If August is holiday time for you, plans may be needed soon to enlist the help of friends and family to look after the garden when you are away. August can be one of the hottest months of the year – this makes watering essential. If water butts are running low, grey water can be used wherever possible. The Soaker Hose Kits drastically reduce wastage of this valuable commodity by seeping small but constant amounts of water into the soil. For total undercover watering, the hose can be permanently buried under grass or soil and linked to your water butt.
Top Tips for August
- Dead head flowering plants regularly and collect seed from favourite plants to store in a cool and dry place.
- Watering! Particularly containers, pots and new plants. Preferably with stored rainwater or grey recycled water.
- Trim Lavender when finished flowering, prune Wisteria and plant autumn bulbs.
- Keep ponds and water features topped up.
- Cut out old fruited canes on summer raspberries leaving new shoots as these will produce next year’s crop. Tie-in new shoots to support wires.
- Hang wasp traps in fruit trees.
- Harvest blackcurrants if not already done so.
- Harvest maincrop potatoes, sweetcorn and other vegetables as they become ready.
- Harvest alliums (onions, garlic & shallots) and dry well before storing.
- Plant winter Brassicas and lift and pot up strawberry runners.
- Pinch out Runner beans at the top of the canes to encourage bushier growth below.
- Pick all runner, climbing and dwarf beans regularly except for the haricot varieties where we want the bean rather than pod for table.
- Stop tomato plants now to encourage fruit to swell and ripen.
- Keep on top of the pests. Aphids and Blackfly are a particular problem now in the greenhouse.
