Jobs for August
The Vegetable Garden
Plant out your leeks and brassicas if you haven’t already, and you can also squeeze in a final sowing of spinach and chard in the first couple of weeks of August.
Watch your tomatoes and potatoes closely for blight. This will first be visible in the leaves, and can often be prevented with Bordeaux mixture. Potatoes can also be protected simply by earthing up the tubers.
Do a last sowing of beetroot.
Continue to feed tomatoes.
Salad and herbs
Sow basil, marjoram, borage, chives, coriander and dill in pots outside so that it is easy to move them inside in the late autumn.
Cut back herbs to encourage a new flush of leaves that you can harvest before the frost.
Divide clumps of chives.
Sow hardy salads and herbs as soon as possible to give your crops a sheltered spot in the garden right the way through the autumn, winter and early spring.
Sow parsley. It’s a slow herb to germinate and won’t be harvestable for about 10 weeks but you’ll be able to pick it all winter.
Sow a patch of chervil, an invaluable winter herb with a gentle aniseedy flavour, lovely in salads and omelettes.
Other Jobs
If you’re going away ask a neighbour or willing family member to pick your flowers, salad and veg to prevent everything running to seed in your absence.
And of course, at this time of year, watering is key. Keep on top of this daily, making sure you water in the morning or late afternoon-evening to prevent the heat evaporating all the water before it reaches the plant roots.
Continue mowing but reduce frequency and raise blades if the weather is hot and dry. Keep watering new lawns; established lawns will soon recover when it rains.
Mow wild flower meadows anytime now. Even orchids and yellow rattle have ripened and dropped their seed. Leave what you've cut for a couple of days to dry and drop any seed, then rake up hay and remove it. Low fertility is key to success, so never mulch with grass clippings.
Now is the time to look at your borders and note any gaps/congestion that you’ll want to rectify later in the season when everything has gone over, ahead of next year.
The Flower Garden
Sowing and Growing
Towards the end of August you can start planning next year’s colour by sowing your hardy annuals.
Keep picking your cut flowers to encourage more blooms and a longer flowering season.
Feed your containers to keep your display going into the autumn.
Take pelargonium cuttings – they’re growing at full tilt now so they’ll root very quickly.
Take cuttings from other tender perennials, plants such as arctotis, argyranthemums, verbenas and plectranthus.
Support your dahlias, lilies and gladioli with stakes, metal supports and flower rings to ensure the weight of their beautiful flower doesn’t cause their stems to break.
Perennials, Shrubs and Trees
Most long-flowering perennials such as hardy Geraniums have finished blooming now, so cut them right to the ground and water to encourage them to put up a second flush of foliage.
Trim back your lavender once it has finished flowering, to stop it growing leggy.
Pull alstroemerias – as alstroes go over from their first flowering, pull (rather than cut) the stems.
Stake late-flowering perennials such as asters, echinaceas and rudbeckias. They will have so much more impact in the garden looking perky and upstanding, rather than trailing along the ground.
Prune your wisteria after flowering by removing all the whippy side shoots from the main branch framework to about about five leaves from the main stem.
Prune rambling roses after flowering.
Fruit
Prune back your pleached fruit trees, leaving 3 or 4 leaves on each sideshoot. If any of your other fruit trees need pruning, do this immediately after you have harvested.
Transplant strawberry runners to a new position.
Ensure that your fruit crops aren’t pinched by the birds by covering with netting, ensuring the netting stands well clear of the fruit.
Check your fruit trees for brown rot and quickly remove any affected fruit to help stop it spreading.
Check early apple varieties such as 'Discovery’ and 'Katy’. Lift the fruit gently and if it comes off in your hand, these are ready to eat.
