Gardening In August - Jobs & Tips for August

Tomatoes

Ensure that you water tomatoes regularly. Erratic watering can result in splitting and blossom end rot. Don't forget to feed them every week or so. August-Blossom

Stop your tomato plants - to encourage fruit to swell and ripen once four or five trusses have formed. Make sure that

you keep an eye on side shoot development, you want as much energy as possible going into the fruit and not a mass of foliage.

If your tomato plant leaves are turning yellow between the veins, then they may be suffering from a magnesium deficiency. To help combat this, spray them with a solution of Epsom salts (magnesium sulphate).

Onions, Shallots and Garlic

If you haven’t already lifted your onions, garlic and shallots they should be ready for harvesting now. Once the leaves have fallen over and are beginning to die down, lift the bulbs with a fork and leave them on the surface of the ground for a few days before cleaning most of the soil from the base and laying out on a wire tray or rack for several weeks to dry thoroughly.

August-Onion-Sets Make sure that the neck of the bulb is thoroughly dry as this will help give a longer storage life. Once lifted if the weather is wet lay the bulbs on a greenhouse bench with plenty of air flow or in a dry shed or garage.

Once they have dried out, you can then store the best specimens, using those that look like they will not store well before the others. I personally hang my garlic and onions, but you can also store them in trays in a cool, dry spot.

Runner Beans

Pinching out the tips of runner beans that have reached the end of their support will encourage more beans lower down. If your beans are failing to set there could be several reasons, are you watering enough?

During dry weather, the flowers often fall off instead of producing a good crop of beans. Make sure they get a really good soaking to the roots at least twice a week. It is perfectly normal for runner beans to produce more flowers than can possibly grow into beans, up to half the flowers will not develop.

Another reason could be a lack of pollinating insects. To encourage more bees and insects to your vegetable plot sow nectar rich plants nearby, such as Limnanthes (Poached Egg Plant) or a patch of Bee Margin Mix. When they come for the nectar they will visit your beans and other plants and pollinate them at the same time.

You can still make a late sowing of quick growing Dwarf French Beans, Pongo is an excellent variety for late sowing and will give good results for a late harvest.

Potatoes

Potato blight has been a major problem over the last few years. Keeping them well earthed up round the stem can help but do keep an eye open for the first tell-tale signs which are brown or black spots at the tips and margins of leaves. The patches may enlarge and the leaves start to curl and wither with brown patches appearing on the stems. Spread can be rapid throughout the aerial parts of the plant before spreading to the tubers which can then be invaded by secondary infections causing them to rot and give off a foul smell!

August-Potato-Blight All may not be lost if you act as soon as you spot the first signs of the disease. By cutting off all the stems above ground level you may well halt the spread of infection before it reaches the tubers. Make sure the tops are removed from the area and destroyed before lifting the tubers. It is possible to give some protection by regular spraying with a fungicide such as Fruit & Vegetable Disease Control, but this needs be done before plants are affected. To give the best protection they should be sprayed at an interval of 10-14days, particularly in years of high risk. Spraying will not be effective once the infection has occurred.

Once you have lifted your potatoes, you have an opportunity to incorporate some green manures to help condition your soil.

Green Manures

Green manure’s suppress weeds, protects soil from erosion, and add structure and nutrients to the soil. You can sow green manures whenever the ground is to be left bare for more than 6 weeks. Dig in while crop is fresh and green. Allow 2-4 weeks before re-planting to begin breakdown of plant material into humus, releasing nutrients slowly over time.

Legumes (beans) absorb nitrogen from the atmosphere and ‘fix’ it into the soil through root nodules making it easily available for following crops.

There are many different types of green manures, which each have some unique benefits; the table below should help you find the most suitable green manures for your requirements

Soil Type	Variety	Covers
Any	Catiente Mustard	70sq yds / 60sq m
Sandy	Red Clover	32sq yds / 60 sq m
Heavy	Field Beans	20sq yds / 18sq m
Moist	Mustard	100sq yds / 91 sq m
Any	Phacelia	50sq yds / 45.5sq m
Any	Bumblebee Margin Mix	50ft row

Featured Green Manure: Caliente Mustard - This is not just a green manure – it also acts as a biofumigant for the soil. Biofumigants suppress various soil borne pests and diseases by releasing naturally occurring compounds.

The foliage must be crushed or finely chopped for it to release a natural gas (isothiocyanate) which effectively reduces and suppresses a range of harmful nematodes and diseases in the soil. The combination of biofumigation plus the digging in of the green material, increases beneficial soil microbes, which out-compete pathogen microbes helping to keep soil diseases down.

The finer the chop the better the result, running over the area with a rotary mower or strimmer to chop well before digging in to the top 6inches of soil is a simple way of incorporating the crop.

Caliente Mustard can be sown in spring or late summer for a quick crop, or mid-autumn for over-wintering in milder areas.

The benefits of using Caliente Mustard for the home gardener for most crop and soil types are:

•   Improved root systems and a measurable increase in yield of following crops
•   Suppression of a range of soil-borne diseases including:
      Verticillium wilt, Rhizoctonia, Pythium, Fusarium, and Sclerotinia
•   Suppresses a range of harmful nematode species
•   Improved soil structure and fertility
•   Suppresses weeds – mainly soft-seeded annuals – soon after incorporation

What can be sown / grown in August!
Broccoli, Cabbages, Carrots, Cauliflowers - Winter and Spring (Transplant Out), Chicory, Kale (Transplant Out), Lettuce & salads, Swiss Chard, Onions (Japanese), Oriental Vegetables, Rocket, Spring Onions, Sprouting Broccoli (Transplant Out), Strawberry Plants, Turnips, Radishes (Winter).

What you could be harvesting in August!
Aubergines, Beetroot, Broad beans, Calabrese, Cabbage, Carrots, Cauliflower, Celery, Courgettes, Cucumbers, French Beans, Globe Artichokes, Garlic, Kale, Kohn Rabi, Lettuce, Marrows, Onions, Peas, Peppers, Potatoes (Second Early), Radishes, Shallots, Spinach, Spring Onions, Squash, Sweetcorn, Tomatoes, Turnips, Runner Beans.

August pest & disease (main threats)