Action for AugustFruit and veg

Vegetables

Cut back herbs

What to sow now

It’s not too late to sow salad crops such as lettuce, sorrel, radish, rocket, chicory and fennel as these mature quickly but keep them well watered.

If you live in a warmer area, you can also sow spring cabbage, turnips, oriental vegetables and overwintering onions

Cut back herbs that are starting to flower – if they go to seed, they won’t produce more leafy growth.

What to harvest now

Harvest potatoes, sweetcorn, garlic, onions, shallots, French beans, runner beans, courgettes, cucumbers and tomatoes.

Finish harvesting early potatoes – if you leave them in the ground, the slugs will undoubtedly get them

Celery is often self-blanching these days, so you may not want to exclude light from it and blanch it to make it white. If you do like whiter celery, however, now’s the time to secure a tube of cardboard around the stems to keep light out.

Fruit

Harvest blackberries

• Pick apples, plums and blackberries
• If the plums on your trees are weighing the branches down, support them with canes.
• Cut out the canes of raspberries that have finished bearing fruit.

Protect fruit and veg from pests

Flea beetle

Rocket is prone to being attacked by flea beetle, which can riddle the leaves with holes. Cover sowings with very fine mesh to protect the plants.

Greenfly and blackfly

Look out for greenfly and blackfly, especially on beans, peas and peppers. Squash them, treat with a spray containing bifenthrin or pyrethrins or blast them off with a jet of water.

Powdery mildew

Check cucumbers, courgettes, squash and peas for signs of powdery mildew. Blight appears on potatoes and tomatoes as brown spots or blotches on leaves. 

Pick off caterpillars and squash the yellow eggs on the leaf undersides

Remove affected leaves and burn or bin them. Spray with a copper-based fungicide or Bio Dithane 945 every two weeks if the weather’s warm and damp.

Cabbage white caterpillars

Look for cabbage white caterpillars on brassicas. Squash the yellow eggs on the leaf undersides. Pick off the caterpillars or use a spray that contains bifenthrin or pyrethrins.

Cabbage aphids

Cabbage aphids form colonies that feed on the undersides of the leaves. Treat the aphids with a contact insecticide containing bifenthrin, fatty acid soap or pyrethrins. In future, cover crops with a fine, insect-proof mesh.

Soft fruit - birds and aphids

Use netting to keep birds off soft fruit. Check for raspberry aphids. Large types are shiny yellow-green; small types are powdery grey-green. Squash them, spray them off with a jet of water, or use an insecticide based on fatty acid soap or pyrethrins.