August in our garden - Dahlia Penhill Watermelon

August in our garden – a garden diary

19th August 2020 Lisa 68 Comments

It only seems a few weeks since my last garden update but here we are again, it’s August in our garden already. And if I thought July was busy, then August has certainly given me a rude awakening. After a week away in Cornwall at the beginning of the month I’m scrambling to catch up with everything. We’ve got masses of fruit and vegetables to harvest, and lots of flowers to cut. And I have over 30 jobs on my to do list that need doing as well!

What’s flowering this August?

August bulbs

My dahlias are taking a while to get going this month – perhaps the heatwave didn’t agree with them. The only one that’s flowering at the moment is the glorious Penhill Watermelon in this month’s cover pic. She’s an absolute stunner, with blooms the size of dinner plates! And after seeing so many blue Agapanthus and orange Crocosmia in Cornwall, it’s rather underwhelming to see the solitary specimens blooming in our garden. Both these plants seem to do better in a slightly tropical micro-climate. So maybe that’s another reason to consider a move closer to the sea in due course.

And hello to what I thought were going to be some deep pink gladioli but are quite different blooms altogether. I have no idea what they are, but that’s the joy of picking up plants from a socially-distanced next door village plant sale back in the spring. Aren’t they pretty though?

August perennials

I said last month that most of our roses are over bar a few repeat flowerers and sadly that’s true. But as long as I keep dead heading those, we should see blooms into Autumn at least. My beloved yellow shrub rose by the front door and the yellow-turning-to-pink climbing rose are my stalwarts.

August in our garden - yellow shrub rose

August in our garden - pink climbing rose

Harking back to Cornwall, I treated myself to a few new plants while we were down there. I have a lovely purple Heliotrope (which has THE most delicious scent, hence it’s nickname, “cherry pie flower”). Plus a new orange scented pelargonium to make flavoured teas with, and three new foxgloves because I’m too impatient to wait and grow them from seed.

August in our garden - orange scented pelargonium

Another of my favourite, reliable perennials is the Japanese anemone. We have white ones near the main pond and Flora has some pink ones near her pond. They make lovely cut flowers too, although you need to sear them to stop them drooping and dropping pollen everywhere. If you keep dead heading them, new buds will grow and bloom for a fair few weeks into the early Autumn too.

August annuals

The sweet peas that I grew from seed and planted out at the end of May are STILL flowering – I’m getting around four to five little vases a week from them and they smell glorious! Tip: the more you pick, the more they flower, so keep picking, dead heading, and don’t let them set seed. And my lovely scented purple Petunias are getting better and better. I’ve planted them in pots and borders and they’re just gorgeous, so vibrant and such a heady fragrance.

August in our garden - wildflower and bee

Over on the right is an unidentified white wildflower that self-seeds and comes back every year. I have no clue what it is, I collected a few seeds from a plant growing out of a wall in Swindon a few years ago, but the bees just ADORE it. So I’m leaving it alone to do its thing and help our wildlife. Tip: if you see something you like that’s growing wild, why not take a few seeds (without damaging the plant) and see if you can grow it. If it works, great, if not, what have you lost?

What’s fruiting this August?

August in our garden is THE time for fruit. As we were away at the beginning of the month I haven’t managed to prune the grapevine yet. But it’s becoming a pressing task as it’s beginning to advance over our neighbour’s garage… plus we need the plant’s energy to focus on grapes rather than foliage. Our rhubarb plants are still producing plenty of stalks, much to Alan’s dismay. And I couldn’t resist sharing a photo of Ginger, who’s taken it upon himself to guard said plants in case of foul play 🙂

August in the garden - Ginger and the rhubarb

Our Victoria plum tree and pear trees are groaning with fruit. The plums are ripe, soft, sweet and delicious, so I need to get a move on and make my plum jam in the next few days or the wasps will beat me to it. The pears need a little longer but should be ready in a few weeks’ time. In case you missed last month’s post, my top tip to test for pear ripeness is to take one and twist it three times around the stalk. If it comes away, it’s ripe. If it doesn’t, leave it on the tree for another week then try again.

Alan has been on daily apple-picking-up duty as our fabulous apple tree is chucking them down. At long last, I have managed to identify her, she’s a very early ripening and eating Discovery, and sadly her fruits don’t store. But on the upside, he’s been making some delicious fresh apple juice for us, although the effort expended far outweighs the result. We have the Dom Pérignon / Krug / Brut of apple juice!

Indoor garden jobs for August

Do you remember the little tomato, cucumber and chilli plants that I planted out at the beginning of June? Well, look at the greenhouse now!

Tip: cut back most of the tomato plant leaves to ensure as much light as possible gets to the fruits to ripen them. I’m giving them a weekly feed of Tomorite to boost their flavour too. As you may recall, I was trying both indoor and outdoor cucumber plants to see which fared best. The indoor cucumbers are over now, but we’ve had around eight large cukes so a good harvest. The outdoor cucumbers are storming away and we’ve had five large cukes with plenty more to come. And just look at Alan’s chilli plants – I thought they weren’t getting enough light but it seems that I needn’t have worried!

Outdoor garden jobs for August

Alan is still on grass cutting duty – the lawn one week and the orchard another week. And my three new vegetable beds are doing well. In one we have rather too many French bean plants, we can’t keep picking and eating them fast enough. And in another, my first broccoli plant (swapped for a cucumber plant with a neighbour), which I planted far too close to the edge because that’s all the space I had at the time. I’ll know better for next year…

As you may have seen over on my Twitter feed, we’ve had quite a few large cucumbers from the outdoor plants already. So many in fact that I recently shared some favourite cucumber recipes for making the most of this yummy harvest. And do you remember I’ve been trialling cucamelons for the first time this year? I can report back that they are delicious, juicy, and prolific!

Sadly, my first foray into growing more broccoli in our largest vegetable bed has not gone well. I planted out 12 seedlings and by the very next morning the perishing pigeons had eaten the lot. I mean I’m all for supporting wildlife but not that much. Lesson learned for next year, I will have to net all new seedlings. As I’m too embarrassed to show you the sorry stumps, here’s a picture of one of my beetroot which is nearly ready to harvest instead 🙂 And, of course, August in our garden means a continual round of deadheading, pruning, tying in, weeding, and watering jobs.

Wildlife

All three ponds still have their quota of frogs, who are getting quite tame. They don’t seem at all alarmed when we approach and it’s great to know we’ve got the right habitats for them to thrive in. And we have plenty of birds visiting every day too – although I’m not so happy about the starlings who are making a frightful mess of our lawn as they go after the ants and their larvae. Hopefully, they’ll have eaten them all soon and we can re-seed the bare patches of pecked out grass. Lastly, both our bug hotels are getting full and we can’t wait to see what hatches in due course.

Flora’s garden

As you can see, Flora’s garden is looking a little wilder these days. I fear her enthusiasm has waned and weeding has palled. But she did manage to harvest a few raspberries before I cut the old canes away and tied in the new ones ready for next summer. And just look at that magnificent sunflower, the only one that survived the seedlings I planted earlier this year. Our fence is 2m tall so the sunflower is probably close to 3m high – what a result!