Yellow brandy­wines and assorted heir­loom tomatoes.

The “Dog Days of Summer” are here. The phrase comes from the con­stel­la­tion in the sky now, Canis Major, which con­tains Sirius, the dog star. Sirius is the biggest and bright­est star in the night sky, and is one you can see even in the city. Sirius comes from the Greek word sireios, mean­ing ‘sparkling’, or ‘scorch­ing’. I think the lat­ter word is the more apt for our hot, dry August weather.

Here’s three things to do in the August garden.

1. Water judi­ciously. You don’t have to run a sprin­kler on the whole gar­den, but spot water­ing is a good prac­tice, espe­cially for peren­ni­als planted this year, or any annu­als that look droopy. Simply water soil around the plant itself. Trees and shrubs are espe­cially threat­ened by the August drought, so make sure you add an inch of water each week to newly planted specimens.

2. Mulch like crazy! Bags of shred­ded bark, pine or cedar are insur­ance against los­ing a plant. Mulch holds water in, keep weeds down, and keeps soil cooler. It also encour­ages ben­e­fi­cial micro-organism activ­ity on the soil sur­face, and ben­e­fits the worms below. You might even get a few more toads in your garden.

Another great ben­e­fit of mulch is stop­ping water run-off, whether from rain or a hose. The word mulch comes from the French, mean­ing “to soften”—the water’s impact is soft­ened and slowed down when it hits the mulch. Avoid any hideous bright orange mulch and go for a nat­ural variety.

To pre­serve mulch add a layer of news­pa­per before you put down the mulch as an addi­tonal bar­rier. Moisten the news­pa­per first. You can also use your own clip­pings from cedar hedges, grass or other vegetation—like rhubarb leaves—as a green mulch. Just keep any­thing with weed seeds out.

3. Harvest! Pluck those toma­toes, pull off those zuc­chini before they turn into poten­tial mur­der weapons, and start grilling or mak­ing those once a year fresh tomato sand­wiches. It’s a great time to have a veg­etable garden.