AugustPeak harvest, and the preserving jars
August is the summit of the year: tomatoes, peppers, aubergines, cucumbers, beans, courgettes, sweetcorn, the first apples and blackberries. You no longer know where to turn, or where to point the knife. It is the month of preserves, passata and jars, so you can find summer again in January. Keep sowing lamb’s lettuce, spinach, radishes and autumn lettuces, plant strawberries, and start freeing up beds for green manures.
Tips of the month
- Harvest tomatoes, peppers, aubergines, courgettes, beans, cucumbers and sweetcorn.
- Turn whatever overflows into jars, passata, pickles and jams.
- Sow lamb’s lettuce, spinach, radishes, autumn lettuces, turnips and white onions.
- Plant new strawberries from runners.
- Sow green manures on the beds that have been cleared.
- Stop the tomatoes at the end of the month so the last trusses ripen.
- Prune autumn-fruiting raspberries, and pick blackberries and the first apples.
In the vegetable garden and orchard
What to do in august
Sow under cover
Nothing to sow under cover.
Sowing in the ground
Plant
Harvesting
- Tomato
- Courgette
- Cucumber
- Sweet pepper
- Aubergine
- French bean (dwarf bean)
- Garden pea
- Potato
- Carrot
- Beetroot
- Radish
- Onion
- Shallot
- Lettuce
- Rocket
- Cauliflower
- Cabbage
- Broccoli
- Florence fennel
- Swiss chard
- Basil
- Parsley
- Chives
- Thyme
- Mint
- Coriander
- Dill
- Strawberry
- Raspberry
- Blueberry
- Blackberry
- Apple
- Pear
- Plum
- Fig
- Melon
On the plate
Eating in august
August is the tomato in all its forms: raw with salt, in a salad with basil, as passata for winter, roasted in the oven with peppers and aubergines. Blackberries from the lane and the first apples already hint at September’s tarts.
Living well
An afternoon of preserving, windows open, is slow, cheerful work best shared with others. Every jar put away in the cellar is a small promise made to winter.