Summer is just about gone - last chance for summer pleasures of sowing and harvest; autumn starts on 23rd September.
Time to start planning and organising for winter, preparing for next year's growing season. If you are going to use green manures to protect your soil over winter, get them sown now.
General Tasks
» Last chance to sow over-wintering green manures.
» Getting very close to the last opportunity to harvest tender crops - beans, corn, squashes, that will not survive frost.
Potato/Tomato family (Solanums)
» Lift main-crop potatoes - if there is blight around, cut haulms and remove 3 weeks before lifting.
» Harvesting - Potatoes (Early and Main), Tomatoes.
Bean/Pea family (Legumes)
» Harvesting - Broad Beans (spring sowing), Peas, Runner and French Beans.
Brassica family
» Draw soil up around broccoli stems to protect from frost.
» Transplant spring cabbage seedlings.
» Brussels sprouts - remove any blown sprouts and stake tall plants to avoid wind-rock.
» Harvesting - Green Broccoli, Cabbage (Summer), Cauliflower (Summer), Radish, Rocket, early Turnips.
Root vegetables
» Harvesting - Carrots.
Onion family (Alliums)
» Plant over-wintering (Japanese) onion sets.
» Lift and dry Garlic.
» Harvesting - Spring Onions.
Other vegetable families
» Cut down asparagus foliage and mulch bed well with compost or well-rotted manure.
» Harvesting - Beetroot, Courgettes, Cucumber, Lettuce, Marrows, Pumpkin and Squash, Spinach, Sweetcorn, Swiss Chard.
Herbs
» Tidy up any herb plants which have gone to seed.
» Take cuttings - with a heel, in a pot of compost.
Fruit
» Finish planting summer fruiting strawberries.