Maine Home Garden News – August
In This Issue:
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- August in the Maine Garden: Holding On and Looking Ahead
- Certified Pollinator-Friendly Garden Profile: New England Garden at Wells Reserve at Laudholm
- Preserve Today, Enjoy Homegrown Flavor All Year
- Seasonal Sightings
- Ask the Expert: Misshapen Fruit
- Featured Resource: UMaine Cooperative Extension Food and Nutrition Website
- Maine Weather and Climate Overview
August in the Maine Garden: Holding on and Looking Ahead . . .
By Sandra Mitchell, Penobscot County Master Gardener Volunteer, Maine Master Naturalist
There’s a particular kind of pressure that settles into the garden in August. Everything is happening at once — tomatoes finally delivering on all their promises, squash sprawling past their allotted space, beans coming in faster than you can pick them — and underneath all of it, a quiet awareness that the season is not as long as it feels right now.
August in central Maine is productive and demanding in equal measure. What you do this month — and what you notice — shapes both the current harvest and what you’ll be eating in October.
Water: More Complicated Than It Looks
August has a way of deceiving gardeners into thinking the rain is handling things. A few good storms roll through, the surface of the bed looks dark and damp, and it’s easy to assume the plants are fine. They may not be.
The top inch of soil in a raised bed or container can dry out completely within a day of hot sun, even after a decent rain. The only way to actually know what’s happening at root level is to push a finger or a trowel two to three inches down and feel. If it’s dry there, the plants are working harder than they should be.
Water the soil deeply and less often — a long, slow soak once or twice a week does more good than a light spray every day, which encourages shallow roots that are vulnerable to exactly the kind of August heat stress you’re trying to avoid. Early morning is still the right time, both to reduce evaporation and to keep foliage dry going into the night. Wet leaves and humid August nights are a reliable recipe for fungal problems.
Containers and raised beds need the most attention — they drain faster and heat up more than in-ground beds. Newly transplanted fall seedlings are a close second.
August Is Not the End of Planting
This surprises newer gardeners every year, but early August is one of the most productive planting windows in the Maine calendar. Count backward from your first expected frost. Around Bangor, that’s typically somewhere around the first week of October, though inland and low-lying areas often see it earlier — late September is not unusual in some areas, especially low laying areas and hills. That gives you six to eight weeks from now, enough time for a genuine fall harvest if you move in the next week or two.
What goes in now: lettuce, arugula, spinach, radishes, turnips, beets, kale, bok choy, and broccoli raab. Choose varieties with shorter days-to-maturity — that seed packet information matters more in August than at any other time of year. Soil is warm, germination is fast, and the cooling nights that arrive in September actually improve the flavor of most of these crops. If it’s challenging to keep newly-sown areas watered, consider starting seedlings in soil blocks that can be more easily watered until they’re ready to transplant. The fall garden often outperforms the spring garden if you get the timing right.
Keeping the Summer Crops Going
Tomatoes, cucumbers, squash, and beans are at or near peak production right now, and the single most effective thing you can do to keep them that way is simple: harvest consistently. Cucumbers and beans left on the vine too long signal the plant to stop producing. Pick them young, pick them often, and the plant keeps going.
August is also when disease pressure builds quietly and then suddenly isn’t quiet anymore.
Two things to watch specifically:
Early blight on tomatoes — the characteristic brown spots with yellow halos, working up from the lower leaves — is manageable if you catch it early. Remove affected leaves, improve airflow, and avoid overhead watering. This blight won’t kill a plant on its own, but it will weaken it heading into the finish of the season. Late blight is the one to take seriously. It moves fast — a plant can go from looking fine to looking finished in a matter of days in the cool, humid nights we get in August — and it spreads to neighboring plants and to potatoes. If you see water-soaked lesions on leaves and stems with associated white fuzzy growth or fruit with large areas of brownish discoloration and sunken regions, do not compost the material. Bag it and dispose of it. Maine gardeners with any memory of bad blight years know this one deserves respect.
