July and August are the main harvest months in the garden: As the harvest baskets fill up, the rows in the raised bed thin out. Fortunately, there are still a whole range of vegetables that can be sown or planted for the autumn harvest.
What else can you plant in raised beds in August?
In August you can still use autumn salads in the raised bed such as lamb's lettuce, radicchio, endive and sugar loaf, pick and cut salads, rocket, autumn spinach, chard, bulb fennel, carrots, radishes, salsify, radish, mizuna, May turnips, beetroot, Sow winter radish, Chinese cabbage and pak choi. Herbs such as parsley, chives, lovage, dill and garden cress are also possible.
How to plan a favorable crop rotation
Gardeners refer to the successive cultivation of different types of vegetables with different nutrient requirements on a bed over a longer period of time as crop rotation. In the first two years, heavy feeders such as Chinese cabbage, cabbage, leeks or celery should be grown on classically layered raised beds, and medium feeders such as endive, bulbous fennel, kohlrabi, chard, carrots, radicchio, radish, beetroot, salsify or sugar loaf should be grown in the third and fourth years In the fourth and fifth year, weak eaters such as lamb's lettuce, lettuce, ice cream lettuce, pick and cut lettuces (oak leaf lettuce, batavia, rocket), radishes, spinach and onions.
Sowing in August for the autumn harvest
Many lettuces grow very quickly and can therefore be planted in the bed in August and often even in September. Typical autumn salads such as lamb's lettuce, radicchio, endive and sugar loaf are particularly suitable for late sowing, but various pick and cut lettuces as well as rocket ripen in time before the first frost. Autumn spinach and chard are also suitable for sowing, although you can even overwinter chard after the autumn harvest: To do this, cut the plants back to around five centimeters above the ground. They will then sprout again in spring, so you can have fresh chard on the table as early as March or April. If you feel like something other than lettuce or leafy vegetables, you can sow these types directly into the raised bed:
- bulb fennel
- Carrots
- Radish
- Black Roots
- Radish
- Mizuna (Japanese cabbage)
- May Rübchen
- Beetroot
- Winter radish
- Chinese cabbage
- Pak Choi
Growing various herbs such as parsley, chives, lovage, dill and garden cress is also worthwhile.
Sowing for the spring harvest
Otherwise, it is now time to start thinking about the next gardening season: from August onwards, the first plants for the coming harvest period will be planted. These include, for example, strawberries, but also spring and autumn onions.
Tip
The gardening season can easily be extended by a few weeks in raised beds: all you have to do is fit the bed box with a cold frame attachment (€109.00 on Amazon). In any case, many plants can be cultivated in a raised bed for longer than in classic garden beds because it is nice and warm there due to the rotting process.
