August Allotment Tasks: A Guide to Late Summer Gardening

August Allotment Tasks: A Guide to Late Summer Gardening

Welcome to late summer, where the rich rewards of your allotment garden await. August is a crucial time for gardeners, as it presents a unique opportunity to maximize your harvest and prepare for the changing seasons ahead. In this comprehensive guide, we will walk you through our top tasks that will ensure a thriving and productive allotment garden. Get your gardening gloves ready and let's dive into the world of late-summer gardening!

II. The Benefits of Late Summer Gardening

Whilst summer might be drawing to a close there is still plenty to be doing and planning for this month. As well as maintaining your plot this month you can be sure to boost your exposure to vitamin D, increase your happy hormones and keep your heart rate up; all of which will help keep you happy and healthy as our shorter British autumn nights start to draw in.

As well as the physical benefits to you, now is a great opportunity to plan ahead ensuring the best of Autumn and to get ahead for Spring.

III. Soil Care and Improvement

Maintaining the health of your soil remains a priority during the late summer month of August. The most obvious task is keeping your crops hydrated and not allowing the ground to totally dry out if we have a long dry summer. Whilst weed growth should have slowed right down by this point in summer it is still worth dedicating some time to looking out for and clearing them.

It won't be long until some areas of your plot are ready for clearing ahead of winter so take the opportunity to use the last of any rotted-down compost before you start filling your bin up again!

IV. Planting and Sowing

There is a surprising amount of planting and sowing that can happen towards the end of the season; some of our favourites include;

Cauliflowers - You can now transplant winter and spring cauliflowers ahead of overwintering.

Swiss Chard - Now is your last chance to sow chard and some other Oriental leaves.

Cabbages - Spring varieties can be prepared and sowed.

Strawberries - One your existing plants have runners that have rooted you can transport them to a fresh area (where strawberries have not grown for the last 3 seasons) ready for next year....we recommend plastic sheeting on top of the soil to protect from the coldest of temperature's.

V. Harvesting and Preserving

August is a glorious month for fruit, vegetables and colourful salads, you should be returning daily with fresh produce ready to eat.

The crops we're most looking forward to are; Aubergines, Pak Choi, Summer Squashes, Sweetcorn, Courgettes, Onions and Tomatoes.

We also cannot help but get excited by the abundance of fruit that is ready to harvest, many varieties we will spend Autumn preserving for jams!

Our favourites include - Blackberries, Morello Cherries, Plums, Figs and Peaches.

VI. Planning for Autumn and Winter

As the shorter days and cooler temperatures set in Autumn can be a tough one to get motivated for when our bodies are shouting 'begin the hibernation process'! But we find that taking some time out to create a plan of action for September and October ensures that not only do we actually complete the task but we end the year with a plot that is ready to come back to early in the new year with new enthusiasm, ideas and hopefully not too much work to do!

We hope out Autumn Allotment Jobs blog has reminded you of a task or two and helped given some final enthusiasm for the last 6-8 weeks of work before we can start bedding down and switching off for a cosy winter of planning for next season.

Join us next month for Septembers list of jobs!

Please get in touch with any questions;