August

 

Vegetable beds and allotments are now overflowing with organic fruit and vegetables to harvest. After a very slow start to the growing year, due to the weather, we are finally able to enjoy the fruits of our labour. Flower beds need dead-heading and perennials need planting. Harvest time is here. Enjoy!

Crops need to be well watered, especially onions, so make sure you keep emptying the water butt and turn on the sprinkler. Be mindful of potential hose-pipe bans if we finally get some dry and sunny weather!

Keep earthing up main crop potatoes

Plant leeks and continue to sow salad crops. Add some of our slow release fertiliser to guarantee they have the nutrients they need to get a good start and throughout the autumn.

Continue to remove side shoots from tomatoes and feed weekly with our concentrated liquid organic fertiliser

Watch out for pests, and spray with a home made spray or a strong jet of water from the hose pipe

Keep harvesting your veg! Peas, french beans, runner beans, carrots, beetroot, peas, mangetout, onions, potatoes, courgettes, tomatoes, cucumbers, swiss chard, spinach.........

Water pots, containers and hanging baskets daily, twice a day when its hot. Give a weekly feed with organic fertiliser to top up the supply of nutrients and trace elements that they need.

Shake the sweetcorn when the flowers open to release the pollen and help pollination

Remove butterfly eggs and caterpillars from your brassicas

Cut summer fruiting raspberry canes down to soil level and tie in autumn fruiting raspberries

Peg down any strawberry runners that your current plants are sending out. Cut off from the mother plant once they have grown roots.  You should replace plants every 3 to 4 years to keep up your supply of strawberries, and establishing runners means you can do this naturally.

Prune stone fruit trees - plum, damson, apricot, nectarine and peach

Support melons and reduce to just 4 melons per plant

Thin out grapes removing about a quarter of grapes per bunch

Dead head roses and spray regularly for pests

Plant perennials and shrubs with some of our Soil Conditioner mixed in to the soil to give them slow release organic nutrients and trace elements.

Prune wisteria new shoots back to 5 buds to encourage flowers next year

Climbers like Clematis and Honeysuckle can be planted

Continue to feed the flower borders with liquid fertiliser and mulch with soil improver to retain the moisture

Houseplants will be enjoying the sunny weather, so make sure you are watering and misting regularly and give them a weekly feed with our organic fertiliser 

 

dead head roses, houseplant food, organic fertiliser, organic pest control

Recommended by Lucy Hutchings of @shegrowsveg and author of “Get Up and Grow” and recommended by Anna Greenland of @annagreenland and author of "Grow Easy"