What to plant in August

The month everyone writes off. In fact it is the best sowing window of the year for anything you want to eat in October.

August feels like the end of something. The borders are past their best, the lawn has given up, and most people put the trowel down until spring. That is a shame, because the soil is warm, the light is still good, and a seed sown now germinates in days rather than weeks.

Sow now, eat in October

Spinach, rocket, chard, spring onions, and any of the oriental leaves will all go in this month and be on a plate before the clocks change. Sow thinly into a shallow drill, water the drill rather than the surface, and keep the slugs off for the first fortnight.

Turnips are the sleeper hit. Sown in the first half of August they will be the size of a golf ball by early October and are worth eating raw at that size.

Get the spring bulbs in the ground

Daffodils want to go in now, not in November when everybody remembers them. They start rooting in late summer, and a bulb planted in August will flower a fortnight earlier and stand up better to wind than the same bulb planted three months later.

Tulips are the exception. Leave those until the soil has properly cooled, which around Ludlow means the back end of October at the earliest.

What to leave alone

Do not prune anything that flowers on old wood, and resist the urge to cut back the perennials. Those seed heads are food for the birds and structure for the frost, and there is nothing to be gained by tidying them away now.

We have August-sown seed on the bench in the propagation house if you want to see what a fortnight looks like. Come and have a look at the trays by the till.