Powdery mildew on cucurbits is essentially inevitable by late August. It looks alarming but rarely kills a plant that has already set fruit. Improve airflow where you can, remove the worst-affected leaves, and let the plant finish its work.
Reinforce stakes and cages now before you need to — a tomato plant loaded with late fruit in a windstorm is the moment that shows the cage was underpowered from the start.
The Pest Situation in August
Many pest populations tend to hit their seasonal peak in August, something useful to know going in rather than discovering mid-month.
Squash vine borers may already be at work inside your squash stems — the giveaway is wilting on a well-watered plant on a cool morning. Japanese beetles are still active on beans, roses, and raspberry foliage.
Aphids and spider mites proliferate in hot, dry spells. Slugs come out in force during the humid nights that follow summer rain, doing their quiet damage to lettuce and brassica seedlings while no one is watching.
Scout regularly and deal with problems while they’re small. At this point in the season the goal shifts. You’re not trying to grow a perfect plant anymore, you’re trying to keep a productive one going for another six weeks. That requires a different calculation about when to intervene and when to accept some damage.
One of the best things to do for pest management costs nothing: keep something blooming.
Herbs that have bolted, late-blooming perennials, or anything that attracts beneficial insects — parasitic wasps, ground beetles, lacewings — pays dividends in natural pest regulation. Let nature do the job, use plenty of native plantings around the garden, and leave the pesticides on the shelf.
Starting to Think About the Transition
Somewhere in the second half of August, the garden starts sending signals. A zucchini plant that has been flourishing since June begins to look genuinely tired. A row of beans that has produced generously starts to thin out. The first spent annuals are clearly done.
This is when the work of transition begins — not in a rush, but in a steady, ongoing way alongside everything else.
Pull what’s finished. Compost healthy plant material; anything that has shown disease goes in the trash or should be buried. Begin thinking about which beds will be empty by September and what you want to do with them.
Cover crops (see Cover Crops for the Home Gardener) are worth planting as beds open up, and the choice matters.
Winter rye — not annual ryegrass, a different plant entirely — is a great choice for late-season cover cropping in Maine. It establishes quickly in cooling soil, is fully winter hardy, and holds the ground through freeze and thaw in ways that genuinely improve soil structure come spring. Buckwheat is a useful short-term option for a bed that won’t be available for winter rye for another few weeks — it grows fast, winterkills cleanly, and adds organic matter. Clover fixes nitrogen and is worth including in any mix where you have time to let it establish.
A Note on Paying Attention
August rewards the gardener who walks the beds regularly and actually looks. Not just at what needs harvesting, but at leaf color, plant posture, the underside of foliage, the soil surface, the places where something has changed since yesterday.
The problems that become expensive in September are almost always visible in August — small, manageable, and easy to miss if you’re moving too fast.
The harvest is at its best right now. So is your ability to influence what comes next.
Certified Pollinator-Friendly Garden Profile: Pollinate New England Garden at Wells Reserve at Laudholm
By Allan Amioka, University of Maine Master Gardener Volunteer, York County
Gardeners have always appreciated the beauty of plants. Now many are learning the functional beauty of native species, whose value goes far beyond appearance in their contributions to a healthy ecosystem. More than 80% of native plants require the service of pollinators to keep doing what they do. The UMaine Extension Pollinator-Friendly Garden Certification Program aims to celebrate and inspire the use of such plants with over 115 gardens in Maine certified to date. One wonderful example, which actually predates the Extension program, is the Pollinate New England garden located at the Wells Reserve at Laudholm.
Once a working farm, Wells Reserve is a 2,250 acre National Estuarine Research Reserve whose focus is the protection of coastal environments through education, research, conservation and community building. York County Extension Master Gardener Volunteers have enjoyed a long, wonderful relationship with this preserve, maintaining a native plant border and an All Seasons Garden, and partnering on other ecologically-oriented projects.
