August Gardening tips

August is about eating. Whether or not you have a garden, the great British harvest is in full swing, meaning there’s lots of delicious, fresh produce to eat. If you don’t have a garden, consider visiting a Pick Your Own farm. As we’re holidaying either at home or in the UK, a visit to a fruit farm can be a fun day out, and at this time of year can result in baskets of plums, early apples and raspberries.  

If you are growing some vegetables and fruit, your challenge will be keeping up with everything that’s growing. Do daily checks of the fast-growers: tomatoes, cucumbers, courgettes and beans. Eat what you can, store some for the future, and then give the rest away. Our street has a WhatsApp group; those of us who garden are offering daily vegetables, mostly cucumbers and courgettes, but these will soon be joined by extra lettuces, tomatoes and potatoes. If you don’t have room for fruit and vegetables in your garden, ask friends who do if they have a surplus. They are bound to, and will be relieved to see the fruits of their labour eaten and enjoyed.  

If you’ve not dipped your toe into the food-growing waters, I’d really encourage you to try. Nurturing plants in turn nurtures you, and the bonus is that you have something to eat as well. You can start now with a pot of lettuce leaves grown from seed on a kitchen window sill. Keep sowing every few weeks and you’ll have salad throughout the autumn and winter. Check local nurseries or markets for chilli plants which should give you chillies to harvest soon.  

I’m writing this in 30-degree heat. This will change, but it highlights the need to water and feed your plants (particularly those in pots) regularly. During hot weather, a daily water is advisable. Once it starts raining again, just check the surface of the soil every day. If it’s moist, it’s fine. If it’s hard and dry, it needs some water.  

A lovely job for a quiet, cool evening is dead-heading. Cut off the heads of dead flowers, back to the nearest leaf node, as regularly as you can. This will prompt the plant to produce more flowers, and so keep your window boxes or back garden looking lovely for longer.  

This morning, before work, I dead-headed the shrub roses in my back garden. The climbers are still beckoning! But it didn’t take long, and will reward me with a second flush of pink roses later in the summer.  

It’s not the only pruning to do. Rain and sunshine are good growing conditions, so you may find that your once-orderly garden is suddenly a jungle. Prune back shrubs that have flowered, plus any espaliered apple trees, and you’ll restore order.  

It’s not just the plants that grow, it’s the weeds too, isn’t it? Even hanging baskets will get weeds and you don’t want them, because they’ll take the food and moisture from your chosen plants. Try to weed regularly, just five to ten minutes per day. That way, it doesn’t get on top of you.  

When you’ve done all this, it’s time for a sit down. Here’s a tip from a friend to turn your garden or patio into a summer delight. She took old glass bottles and filled them with solar lights and put them on her patio, and they provide cheap and delightful lighting to while away the evening hours outdoors.  

And finally, next month sees the RHS Chelsea Flower Show, running between 20 and 26 September. Book the date and catch the Psalm 23 Garden on the BBC. There are plenty of ways that you can get involved. You could consider teaming up with other people to help create a Psalm 23-inspired community garden. It just takes four elements from Sarah Eberle’s beautiful design (a tree, wildflowers, water and somewhere to sit) to achieve this, so it can be done cheaply and easily anywhere. Use the long evenings to hatch a plan with other local gardeners, and use our free guide as a steer. So while taking a break this summer, think about what you could do in your community, and tell us the outcome. We’d love to hear all about it.  

Hazel Southam  
Psalm 23 Garden project manager  

[email protected]