August 2025 Garden Tour: Landscaping Contractor’s Home Garden – New Jersey

Early August 2025 means peak harvest time here in New Jersey! Join me for a full vegetable and flower garden tour filled with juicy tomatoes, vibrant zinnias, and more. Perfect for anyone looking for backyard garden ideas, seasonal planting tips, and summer harvest inspiration. Thanks for watching, Dawn & Tom

My husband is a contractor, so you may see us doing things a little different and using some of our construction tools in the garden.

Our zone 7 vegetable garden is set up using the Elliot Coleman method of 30 inch wide beds with 18 inch wide walking paths. We’ve been vegetable gardening in this spot for over 30 years. The beds are 25 feet long and most have been in these locations for 15 years. We just rotate crops and amend the soil as needed. Thanks to books like The Winter Harvest Handbook and The Market Gardener. Plus, with the use of our hoop house and covering beds we garden as close to year round as we can. We rely heavily on tee posts, Hortonova FA trellis netting and we plant as much as we can in landscape weed fabric.

Some of the tools we used – Troybilt rototiller, Hoss wheel hoes, Stand N Plant transplanter, R & R cup cutter, EarthWay seeder, 4 Row Pin Point seeder,

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Music from Epidemic Sound:
epidemicsound.com/referral/f0bdip/
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Chapters
00:00 Intro
00:50 Plum regal tomatoes
01:19 Cucumbers
03:03 Indeterminate tomatoes
04:06 Onions
05:31 Flower bed 1, Zinnias & Lisianthus
06:33 Basil & Dill
07:04 Bell Peppers
07:45 Broccoli & Cabbage
08:40 Seedlings to be planted
10:58 Hot peppers and egg plant
11:38 Winter & Summer squash, Snap peas
16:14 Carrots & Beets
17:07 3 more Flower beds
21:55 Determinate tomatoes, sweet peppers
24:03 Pole beans and melons
27:48 Herbs & Mexican sunflower
28:57 Outro

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Hi. I’m Dawn. Welcome back to the garden. Today I’m going to give you
a little tour of everything. Show you how everything’s doing. Today is August 7th, Thursday. And I’m going to have to do
some harvesting this weekend, so I’ll show you around. Tell you what I’m going to be harvesting. I’m going to be showing you what I’m going
to be planting over the weekend, because I have a lot to plant
for the fall crops. I have all the broccolis
and all that kind of stuff like that. And I really haven’t been putting up many videos
because or work has been going crazy. So I finally got out to the garden
to show you what we’re doing. So come on, let’s take a look. All right,
so we’ll start outside the garden. So outside the main garden
we have three rows of tomatoes. These are determinate plum tomatoes. These are the plum regal. They’re doing well, especially with his heat. And have lots of flowers on coming on
since the heat has cooled off a little bit. So I’m hoping to get a lot more yet. These will be my tomatoes
for making sauce. And then we go inside the garden. Then I have adjacent from one another. I have two things a cucumbers one here and one right here. And I already did one picking from them. Now I have to get to the second picking and we have a lot to pick. So I have all these. Pots. I have a whole bunch in here. So I have loads of cucumbers that we have to get harvested
and pickled. That’s what I do with most of my cucumbers on this side is mainly
my pickling cucumbers then. And the other one
that I showed you over here. On this one, this is the. English cucumbers. So I have my English cucumbers over here, and I have them on each end. Then I have a little bit
more of the pickling. I still have lots of little cucumbers
coming on, so I’m going to get a lot. I do pickle a lot. So. So I’ve been getting quite
a lot of cucumbers. This is the English cucumber right here. And I got lots of them. And as you go up, I’m gonna keep getting
more and more and more. I see way up here I can’t even reach. That’s just a smaller ones up top. The English cucumbers
have been doing really well this year. And next in the garden
I have indeterminate tomatoes and they’re all doing pretty well
except for this one cherry
here, and I have a cherry over there. But other than that,
everything is doing a fantastic. Tomatoes are a little slow because of the heat. Tomatoes don’t like to, and peppers don’t like to produce
