August is the most generous month of the gardening year. The beds hand back everything they've been building up all summer, and some days you honestly don't know where to put all the zucchini and tomatoes. That's exactly the job for the month: harvest, preserve, and at the same time sow the things that will carry you through the winter.
August runs roughly from CW 32 to 35.
The harvest basket is overflowing
Now everything comes at once. Tomatoes colour up in waves, zucchini and cucumbers keep coming every couple of days, bush beans and pole beans are in full swing, and the sweetcorn is ripe as soon as the silks turn brown and the kernels run milky when you press one.
Lift the potatoes once the foliage yellows and dies back. On the canes, blackberries and the first autumn raspberries are ripening. The same rule as all summer: pick every two or three days and you keep the plants in their stride and harvest for longer.
Bringing in onions and garlic
Onions and garlic tell you themselves when they're ready: once the tops turn yellow and flop over, they're ripe to lift. Pull them out of the ground on a dry day.
Let them dry
Spread the onions out somewhere airy and dry, outdoors only if the weather is settled, otherwise under cover. Give them one to two weeks, until the outer skins rustle.
Clean them up
Rub off the loose soil and the outermost skin. Leave the tops on if you want to plait them, or trim them back to about 2 cm.
Sort them
Only firm, flawless onions go into storage. Eat the thick-necked or damaged ones first, they won't keep long.
Store cool and airy
In nets or crates somewhere cool, dry and airy, onions keep for many months. Stored damp and warm, they rot fast.
Preserving what you can't keep up with
No household eats as much fresh food as August delivers, and that's just fine. Surplus tomatoes turn into sugo or a smooth passata, beans and cucumbers go into the preserving jar, and berries into jam or cordial.
Freezing is the quickest of all: blanch the beans briefly, open-freeze the berries on a tray, then bag them up. That way you'll still have the taste of summer on your plate in January.
August teaches the loveliest gardener's craft: saving today's abundance against tomorrow's lean times.
Sowing now for autumn and winter
As you harvest, beds open up, and they shouldn't sit empty for a single day. For the cold season, now is the decisive sowing window.
- Lamb's lettuce and winter spinach from late August, for picking from October right into March.
- Radishes, rocket and pak choi as a quick follow-on crop.
- Winter purslane and winter onions for fresh greens through the winter.
Watering in high summer, even while you're away
August is hot and often dry, and it's holiday season too. Water deeply and less often rather than a little every day, ideally early in the morning and right at the roots. A layer of mulch keeps the soil moist and saves water.
Your August in brief
- HarvestBring in tomatoes, zucchini, beans, corn and potatoes as they come.
- Bring in the onionsHarvest onions and garlic, dry them and store them cool.
- PreserveCan, freeze, dry herbs, cook up jam.
- Sow againLamb's lettuce, winter spinach and rocket for the cold season.
- Plant strawberriesSet out new strawberries from strong runners in mid-August.
- WaterWater deeply in the morning, mulch, get ready for the holidays.
Häufige Fragen
How can I tell when onions are ready to harvest?
By the tops. Once they yellow and flop over across the bed, the onion has finished growing. Then harvest on a dry day and let them dry off thoroughly before they go into storage.
Can I really still sow anything in August?
Absolutely. Lamb's lettuce, winter spinach, rocket and Asian salad leaves sown in August give you fresh greens well into winter and beyond. Beds that open up never sit idle that way.
Do I need to pinch out the tops of my tomatoes?
Toward the end of August it's worth it. If you take out the growing tip above the top truss, the plant puts its energy into the fruit it already has rather than into new flowers, which won't ripen before the frost anyway.
Your August at a glance
August can feel like a friendly stampede. Take it in stages: harvest first, then preserve, and in between get the beds replanted for autumn. What you preserve and sow now will feed you long after nothing out there is cropping anymore.
In Gartenkern you keep a record of what you've harvested and stored away, and set yourself reminders for the next round of sowing. Come next August, you'll know exactly how many jars your Tomato 'San Marzano' filled and when the strawberry bed was due. That's how, over the years, a good garden turns into a dependable larder.
