August, Quiet Abundance

August is abundance — and also, quietly, the start of planning for next year. Enjoy the harvest, but don’t let the last sowing windows slip by.

Sow now (outdoors)

Spring cabbage, spinach, and salad leaves for autumn cropping. Japanese onions for an overwintered start next spring.

Plant out

Autumn-planting strawberry runners. Spring cabbage seedlings.

Harvest

Tomatoes, beans, courgettes, sweetcorn, and the main potato crop as the foliage dies back. Plums, early apples, and blackberries.

Prune

Trained fruit trees (summer-pruned apples and pears). Cut back finished raspberry canes. Trim hedges before nesting season fully ends (check first for birds).

General jobs

Keep watering containers and anything newly planted — August heat and dry spells catch a lot of gardeners out. Start collecting seed from any flowers or veg you’d like to grow again next year. Order spring bulbs before the best varieties sell out. If you’re growing a meadow, cut it back hard now flowering’s finished and rake up and remove the cuttings — leaving them behind fertilises the soil and favours grass over next year’s wildflowers.

This weekend

Lift and store your main-crop potatoes once the foliage has died back — a dry day, left to cure a few hours in the sun before storing, makes all the difference to how long they keep.

Southern regions may be finishing harvests slightly earlier; the North, Scotland, and Northern Ireland often still mid-swing.