when it’s really, really hot. But we got more flowers coming on, more
tomatoes coming on, lots of cherries. So, that is starting to cool off again. They should really bounce back. So my end determinate. I have all kinds. I have Black Krim. I have Cherokee Purple. I have big beef porterhouse. They are slow to ripen. But here’s a cluster right here. This one is, Martha Washington. This is a hybrid tomato, but, boy,
is it delicious. And it produces a lot. So now with my onions,
I have an onion bit here. I have an onion
bed right next to the flowers. And my third onion bed is right here. These onions have been done
for two weeks now. And they had crabgrass
since they were done. I didn’t pick them to. I haven’t weeded,
but the onions had come out so in two weeks time
the crabgrass has exploded. So I just got to get my onions
out of here, get them on a rack, get them, to harden off
really good before they store. This one is Paterson. This is a good storing onion. Nice size. So they’re definitely done. So I have to get them out of the garden. And that is one of my,
things I’m doing is we can get all three beds taken out. Here’s how to look on this side. I’ve been also using them a lot to. So not bad. I’ve had better, and I’ve had worse. So, doing good. This is my blush. This is one. It has a really nice flavor. It’s a cross between a yellow and a red,
and it’s like a light pink inside. Very tasty. An empty spot. I had salad, onions, and I ate them all. So next, in between the onions, we have flowers. These are my new zinnias for the fall. And here are my other zinnias. And they are just so fun to have in a garden. I had a hummingbird out here
this afternoon. These are mainly pinks and whites that I put over here,
and they are right next to my Lizzie. And this which the first year I grew. And I’m so happy with them
that I’m definitely going to be planting more next year. I planted them from seed and the purple with the, this is champagne. So the champagne and the purple
really make a nice bouquet together. And these purple aren’t even open yet, so I’m going to get plenty more blooms. So those are my one better flowers
I have for then. Here is my herbs. This is my basil,
which I’ve been making pesto and then freezing it
in, like, these, little trays. And then I vacuum seal them and they will
last six months in a freezer. So that’s another project
for this weekend. Get a lot of basil made into pesto. And they’re just starting to flower. So they’re going to start getting bitter. So I have to get them cut back and processed. Here I have peppers. Peppers are doing great. They look amazing. They have a million flowers,
a little whole bunch, a little baby. And you can see that little baby
pepper started with the hot weather. They slow down. We had some earlier, and then
it slowed down because of the weather. Because peppers do not like to produce
fruit when it’s really hot. But I do have fruit. So, I had a horn. Peppers. These are a sweet lime peppers. So now they’re just starting to cool off
just a little bit. They should really start producing a lot. And here is my broccoli bed I had cauliflower here. I had the purple cauliflower. And that was delicious. I have a couple, cabbages I have to harvest. There’s a nice head. I got to red. They turned out really small,
but it got really hot early. And then my broccoli. I had so many. I picked all the main heads
off of them already, and now I’m just getting all the side
shoots, which. I’ve been getting a lot of. This one is just starting to get
a little old, but all the rest like it. All these side shoots,
these are all side shoots. After I picked the main heads. So, I gotta pick these tomorrow. And the main reason I had to pick these is because I had to get these out of here. Because I have new broccolis to plant. These are all my transplants. Okay, so this bed right here. Right here, and is a bed down there. Our beds are about 24ft
long, approximately. Tom knows better and about 30in wide, and we completely fill them
with push beans. And these are my bush beans that are going into these two beds. So I’m going to be doing darkhorse. And Carlson is a wax yellow wax green. So one’s going to be darkhorse
which is a new one for this fall. And Carlson I’m going to put over there. And I also have two more, types of being,
which means I’m going to be planting in the next week
