The buddleias on the plot are in full flower and attracting a record number of butterflies and bees. See my blog post here
We are growing mini aubergines this year and the plants are full of flowers some of which have actually set fruit so we are hoping to crop some small aubergines. This will be an improvement on the lack of fruits when we have tried to grow aubergines in the past.
The peppers don’t seem to be doing as well with few flowers and even fewer fruit setting.
We are picking ripe figs for the first time. The fig tree has three generations of fruit - one lot is ripening now, a second lot is still green but fairly large and a third lot of small green figs are developing.
Much of our allotment time is spent harvesting -our complete harvest list for August is here. We managed to gather a small cherry crop before the birds did but only due to netting the tree. Even then the birds managed to have a peck and invite the wasps in.
We are also starting to lift our potatoes as some of the tops have died down. Early impressions are that the potatoes are generally smaller than last year.
8 August The harvesting of potatoes continues.
I also planted out some small parsley plants. A pot full has been planted up at home for ease of access when cooking and the rest has been planted around the edge of a bed on the plot. I have also started to plant out the alpine strawberries that were grown from seed this year.
I trimmed back the jostaberry which lives in the bed where I planted half of the strawberries. It had rooted in two places where the branches had touched the ground and so these pieces were given to a plot neighbour - we already have half a dozen large jostaberry bushes and have given away as many again. All but one came from cuttings.
On the plot I have started to plant some flowers that have been growing on in the cold frame. Sweet William’s, sweet rocket, dog daisies and wallflowers will hopefully flower next year if the manage to get through the winter unscathed. As with many of the other things on the plots these have been planted through weed control fabric.
I’ve also made a start on tidying up the strawberries that have finished fruiting. The old leaves will be cut off and any weeds removed before a feed is applied. We need to build up the plants so that we can hopefully expect a good harvest next year. The everbearing variety will be left until later.
13 - 17 August Most of the time now is spent harvesting and tidying up but I have done a little planting. I bought a couple of plant collections that were on offer from Hayloft - ten phlox and ten dianthus. These arrived and have been potted on before planting out in the garden, Read more on my blog here.
I’ve also planted out the flowers that we were growing from seed. Most are biennial and will flower next year. These have been planted on the plot. I’ve planted through weed control fabric so that they won’t have any unwelcome competition. Use of the fabric has really helped us keep on top of work on the plot this year. Read more here.
18 - 23 August We have actually picked our first red tomato today. That’s not strictly true as we have had other ripe tomatoes but these have all suffered from blossom end rot and so were discarded. This is a major problem in the garden greenhouse this year but for some reason the tomatoes in the plot greenhouse are not affected. Advice is that this is caused by erratic watering and calcium deficiency but we are not convinced. This doesn’t seem to fit. Read more here.
We are also now harvesting plums. This is about four weeks later than usual so the late blossoming has had a knock on effect. For the first time some fruits are home to plum moth grubs! Read more here Our autumn fruiting raspberries are now producing well and saving us from a raspberry free year. This year the yellow - Allgold - are producing large clean berries. Often these are spoiled by the weather. We are also picking blackberries. The thornless Lock Ness has been producing fruit for quite a while but the thorny ones are now also giving us fruit. One is a cultivated plant and the other a wild one that is growing in the corner of the plot.
The main strawberry bed has now been tidied up. I haven’t trimmed back Flamenco yet as being everbearing it is still producing a little fruits. Read more here.
If you are struggling to think of new ways of using courgettes try making a courgette crumble for dessert. It tastes just like apple. Not convinced? Neither were we until we tried it. Read more here
23 - 31 August The runner beans are starting to produce at last. They are loaded with immature beans but will the develop to picking size now that the days are shortening and night time temperatures are dropping?
For the first time that I can remember we have plum maggots in our plums - mainly the later Victoria but generally all the plums are about a month behind.
We were unfortunate enough to have the shed broken into. I don’t know what the would-be thief was looking for but he/she obviously didn’t find it. If they had looked through the window instead of taking the glass out and climbing in they could have seen that there worth stealing. I was puzzled as they seemed to have been searching for something small. Fortunately we just had to reinstall the window but it also spurred us on to giving everywhere a really good clean and tidy.
The front garden bed is still looking good - the campanula has really responded to the dead heading and produced a second flush of flowers.
Some activities are described in more detail on our blogs - links below
