As the garden season winds down across the Mid-Ohio Valley, many of us start looking at our tomato vines, bean plants, and flower beds with a new question: “Can I save seeds from these for next year?”

The long, hot days of summer are still with us, but the calendar is already pointing toward cooler nights and the start of fall. This is the perfect window for what we like to call the Great August Garden Reset.

There’s something special about late July in our Mid-Ohio Valley gardens. The days are long and warm, the plants are working hard, and the harvest is starting to feel real.

Here in the Mid-Ohio Valley, July is when the real test of a garden begins. The heat settles in, the humidity rises, and those early-summer blooms can start to fade if we don’t give them a little extra care.

Your tomatoes are setting fruit by the bucketful, peppers are pumping out blossoms, sweet corn is tasseling, and squash vines are racing across the garden. But even the healthiest soil can start to run low on nutrients during this peak production window. That’s the perfect time to give your heavy feeders a gentle mid-summer boost with side-dressing.

This weekend I’m heading to Columbus for Cultivate’26, check back every evening for updates straight from the show!