and that’s going to be provider. And, Dragon Tone and Red tail. So I’m going to have those for, for. But here I have all my transplants. This is a purple topped turnip. And this one is called Royal Crown. Supposed to develop a lot faster than a, the, typical purple top turn up. And this is, Swiss chard,
which is just like spinach. Then I’m going to be planting this weekend
some krabi. These are radishes. This is a traditional purple top radish. And this is a different, no, I mean, purple top turnip and another type of radish in here. And here’s my broccolis and cauliflowers. I’m going to be planting two beds. One, we’re taking out those broccoli and the other bed. I’ll show you over there. We have it all prepped and ready to go. And that’s going to be for
a little broccoli, but mainly cauliflower. So that’s why I
got to get those broccoli out of there, even though they’re still producing. All these shoots and this is a bed of hot peppers I got jalapeno I got the black and I got my Hungarian wax peppers, which I like because they’re just mildly hot
and have a really nice flavor. Then I have my eggplant, which two of them are ready to harvest
because I don’t make it. I don’t get them real big. That one’s ready
and the one back there is ready. Then I have a couple smaller ones,
but the loaded with flowers, so I’ll be getting more. Then I just have some flowers over here
in this area and then I have my zucchinis
I was getting really worried about, but now all of a sudden they just started
producing and they look really scraggly. But they’re doing
good. So my winter squash, I’m going to have plenty. I got my Buttercup. I got a whole bunch of them. I got some over there. This is a acorn squash called Carnival. I have a whole bunch of those here. Up here I got butternut squash,
another butternut squash. We don’t eat a lot of the winter squashes. So what I have here
is going to really tide me over. This right here is another, buttercup. And then here I just have my. These three right here are patty pan squash, summer squash. They produce the little yellow. They look like a little flying saucers. That’s what these two are. They’re nice. Then I have another acorn squash. I think this is Starry Night. I’m just loaded with the acorn squash. There’s another one. So they’re doing well. And down here, this is a different one. I can’t remember the name of this one. And we still have more coming on. So don’t. Good. And my summer squash. They were getting really bad looking and I thought oh no, they’re not doing good. And I actually planted some in the house to replace some of them,
but they’re still producing. Look, here’s a squash here, squash here. And then I got all these flowers. A little one started up here and Nova. Holy cow. Oh, no.
I haven’t been out here in a while. Look at this squash. That is ridiculous. Look how big that is. Oh, well, at least
this one of these Italian squashes. So they’re really
mild even when they’re big. So what I’m gonna have to do with
this one is green it up and use it for my zucchini
fritters or my zucchini bread. So that’s fine. I got to get that tomorrow. So tuna has flowers up there. And then I have a couple
that don’t look right. But I do have some to replace them with
if I need to. This one. Not see any flowers on here. This one does great. It’s a little heart shaped, but it tastes. It tastes good. It’s a new one. I planned it for this year. It’s skinnier
and then it gets fatter down here. I really like the ones
when they’re all the same size. But I have two of these,
so the other ones are all that, you know, all the same size. So not having something
a little different is not bad. And here I got you can see that one here, one here,
one here. There’s one here. So it’s still producing here I have my gray zucchini. These
I think I like the best so far this year. So that one’s producing two. They took a little break with the heat. So it’s good to come back
I have some here zucchini here here. And then I have two right here
that I’m going to replace. Definitely. This one’s not. That was dead. And this one’s really struggling. But other than that they’re not doing bad for what they look like. There’s some more of the patty pan squash here. They have to get bigger than that before we pick them. And then I planted my. This is the, snap peas, sugar snacks. So I just got to get them to touch
the trellis, and then they’ll grow up. They’re doing it on their own there.
