So, for the next few weeks, it’s all about the pruning, the deadheading and the harvesting.
For most, it’s this glorious hot weather that has no doubt left your garden in full bloom. Everything is looking perfect and your planning earlier in the year has come to fruition.
As much as this should be enjoyed for as long as possible, now is the time to start preparing for the inevitable cold spell. Plant crops for the winter months, cut back your herbs and deadhead your potted plants.
Here’s just four of the jobs you can tick off this August:
1. Sow your winter vegetables
Some of the trusty staples like potatoes and onions should already be well underway, but there’s still time for a last drill of turnips or carrots. Other hardy vegetables such as broccoli, cabbage and brussels sprouts can also be sown now ready for a winter harvest.
In the greenhouse, a winter lettuce will flourish along with parsley, coriander and dwarf beans (of the ‘speedy’ variety).
Outside, spring onions and spring cabbages should be planted now for a spring crop (the clue is in the name). Sowing radishes will give you a good autumn harvest as well as spinach ‘perpetual’ and pak choi. Both are trendy yet nutritious, so are a great staple for some healthy-but-hearty winter dishes.
2. Take care of your fruit trees
Home crops don’t stop with the lettuces in the greenhouse or spuds in the allotment. There’s so much love for home-grown fruit too. Think of the apple and blackberry crumbles, the raspberry jam or the peach cobbler.
To keep your fruit trees in the best shape possible, you need to harvest the ripe and ready fruit and then give the trees a good prune. Help them to keep their shape and regain their strength (after a heavy crop) by propping up any struggling branches. As long as they have fruited, cut raspberry canes back to the ground and prune blackcurrant bushes by about a third.
3. Trim your hedges
By the end of August, you should be safe to trim your hedges as the birds using them for breeding nests will probably have vacated. Hedges often have a growth spurt earlier in the year, but slow down over the winter months.
You need to get in and snip them back into shape as they’ll need to grow a little after this last trim. This is to protect themselves and make sure there are no obvious bare patches before the cold really sets in.
You should also clip any topiary bushes you have and prune the late summer-flowering shrubs and wisteria.
4. Plant your bulbs
If you can handle talk of how many shopping days until Christmas, you can start to think about buying prepared hyacinth and some narcissi bulbs now too. Pot them up in late summer and they should be ready and looking beautiful by December.
Thinking even further ahead, if you like to enjoy pretty spring flowers as early as possible, your daffodils need to go in during August and September. For the best chance of success, plant spring bulbs two to three times their own depth and add a little bone meal to the planting hole. But be careful not to dig them up as you tackle the winter weeds.
You don't really get a break from gardening during the summer. And even though life slows down a bit as Autumn approaches, you still need to keep on top of the autumn gardening jobs to make sure your garden is looking beautiful and producing well all year round.
And it’s always worth a quick sense check to make sure there’s nothing you’ve missed from one month to the next; gardens are season sensitive after all.
