08_August

Almost everything you have sown, planted and nurtured through the spring and early summer will be coming to fruition now. Daily trips to your plot should see you returning home with everything from peas, beans, carrots, beetroot, sweetcorn, tomatoes, peppers, potatoes, onions and salads to berries, currants and other fruits.

• Weed and water
• Harvest regularly
• Tie up tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers
• Earth up - potatoes, trench celery to keep the stems out of the light and earth up around brassicas to support unsteady stems.
• Propagate strawberries - any strawberry runners can be pegged down to root

Sow or plant in August
There is very little to sow or plant now in time for harvesting this year. However as space becomes vacant from crops harvested you can begin to plant out overwintering crops
Cauliflowers - August is the time to transplant winter and spring cauliflowers. If they overwinter successfully they should give you a harvest in the new year, January onwards.
Cabbages, Broccoli & Kale - sow a few more cabbages now for harvesting next spring, in a temporary seed bed or pots until space is available on the main plot. Cover them with nets or fleece to keep birds off.
Lettuce & other salad crops - still possible to sow lettuce though they may not germinate if the weather is too hot. For late autumn and winter salads continue to succession sow rocket, land cress and winter purslane.