They just have to touch it. So I’ll come out and fix that tomorrow
when I’m harvesting. So that’s those, and then I’ll show you. I got carrots here. They’re almost done. They probably have another three weeks ago
at least. But there’s definitely a carrot there
about 6 or 7in long. But they’re still skinny,
so they still have a long way to go. Then I have my cylinder beets. I have to harvest these. These guys see this? That’s a cylinder beet. So these are ready to go. Show you just see those are the cylinder beets. So I can harvest those. I’m the only one who likes beets, so
I just planted a little patch for myself. So this was radishes and stuff like that. We’re going to this. We can plant carrots here because
they’ll be ready in about four weeks. Then they’ll come out
and it’ll it’ll be getting cooler. And then I can put radishes in that spot. When those are done, then I will show you
my other three flower beds, which bring me so much joy in my dahlias. I have four dahlias in the front. They’re just gorgeous. They slow down a little bit from the heat,
but look at all the buds. There’s buds all over
it is so it’s kind of blooming. Another week and I have my flowers. I’ll just give you an overview. Look at them. These are all different types of zinnias, verbena. Oh this color was I think this color is one of my favorites
this year. Isn’t that gorgeous? The color is just fantastic. It starts off like a brighter yellow
and then fades a little darker. And then it turns into this nice peachy color. And I think I’m going to try to save some zinnias
this year. I’ve never really done that. I just bought them. But I have such gorgeous
colors. This year I’m going to really, think I’m going to attempt it, see what I get for next year. And then down here I have my snapdragons,
which flowered once already, and now they’re getting their second
flowering on them. And this is my gummy bear, my gummy bear sunflowers. I planted some in that first flowerbed over there,
so I will have some of them, you know, later in the season. And here I have two rows of flowers which. If you were out here doing a day, you see these hummingbirds
and butterflies. I’ll try to get some pictures of them. It’s just so much fun coming out here
and sitting here and just watching them. But I have all kinds of flowers for bouquets. And here I have these is a Queen in the Queen bee series. I have different colors. I’ll walk you down one. And I got the cactus. This is a pink, pink cactus. I have to get out here
and cut off the dead blooms. I haven’t been picking flowers
as fast as I’m supposed to, but here I have my choreographies. And with these. I try to get this together. My choreographies with the straw flowers. Doesn’t that look cute together? I had to make a bouquet that this is such an odd color,
but it goes really nice with this, so that’s going to look nice in a vase. I have my Japanese, marigolds. And all the zinnias. I got to get them cut down a little bit,
and then I’ll get new blooms. Then I have cactus zinnias, which I really like. These ones. These are more open.
I have some of the other ones. They’re really full, but I think I like
the open ones to have less petals. And these are my filler flowers. Tend my sunflowers are about done,
but I have some more planted. I still have some that are opening, but on the whole they’re getting pretty, pretty bare. You know, some flowers at the end at a
at their own in a life cycle. They just die out quick. But I have some amorous right here
and that’s doing good. These are like these nice light kind of purplish blooms. And that one is a like a wee color
that’s called hot biscuit. I have three different types here. So they’re going to be real pretty because they get really big. But here’s a look at the flowers. Aren’t they awesome. I said the flowers are my happy place. Here’s
another cactus flower that I really liked. See? Isn’t it gorgeous? It’s just so nice. I love this coral color. And this is where my bush beans
are going to go. I had bush beans. Here
we are done with them. They were delicious. But I’m going to be planting back
more bush beans and more onions. Come out to
those beds will be bush beans also. Then I have my determinate tomatoes. They get this tall
and we keep these in cages. These are doing fantastic. The heat really didn’t
slow these ones down. They’re just loaded with flowers. They’re just loaded with tomatoes. They’re just so, so big. Let me show you some. Look at the clusters of tomatoes on here. These are going to be good. They’re all filled with them. So sometimes in a heat, they stop producing for a little while until it cools off. But look, it just keep going down the row,
and they just get more and more. I look at that. How big they are. They’re pretty big, too. Big. All right, so next to my flowers,