During the summer of 2018, the New England Wildflower Society, now called the Native Plant Trust, with support from grants and The Institute for Museum and Library Services, held workshops on pollinators and building native plant gardens across all six New England states at 11 sites. Sites were selected according to criteria including mission, visibility, parking, ability to prep and maintain, and a host of others. These workshops were designed for an audience without formal horticultural training.
Leading the project were Dr. Annie White, Ecological Landscape Designer and Owner/Principle of Nectar Landscape Design Studios, and Mark Richardson, then Botanic Garden Director at New England Wildflower Society. Annie White’s dissertation1 examined how native plants and cultivars differ in the number of pollinator visits they attract and the rewards they offer to pollinators. Research in this area was needed at the time, so her work was welcome and provided solid direction. Mark Richardson has authored Native Plants for New England Gardens2, a handy, concise volume on native plants.
The original proposal established the goal to “convert existing designed landscapes – yards – into new gardens filled with genetically diverse pesticide-free native plants. These new plant communities will in turn reinvigorate pollinator populations.”
At the time, and still today, many home gardens were characterized by mulch punctuated with a few widely-spaced specimen plants. It’s easy to see why. Plants are expensive and new homeowners want to get things up and running quickly. Also, since nature abhors a vacuum, the heavy use of mulch prevents weeds from filling in the spaces between plants. This approach is arguably neat, tidy, and potentially more economical. But it is far from effective at supporting thriving pollinator populations, especially when the plants selected are exotic plants or even cultivars of native plants that have been bred for features that may be less helpful or attractive to pollinators, such as showy but sterile flowers, or purple foliage.
One key aspect of a pollinator-friendly garden or habitat is to emulate the wild environment. Because insects and birds expend energy in their quest for pollen and nectar, closely placed sources provide them more bang for their beats. Also, because native plants evolved together with native pollinators, they better support their needs.
The UMaine Pollinator-Friendly Certified Pollinate New England Garden demonstrated an attractive and effective alternative to the conventional approach, characterized by:
Dense Plant Spacing
Also known as ‘massing’, 190 plants were installed in a 180 square foot garden using 6 to 15 plants of each species.
Local Ecotype Native Species
Grown from seed, of the 19 straight species (i.e. not cultivated varieties) planted, 17 are moth and butterfly larval hosts.
Living Mulch
Natural bark mulch was used only until wild strawberry (Fragaria virginiana) and field pussytoes (Antennaria neglecta), the groundcovers planted to fill the in-between spaces, became established.
Food for Three Seasons
Plants were chosen to provide nectar and pollen throughout the growing season. The aforementioned living groundcovers and sundial lupine (Lupinus perennis) were examples of early offerings while the pollinators gathered from a diverse mix of midseason blooms including broad leaf mountain mint (Pycnanthemum muticum) – a bee favorite. Later in the season, the unique and widely adaptable white turtlehead (Chelone glabra) serve as a host plant to Baltimore checkerspot butterflies and also offer nectar and pollen resources to a range of insects.
Layered Design
Use of sedge/grasses (both larval hosts) provide vertical and diagonal textural elements and highlight the ever-changing blooms.
Overwintering Habitat
Stem stubble is trimmed to between 8 and 24” at the end of the season to provide space for stem nesting bees. Signage posted through the fall and winter has effectively explained the naturalistic look to curious passerby. Researcher Heather Holm developed recommendations to further support pollinators by leaving leaves, grasses and plant material in place, especially under keystone trees to provide “soft landings”.
This beautiful little garden was installed in June of 2018, before the start of the UMaine Pollinator Friendly Garden Certification Program, yet it met and exceeded the program’s requirements for food, shelter, water and safeguarding habitat. It has been maintained by York County Master Gardener Volunteers since installation. Thousands of visitors have appreciated the garden as they pass by on their way to the myriad programs at Wells Reserve. A host of pollinators have enjoyed it as well.
