August is such a rewarding month to be a gardener, with gorgeous flowers to enjoy and fruit and veg to harvest. But while there's plenty to admire, there's still lots to be getting on with this month! So without further ado let’s dive into your top jobs in the garden for August…
Summer prune your wisteria
If you haven’t already, now’s a good time to give your wisteria a quick summer prune.
As you can see in my video, mine has put out quite a lot of young, whippy stems that are growing across my pathway.
Cutting these back is important for improving airflow and encouraging bud formation, as well as obviously just making everything look a lot tidier!
Using a pair of sharp, clean secateurs, aim to cut any of these long, green shoots back to five or six sets of leaves.
Feed tomatoes weekly
August is peak tomato fruiting time!
Tomatoes are very hungry growers, meaning they require regular feeding in summer to stay happy and healthy and carry on putting out lots of lovely fruit.
You should try and feed your tomatoes once a week, if you’re not already. It might seem like a lot, but I promise your plants will thank you!
All you need to do is take any good quality tomato feed like Tomorite or Big Tom, dilute it down following the proportions on the bottle, and then give the base of your plants a good feed once a week.
Make sure you stay on top of watering too – especially if you’re growing tumbling toms in hanging baskets as these can dry out very fast.
Harvest onions & garlic
If you’ve been growing onions or garlic this year, then they should be about ready to harvest!
A really easy way to know when your crop is ready to harvest is when the foliage starts to go yellow or fall over.
Then just get a fork and carefully lift up your crops, making sure not to damage them.
If you do spot any onions or garlic that look damaged, try to eat these as soon as you can as they won’t store very well.
For the rest of your crop, you’ll want to dry them for one to two weeks as this will massively increase how long you can store them.
To do this, lay out your crop on a wire rack in a sunny spot, leaving as much room as possible for air to circulate. If you don’t have space or the weather gets a bit wet, you can also dry onions in racks in a well-ventilated greenhouse or shed.
Thanks for reading.
