August: the month of harvest. The time when, if you are like me, you realise you may have overestimated how many courgettes and chard you can comfortably eat.
Trips home are likely laden now with green leaves, climbing beans and peas. Allotment neighbours look to swap or occasionally just leave vegetables at the end of the plot.
It is the month of garden glory. A time of plenty. Time, too, to sow late lettuces and chicories. All the Oriental leaves should be going in now: mustard greens, mibuna, mizuna, komatsuna. Also winter spinach, spring cabbages, radishes, the final sowing of carrots and turnips for the year.
It’s the month to lift maincrop potatoes. To keep a close eye on sweetcorn silks. To remember, too, to feed pumpkins if you are growing them. I am slightly daunted by ours, from Ukrainian seed, the first we have grown in many years. These are old-school Halloween-style, like the ones we first grew with the school gardening club.
Keep on top of redcurrants and raspberries, check on apples and pears as they won’t be too far away. As ever, please be sure to top up nearby ponds and leave water out for wildlife in the hot weather.
Tomatoes should be coming on strong. The new soil on our site seems to have stayed clear of blight and I am deeply envious of my smarter neighbours’ rampant growth, tall plants abundant with fruit.
We are leaving our coriander to flower: delicate, fragrant white. Grown this year from last season’s seed, carrying the old plot into the new. We will also save some dill, as much for its beauty as flavour.
Remember to make holiday pacts with your neighbours. Remember, too, to take a quiet moment for thanks. Happy harvest.
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