I have peppers. More peppers. These are the sweet prime peppers. Some more bell peppers. These ones are nice. And these are smaller bell type peppers. If you can see those. And that one’s called prism. It’s very good. Pepper. They’re smaller,
but they’re nice and sweet. And they also have to call prism
because the peppers will be all different colors light green, yellow, orange, red all in the same plant. So if you like your food colorful,
that’s a nice pepper plant to have. And this right here is another determinate tomato. And this also is
another, determinate tomato. But we ran out of cages because I want
an extra two meters this year. So we just put them on a trellis. So I have to get out here
and chose them up. And this is a row of a couple different
things. Cherry tomato on end. Because I just love cherry tomatoes. Then I have two types of pole beans. I go on the back
so you can see them better. So my goal means I planted I think what is it like? And I have not gotten any other blue
like beans yet, so it’s the first time I plant knows,
so I don’t know if they’re just later, but all my other beans did amazing. So I can’t say it’s a weather. And right here, these are my Monte Cristo wax beans that are pull beans. And I grow these every year
and they produce so much they’re just loaded. And these will go all the way
till the fall, till it gets cold. As long as you keep picking them,
they keep producing. You see how many there are cows. They get out here and harvest is. So they’re just like loaded with them. You can see them all in there. So they’re a great thing for a pole bean. Then down here
I have three different types of melons. I have this one which once is ripe. It gets these orange streaks on there. It’s very sweet. I have so many small ones on here. These are small ones right here. Up there. There’s so many. So we’ll see how they work. Hopefully everything goes well
and they stay on and they keep producing. So far so good. We have the little babies. And then the second one I have
it is called Tommy Apple. And it’s supposed I’ve never had this one. It’s supposed to have like
these orange fruit when I get mature. Oh here’s one right here. So right here. So that skin is going to be like
a, like an orange I see here’s another one right here. And then I have a little baby little more up there. So we’ll see what that one tastes like. But they’re just loaded with them. And then here the third one was and
they’re all personal size so small size. And here I have one. And this is all from Bear Baker Creek one. Here I have one that it will be white when it’s, when it’s, ready. Oh here’s one right here. That’s a cute one. I didn’t see that one earlier. So we have this white one. It will turn white. And there’s also another small one. And here we have a couple down here. So we’ll see how they work. Hopefully. That’s tasty. And last but not least, with the melons. It’s really not a melon. And I don’t even think
I’m going to get any. Is a loofah. I wanted to try a loofah sponge. So in the beginning of the season
I put actually 4 in 3 died and this one stayed. So I did plant a couple more,
but they take a long time. According to their their chart. So I don’t know if I’m getting any loofah, but it was fun to try. But the melons are looking really good. They have a million flowers still on them. So that’s all that. And last thing to show you. I think these are just my herbs
and some chives, some bunching onions. You know, herbs, stuff like that. But the most fun thing I like over here is my Mexican sunflower. I planted one of these last year
and it was gorgeous. And a hummingbirds and butterflies
love this. I don’t think I will ever have a garden
without it. Now. And the other cool thing about it, if you saw any of my other videos
because I say it every time. The leaves, the stems, the flowers,
let me see if you can see. Can you see this
like white coating on here? I don’t know if you can see it. It feels like velvet. It’s so soft. You just don’t want to stop touching
it. It’s just so soft, so that’s a really cool plant. And you can put them in a vase. And when they lose your petals, you can still use them in a vase because they have
these little yellow balls. This is all the pollen is. And it makes a nice accent for, flower arrangement. So I guess I’ll end the video. Next to the Mexican sunflower
is one of my favorites. And, like I said, today’s Thursday. Saturday and Sunday we’re going to be
doing a lot of work in the garden. So I will try to record as much as I can. I haven’t been recording as much
because we had so much do work. Maybe I’ll show you in a video
one day of what I do for a living. Tom and I work outside for a living. We have a fun job. So, maybe I’ll show you that one day. I hope you like the video. I hope you come back
and watch the garden grow. And if you come back, I’ll get to see
all the harvesting we’re doing and putting all that broccoli and stuff. So, thanks for watching. Bye bye.