The sun is shining (between the showers!) and it is time to sit back and enjoy the fruits of your labour as you see your garden blooming.
Come the summer months, you can be forgiven for wanting to just sit back and relax. However, a garden never rests, so nor can a gardener! Whilst your gardening duties can relax a little, here are a few basic jobs that you can do in your garden in August to keep things ticking over nicely.
Boost Your Flower Power
Now is the time when your garden will be in full bloom. The scent and sight of floral blooms is just divine, so make sure you do what you can to encourage the flowers to keep on coming.
- Deadheading is the most important thing you can do to ensure that your flowers keep blooming well into autumn. Water and feed roses well to give them plenty of energy and dead head them as soon as the blooms are over to encourage new blooms.
- Hydrangeas are a lovely sight in August, blooming in a range of hues from startling blue to the deepest pink. To boost the flowers and keep them going for longer, use fertiliser with potash.
- Sweet peas are another iconic summer flower. The best bit is, that by picking them you encourage more to come, so you will end up with a plentiful supply of flowers inside your home as well as your garden. Water and fertilizer can help to keep them going for longer.
Eat A Rainbow
Whether you have a smallholding, an allotment, or a little veg patch in your garden, nothing beats the thrill of the first harvest. If your vegetable patch hasn’t gone so well this year, don’t worry; you can try again next year!
- Your strawberries have probably reached the peak of their harvest by now, so it’s a good time to root new runners. Once they have rooted, peg them off and cut them off from the parent plant. Give the plants a tidy, cutting off old leaves to keep them healthy.
- Keep your currants and gooseberries well watered to promote big, plump fruit. You may want to apply insecticide to your gooseberries to protect them from sawfly.
- Water your tomatoes and runners every day or the flowers will drop, leading to a reduced crop. Pick fruit and veg as they ripen to promote a bumper harvest.
- Onions, shallots and garlic are likely to be rampaging through your veg patch; as soon as the crop dies back, harvest them. Choose a dry day and once you have dug them out, leave them on the surface of the soil to dry out. Once they are dry, you can transfer them to a tray and leave them somewhere warm (a shed or greenhouse for one or two weeks, after which they can be tied and stored in the kitchen for use.
Nothing tastes quite as delicious as sun-ripened fruit and veg grown in your garden. If you would prefer your veg to be grown by someone else, why not hire a gardener? A couple of hours a week could help to keep your garden looking fantastic all year around.
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