I couldn’t help but be amused at the forecast for this week, which called for temperatures in the 90s. While such heat in late August would be “seasonable” most years, it seems wildly out of place in this uncharacteristically mild summer. For vegetable gardeners, this has been a season that followed none of the rules.

In many gardens, tomato and pepper plants are still producing new fruit. What’s more the tomato vines look more like July plants than the ragtag, sun-scorched plants we usually have in late August. Such vegetables as okra and eggplant came a little later this year, which also extended the midsummer growing season.

I also see the effects of the gentle summer in my herbs. For example, I’ve kept the blooms pinched off my basil and am still picking lush and flavorful leaves almost every day. A terra cotta pot full of rosemary that I set out on the porch in May is still green and healthy, after only weekly watering all summer long.

We also had a surprise bonus around the first of the month. A scraggly peach tree that usually bears just a handful of tiny fruit kicked into gear this year and presented us with a full crop in August. Suddenly I found myself rolling out pie dough as if it were June.

While the relatively cool temperatures played a role in this extraordinary season, surprisingly ample rainfall also made a difference. In northeast Kansas we are about 5 inches ahead of normal year-to-date rain totals. In most years when precipitation is this plentiful, we have floods, but this year the rain was spaced nicely and our gardens absorbed it all.

Squash and vining garden crops did particularly well this year. It was a banner season for melons in our own garden, and winter squash and pumpkin growers also have mentioned good results. In dry summers like last year, those crops required such heavy irrigation that many gardeners gave up on them.

Barring some sort of late-season heat wave, this would appear to be a perfect season to experiment with planting greens and other vegetables to harvest through the fall and even into the winter. When we have several successive days of temperatures in the 80s, seeds can germinate. They need to be kept moist and may need a bit of protection from the direct midday sun as well, but by mid-September, new crops could be well on their way.

A number of seed varieties are available specifically for late-season planting, and most of them come from Great Britain and Northern Europe. Their names tell it all. For example, there’s Winterwunder lettuce, the January King and Tundra cabbage varieties, Nordic spinach and Autumn King carrots.

I’ve found that some leftover seeds from the spring can be planted this time of year with great success. The Space and Tyee varieties of spinach will produce in fall and I’ve had several readers tell me during the years that they have kept their spinach alive all the way through the winter under heavy mulch.

I’ve also left late carrots in the ground and dug them through the winter. Again, a heavy mulch helps.

Note to readers: I’ve had an inquiry from an herb grower who recently moved to Kansas and would like to join or start an herb club. If you are part of a group that can accept new members or would be interested in participating in a new club, please drop me an e-mail.