of blooms. Deadheading effectively thwarts a plant’s efforts to produce seeds. By removing spent blooms after a perennial’s (or in some cases a biennial’s) first blooming period in spring or summer, a gardener may force plants to yield a second set of blooms later. Besides, even if a plant can’t be tricked into flowering, late summer deadheading is a smart way to eliminate unwanted “volunteer” seedlings next year.

Also, you’ve probably noticed when plants go to seed they frequently lose their luster, their leaves dull and often disease sets in. Deadheading helps keep foliage vitalized and keeps the garden looking full and lush until there is frost.

Although there is plenty of work in the garden when weather allows, this is the month we mentally shift dramatically into the future. We draw up a list at the backs of our minds for what we want to do next year. “Have to pull out all of that gay feather and move it behind the daisies. Need to till up another plot for corn – this one’s too small. Want to dig a drain around the lower garden.”

Perhaps you enjoy autumn, perhaps it’s your favorite season. But you know what you must do during those months and you look forward to them with a kind of certainty that doesn’t require much thought. But winter – notice how you glance right over those months and begin planning the next growing season right now?

Fact is, as we flip that calendar from August to September Father Time and Mother Nature will be looking over our shoulders. Father Time undoubtedly will stifle an amused snicker as our shoulders droop and we moan in reluctance. “Disappointed, dear?” Mother Nature will say lovingly, as she sends fog rolling through the yard.

Like all good parents, they don’t mean to be mean; they’re trying to teach us a lesson.

And so, we all must collectively take a deep breath, square our shoulders, and put our chin up. Deep down somewhere in your gardener’s soul, you know you’ll take what you get from this profoundly wondrous duo and you’ll try again next year. Who knows? Next year we might praise them. Old man time might pass by graciously slow. Momma might sweep in with cool, sunny days and perfect, gentle showers every night.

Let’s hope!

Diana George Chapin is the NEWS garden columnist. Send horticulture questions to Gardening Questions, 512 North Ridge Road, Montville 0494,1 or e-mail dianagc@midcoast.com. Selected questions will be answered in future columns. Include name, address and telephone number.