August sunshine returns? weeds prolific, tomatoes, squash, sow
August sunshine returns? After an incredible amount of rain during the last five weeks, 180 mm here, there is a sudden reappearance of high pressure from the southwest. It’s delightful news.
I don’t think there will be any prolonged heatwave through August, but at least we should see some sunshine at last! Starting around Wednesday, after a new storm in August’s first weekend and with high winds once more.
Weather governs so much of what we need to do. Having said that, the timings of sowing and transplanting stay similar. See next section.
This video shows Homeacres no dig garden on 31st July.
For a fun cooking demo with Gaz Oakley, see this!
See you in Inverness for my Course day?
And Homeacres open day is 3rd September, in aid of charity.
Weeds
They are the most important story recently, after the incessant rain. During summer, I have never seen so many weeds germinating.
Here there must have been a lot of sow thistles seeding in nearby hedges by early July. We are finding their seedlings everywhere.
Check for and remove weeds among larger vegetables, where they are less visible. Obviously they’re not competing with these larger plants. The issue is that if they drop seeds, that will result in you spending much more time weeding, through the following seasons.
- Keep pulling all new weeds when small.
- If the weather dries up, it will be possible to hoe them when small, and thus save time.
- Grass is one weed you need to pull, because its tenacious root system rarely dries on top, If you hoe grass, it then needs removing.
- Couch grass is different, you need to keep pulling new shoots, removing as much as you can of the white, creeping stolons. With no dig surface mulching, this is easier than from dug soil.
If you are unlucky enough to have horsetail, keep pulling new shoots, It’s the only way to reduce its vigour. Although not a massively competitive weed because it roots so deep, and does not have leaves making shade, it’s still worth keeping on top of. Otherwise it may smother new, small vegetable seedlings.
For a deeper look at weeds and other important issues (!), see this interview with nutritionist Ximena.
August is an amazing time for new sowings
This is a second spring in our climate. Many great sowings you can make in August’s first half include spinach, turnips and salad rocket.
Then you need somehow to find space for all the lovely plants!
Have a go at interplanting some of them between any vegetables which will finish within about three weeks. Glad plants and herbs, perhaps beetroot and carrots, even ridge cucumber after cutting off leaves with mildew.
- This is a top time to sow true spinach (rather than ‘perpetual’ leaf beet). My best options are until 12th August for prolific harvests of Medania through autumn. Also winter if mild, and next spring. And / or sow mid-20th August for slightly smaller plants which should survive winter more strongly. Last year the variety Winter Giant stood a lot of frost here.
- Turnips!! Many people including myself do not like the flavour of turnips. However if you can find seed of Tokyo Cross F1, they are considerably sweeter and denser, and work well from multisowing five seeds per cell, aiming for four plants. Transplant at 2 to 3 weeks old, with mesh over against cabbage root-fly.
- Salad rocket, mizuna, mustards, any other brassica salads including land cress. It’s a really good week to sow these, preferably under cover where there should be less damage from flea beetles. You can transplant them at 2 to 3 weeks old. Always cover with mesh for the first 3 to 4 weeks, against insects.
- Pak choi – same advice as for salad rocket
- Endive last call
- Chinese cabbage, for autumn hearting in warmer regions, sow before about 8th August
- Parsley, dill and coriander.
Plantings
With no dig, soil stays healthy and fertile, with less need to worry over rotation. Simply keep filling spaces as they appear, after you clear plants that have finished. Leave roots of the earlier plantings in the soil, as much as is practical.
- Weed thoroughly before any new planting.
- Consider a slug patrol at dusk to collect slugs and snails. Maybe also lay a plank of wood on a bed or path, to check every morning and then remove what you find.
Set out new plants as soon as they are ready. The soil is warm and they will grow better from being in their final location as soon as possible.
- A cover of mesh is highly worthwhile for any brassicas, in fact for almost any planting. Keep it on for about a month.
Tomatoes
I’ve heard many reports of tomatoes being slow to ripen, but that should change now with some warmth from the middle of next week. Also because plants are maturing fast.
Ripening is very dependent on the variety and cherry tomatoes are always faster than beef tomatoes. My best beef variety this year is Berner Rose. They are prone to splitting, but prolific and fast to ripen, with excellent flavour.
Be lazy with winter squash
Some of my squash plants have downy mildew, which looks worse than it is, because there are fine squash developing underneath. Also there are still many healthy leaves. It’s mainly on Crown Prince which are growing through plastic.
At the other end of the same bed as the diseased-leaf photo below, are Kuri squash. You can see the polythene mulch which is covering ground that was weedy pasture six months earlier. I do not put any supports under the squash, they sit on the plastic.
I make no effort to tidy squash plants because it makes no difference!
And if your butternut squash are still small, that is normal. It’s a late maturing variety and needs warmth from now until early October.
My earliest and most successful harvest of Crown Prince Squash yesterday: 4 plants, 10 fruit, total weight of fruit just shy of 96lb. Strangely, the Red Kuris on the neighbouring bed are about to be my worst harvest! 4 plants, 6 fruit only. The butternuts are looking good – 9 fruit developing well on 2 plants. Nature’s mysteries for us all…..the only thing I can say about the Crown Princes is that I dug two Huegel pits in 2021 and 2022 which filled the bed with woody waste, green waste and horse manure – it’s my way of using up pollarded Hazel tree branches without fires. It’s not an experiment, just an observation….
