August is our get ready for spring month. Use this month to pave the way for spring plantings. Wander your garden and think about what is going where.

Make space for the new

• Create space beneath older, productive broccoli, by peeling off lower, ratty foliage. Use the space to sow greencrops, or plant companions or crops.

• Clean out finished crops by chopping them off at ground level. Crunch or chop them up and use them in compost or for mulch. Really big chunky bits can go beneath avocados or other fruit trees to slowly break down.

• Harvest over wintering carrots and parsnips if it’ll start warming up at yours next month. In the warmth, they’ll gear up to seed – which means a hard core, and sometimes split too. Wash them, dry them and store them in a bag in the crisper. Colder climates, rejoice! You’ve a bit more time with natures fridge.

• Get your yams up too, if you need the space.

As soon as space is cleared, fill it right away – sowing greencrops in preparation for spring plantings, or planting foodcrops to keep the harvest momentum up.

What to plant and sow in August

SOW

DIRECT SOW

• Greencrops of mustard and phacelia, for spring nectar to feed and entice bee + predatory insects.
• Lupin greencrops sown this month will be pre-flower and ready to cut down or plant amongst, come October. A perfectly timed precursor to mid-spring plantings of heavy feeders like corn, tomatoes and squash.
• Poppy, calendula and borage

TRAY SOW

• Broccoli, cabbage, spring onions, red onions, brown onions, peas in plug trays, miners lettuce, corn salad, parsley, various saladings

DIRECT OR TRAY SOW

• Broadbeans
• Spinach, coriander, bok choy, beetroot, saladings or rocket in the greenhouse, or under a cloche – unless its warm enough outside at yours.

TRANSPLANT

• Broadbeans, peas and brassicas
• Broccoli, kale, cabbage, onions, shallots, spring onions, perpetual spinach, silverbeet
• Saladings, beetroot, potatoes or bok choy in the greenhouse
• Asparagus and Strawberries

How to plant onions

Fit lots of onions in a small space – three times as many in fact. I’ve planted 102 in a 2m x 1.2m space using Eliot Coleman’s 3 in 1 hole trick. They are happier this way – such flimsy seedlings for so long, being tucked up with mates rather than flailing about on their own. Plant groups of three, at 20cm spacings.

Asparagus Prep

Prep your asparagus patch for a productive season by weeding it first, then spread a decent layer of homemade compost. If you don’t have enough, mix it with bought compost or vermicastings. A layer of seaweed is another option if you are seaside.

Top it all off with a generous mulch of whatever you can scrounge – this year I’m using long grass aka homemade hay. Don’t worry about blocking the asparagus, those spears are like little drills – they’ll easily pierce through. Sea wrack makes a well suited mulch, reminding asparagus of its seaside origins.

Timing it right: tomatoes, peppers and aubergines from seed

Tomatoes, peppers and aubergines are ready to transplant 6 – 8 weeks after sowing. Work backwards from here to figure out your perfect sowing moment.

If you have a greenhouse or live in the winterless north, you can get on the job this month knowing that there is a toasty warm, free draining environment to transplant your seedlings into. You’ll need a heatpad or hotbox of manure in order to warm the seed raising mix to 20°. If its not warm enough your peppers wont get out of bed for you.

Without these things, wait until conditions are right. There’s no rush and the bonus of planting a bit later is that you’ll be cropping later. Its way more satisfying to plant out when conditions suit – watch your crops boost away! Don’t force it. Move with the seasons and keep your garden steady.

Regular + Odd jobs

• Order in seeds – remember greencrops!

• Keep broccoli, leafy greens and parsley going as long as you can with daily harvests. Mulch the soil around them to keep it cool through September and slow them from going to seed.

• If you dont have enough compost, order some in. Hopefully organic and residue free. Bought compost will likely be immature and will definately be devoid of life. It’ll benefit greatly from some time sitting on your soil to mature and become imbued with life, especially if its been sealed in a plastic bag. Free it from its suffocating bonds and empty it onto the soil. Perhaps pour some EM over it – let it breathe and revitalise before adding it to your garden.

August in the greenhouse

The chooks are out and its time to give everything its annual scrub down. I use warm soapy water and a soft broom to clean the outside and inside and lift off any moulds. Rinse the soap off and set the sprinkler on the beds to wash any soap through.

Then spread compost, go as thick as you can the greenhouse needs it. If the chooks have been in the greenhouse they will have made a goodly layer for you, just by churning up all the organic matter you’ve been tossing to them.

In the absence of enough compost – gather cheats compost; sow a greencrop now, for planting amongst later; trench bokashi and mulch with whatever rotten organic matter you have to hand.

Plant out companions like alyssum, bishops flower, nasturtium, poppy, borage, phacelia and shoofly bring the bees and predatory waps in.

Set up the heatpad or hot box, gather seed raising mix, wash labels and trays – spring is coming!