References
1. Are native cultivars as valuable to pollinators as native species?
2. UMaine Extension Pollinator-Friendly Gardening
Preserve Today, Enjoy Homegrown Flavor All Year
The UMaine Cooperative Extension home food preservation staff is excited to announce the return of our popular food preservation webinars this summer!
The 2026 series will explain how to preserve seasonal foods, in a live format that lets you ask the experts all your questions. Topics include fermenting pickles, freeze drying foods, and quick and easy methods of preserving for the busy cook. We hope to see you online!
Register here: Preserving the Harvest: 2026 Food Preservation Webinar Series
Registration is required; a $5 donation per session is optional.
For more information or to request a reasonable accommodation, contact Renée Whiting, 207.581.8364; renee.whiting@maine.edu.
Seasonal Sightings in August
By Maine Audubon Native Plants Program Coordinator Jocelyn LaClair. Photos courtesy of Maine Audubon.
Northern bayberry (Morella pensylvanica) fruits in August, so this is a great shrub to look for this month. It has important wildlife value for many different species. Leafcutter bees use the leaves for nesting materials, and when growing en masse, they make excellent nesting sites for birds. Various songbirds and waterfowl also benefit from the berries which persist long into winter.
In addition, Northern bayberry is a nitrogen fixer—it has a symbiotic relationship with frankia bacteria, which convert atmospheric nitrogen into usable ammonia. Northern bayberry is dioecious, meaning it has both male and female individuals. Both males and females will grow yellowish-green catkins along their branches, but only the females will develop fruit. The berries are light gray with a waxy and aromatic coating. Northern bayberry, a classic coastal plant, makes a great roadside plant as well, because it tolerates difficult conditions including salt, drought, wetness, wind, poor soil, and erosion.
Other August wildlife to look for:
Late-season wildflowers, like goldenrods and asters, are filling meadows and edges[1.1] with their blooms. Take a few minutes to observe the dizzying array of native pollinator species that visit these flowers, especially native bees, wasps, and flies. You may even see an ambush bug or a crab spider preying on a much larger pollinator species.
The end of August or beginning of September marks the end of common nighthawk migration across Maine. Watch for these aerial insectivores passing over salt marshes and other open habitats in huge numbers, especially at dusk. Most migrate all the way to the Amazon basin in South America to feed on insects during the austral summer.
Ask the Expert: Misshapen Fruit
Ask the Expert: Why are my cucumbers and squash plants producing small or misshapen fruits?
Answer by Jonathan Foster, Horticulturist, University of Maine Cooperative Extension
There are a few different factors that can cause misshapen and/or undersized fruits:
Incomplete or insufficient pollination.
The female flower will begin to swell at the base, which can sometimes be mistaken for a growing cucumber. If the flower isn’t fully pollinated, the flower will wither and the swollen base withers and rots and can sometimes leave a misshapen structure on the plant for some time before rotting. If this were the case, taking pollen from a male flower on a paintbrush or cotton swab, and then brushing it on the inside of the female flower can fix the problem for subsequent fruits–the male flower (usually more common) has a little spike covered with powdery pollen and the female flower has a small structure that looks a bit like a gnobby brain.
Damage to fruit buds.
Sometimes, too much heat, a pest or pathogen, or exposure to something toxic can damage the buds and lead to deformed fruit. I do not suspect this is what’s going on, but it can happen.
Drought.
Fruit size is entirely dependent on ample water supplies, and if the supplies run low the plant will always redirect water to the rest of the plant, away from fruit. Unless you have automated irrigation going to ensure that the beds are consistently moist in this hot, drought-y summer in Maine, and are mulching properly to maintain the soil moisture, I suspect this is the ultimate issue (we’re seeing in crops all across the state).
Featured Resource: UMaine Cooperative Extension Food and Nutrition Website
The University of Maine Cooperative Extension’s Food and Nutrition programs offer resources designed for Mainers to successfully grow, preserve, and prepare healthy food for their families and communities. You can explore nutritious, taste-tested options through the Mainely Dish recipe and video collection and get quick, bite-sized food and nutrition information that is science-based and applicable to your life at the Spoonful Blog.