Also the earliest and best harvest this year of sweetcorn – already harvested 7 cobs, 6 of them perfect, the first was a sighter which was a week off full maturity.
When on holiday in Switzerland this year I bought a white soft neck garlic, just because it looked so good, to try it at home.
Now sometimes alliums are treated to prevent sprouting.
So first stage to test this, was a month in the fridge, with some usual seed, to vernalise and promote growth.
Individually potted up 3 cloves of each and after just 5 days they were up
So while these will grow on in the greenhouse border, my usual late September planting will include the new ones.
Interesting times?
It hasn’t been good for the tomatoes – most of mine have been wiped out thanks to blight, including Crokini which is supposedly blight resistant and the reason I bought the seeds. I won’t be buying that variety again!
Hello Charles. An avid follower here from Zambia. I’ve followed you for a year now practicing your lessons albeit on a smaller scale and it’s been perfect. But was wondering, do you deliver a y of your products (seeds or trays and such) to Africa at all?
Hello Mwenya
Thank you for writing and that’s amazing you are following me from Zambia. I was there in 1992, started a garden at a school in southern province, long story!
I’m glad that my methods are helping you.
Sadly however we do not sell anything to Africa. We sent some books once to Lesotho, and they returned, twice!
Hello Mwenya, how lovely to read a comment from Zambia. I was an agricultural science teacher in Lusaka from 1971 to 1976 – I think I learnt far more than I taught. I now live and garden in northern Poland. All the very best to you in your garden endevours.
Good to hear that the butternut squash have time. They look healthy enough but clearly have a lot of growing to do!
Yes always the most is from now
Somethings should be banned “Asparagus Peas” and “Russian Tarragon” another. The former tastes like cardboard and the second of nothing.
Never mind, still getting by on carrots, courgette, french and runner beans, lettuce and today the first sweet corn.
I have spoken often to people about composting and they still insist in putting “pernicious” weeds to one side, even though, like Charles, I can go back decades to quote from personal experience, that it’s not necessary.
Oh, and another thing, a certain garden celebrity, (initials MD) recently advised to store garlic cool and dark, and when reviewing Charles’ garlic video, he says quite clearly just keep them dry. Mine are in the sunny small bedroom these days. Albeit away from the window and in my previous house, within six feet of a solid fuel burner. When the new crop is ready, I have to go my neighbours to give away the still firm bulbs from last year.
ABSOLUTELY NO COOL NO DARK
Dear Philip
I know what you mean, and discovered the lack of flavour in asparaguss pea during my first year of growing commercially, 1983. It’s just pretty! And sounds exotic. Like cucmelon which is really Mexican sour gherkin.
I’ve not grown Russian tarragon because so many people make the same comment you have about it.
Yes the worry about weeds and diseases on ingredients for compost heaps takes a lot of persuading against!
And I’m totally with you about that well-known celebrity who I don’t think it’s an expert on vegetables. I wonder where these gems of information come from! In this case, there needs to be a reason rather than just saying it, and I don’t think there can be a reason because it’s not right.
I tried Asparagus Pea this year but won’t be bothering again. The flowers are nice but leave the pods on the plant too long they become tough and inedible. Better to plant a dwarf French Bean instead.
Charles – one good thing about the way the seasons are working out this year (dry sunny spring/early summer; wet mid summer) is that carrots and parsnips should be absolutely awesome – six weeks of growing tap roots searching for moisture in the increasingly dry soil of June, followed by lots of lovely moisture to allow the taproots to swell. I’ve often mused that my climate here is better than yours in Somerset for maincrop carrots and parsnips (we tend to get more drier springs than you, and our ‘rainy season’ is September to November), although obviously it’s not an all or nothing matter! The weather is also great for maincrop potatoes this year, with the regular rains starting early in July (last year’s drought didn’t stop a bumper harvest at the end of October after eight weeks of rain in September/October).
One thing I have noticed this year is that cabbages seem to be more susceptible to being munched in mid summer than either Cauliflower, Brussels Sprouts or Purple Sprouting broccoli. The three latter have not really been affected whereas cabbages grown next to them have been. So if people are limited in their amounts of mesh/other protection, maybe they should focus on the cabbages as they really do seem to be the targets of slugs/pigeons/moths.
I’ve also like David been having a true glut of cucumbers, mine grown outdoors. I used up 4 of 23 I harvested on Friday making 1.5 pints of cucumber- and ginger lemonade. If you can cope with looking at a deep green coloured drink, it tastes quite good!
Hi Rhys,
I too have been inundated with cucumber this season. I grew 2 plants in the greenhouse and three in the vegetable garden, all Early Fortune purchased from Real Seeds. I have been giving cucumber to neighbours and family as I haven’t been able to use them all at home. Your cucumber and ginger lemonade sounds interesting. Any chance of a recipe?
Tomatoes have been a bit late this year, but they are now beginning to ripen. I grew Gardener’s Delight from seed this year, very impressed with the trusses. Cucumbers have been very prolific this year.
Good to hear David.