Food preservation resources include hands-on food preservation workshops along with “how to” home food preservation videos.
Other workshops include Cooking for Crowds, which is designed specifically for volunteers to learn how to handle food safely when preparing meals for community events for fundraising, fellowship, and food pantries.
The final resource that you might find helpful is the Food and Health Publications. These Cooperative Extension publications cover topics ranging from nutrition, home food preservation, and food safety.
Maine Weather and Climate Overview
By Sean Birkel, Assistant Extension Professor, Maine State Climatologist, Cooperative Extension, Climate Change Institute, University of Maine
July began with a heat wave lasting through the 4th with daytime temperatures reaching into the high 80s to above 90°F. Above normal temperatures then persisted through the 15th. The second half of the month brought a change in weather pattern with below or near normal temperatures affording daytime highs in the 70s to low 80s. Some areas saw a few chilly mornings with temperatures dipping into the high 40s to around 50. On July 14th, upper-level winds brought a plume of wildfire smoke into Maine from Ontario, triggering air quality alerts. Weather models under-predicted the thermal impact of the smoke, resulting in afternoon temperatures that were forecasted about 10 degrees too hot (low 90s) compared to what was observed (high 70s to around 80°F). The lower temperatures diminished afternoon convection and thwarted severe storm development that had been expected that day.
Precipitation deficits emerged in the first half of July, causing declines in soil moisture and streamflows, especially in the southwest and Midcoast. Scattered showers and thunderstorms in the latter half of the month generally helped to maintain status quo. The July 21 U.S. Drought Monitor shows abnormal dryness spanning most of the coast and inland across southern Penobscot County. Most of York County and small area of Cumberland County remain in moderate drought. As of the time of this writing on July 29, the forecast shows beneficial rainfall across much of Maine, including the Midcoast and southwest. Additional information is available on the Maine Climate Office website.
August and Fall August and Fall Outlooks
The 1-month outlook for August shows a lean toward above normal temperature and equal chances of above or below normal precipitation. The 3-month outlook for September–November shows above-normal temperature statewide and a lean towards above normal precipitation across the southern half of the state. The NOAA Climate Prediction Center reports that El Niño conditions are present and expected to strengthen into the 2026/27 winter. There is a 63% chance of this Niño event becoming very strong during the November–January period and potentially ranking among the largest El Niños since 1950. Warm ocean temperatures and moisture released into the atmosphere during El Niño tends to produce more weather extremes than usual.
Maine Statewide 2026 Temperature & Precipitation Rankings
- Jul: Monthly summary not yet available
- Jun: 12th Warmest (much above average), 35th Wettest (above average)
- May: 60th Coldest (near average), 29th Wettest (above average)
- Apr: 32nd Warmest (above average), 28th Wettest (above average)
- Mar: 34th Warmest (above average), 58th Driest (near average)
- Feb: 52nd Warmest (near average), 2nd Driest (much below average)
- Jan: 54th Warmest (near average), 28th Driest (below average)
- Spring (Mar–May): 30th Warmest (above average), 34th Wettest (above average)
- Winter (Dec–Feb): 60th Warmest (near average), 5th Driest (much below average)
For additional information, including historical temperature and precipitation data, weather forecasts, and seasonal climate outlooks, visit the Maine Climate Office website.
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Maine Home Garden News was created in response to a continued increase in requests for information on gardening and includes timely and seasonal tips, as well as research-based articles on all aspects of gardening. Articles are written by UMaine Extension specialists, educators, and horticulture professionals, as well as Master Gardener Volunteers from around Maine. The following staff and volunteer team take great care editing content, designing the web and email platforms, maintaining email lists, and getting hard copies mailed to those who don’t have access to the internet: Abby Zelz*, Barbara Harrity*, Kate Garland, Mary Michaud, Michelle Snowden, Naomi Jacobs*, Phoebe Call*, and Wendy Robertson.
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