Peter’s Gardening Tips for August/September

This year has to be one of the most challenging gardening years that I can remember and I remember 1976!!  The drought has led to many trees, shrubs, lawns and vegetables being very stressed.

It is important to ensure all your plants and crops are well watered – even during a hosepipe ban, you just need to be more creative with the water you use!

This month we look at stressed plants, lawns and looking to spring – yes you heard right – spring!

August top 10 tips:

Plants: 

Stressed plants are more prone to fugal disease and pests.  If your plants are struggling, they will benefit from applying Vitax Organic Liquid Seaweed. This will act as a tonic when watered in around the roots or as a foliar feed too. Within a couple of weeks you will see a difference.

Vegetables: 

Keep liquid feeding tomatoes, peppers, squash, courgettes, pumpkin and beans.  Using a good feed such as Vitax Q4 Premium Vegetable Feed or Tomato Feed will help fill out the fruit and prolong productivity.

Lawns: 

The hot weather has left lawns looking pretty scruffy to say the least.  They are beginning to green up with the welcome rains, but don’t cut the grass too short at the moment, let it grow back.  September will be the month for repairs, scarifying, aerating and seeding.

Fruit Trees:

Now is the time to gather and pick plums, peaches, nectarines.  I’m afraid there appears to be a lot of plum moth maggots in fruit this year.  If you’re plums are full of maggots, prepare for next year by investing in Plum Maggot Monitoring Traps to catch the male moths.  

Prune any fruit trees with a stone in the fruit such as cherries, plums, peaches, nectarines but not until after you have picked all the fruit.

Trained fruit trees like cordon, fan, step-over, espalier need pruning by the end of this month/into September.  This includes apples and pears. Cut back long extension shoots to 2-3 inches in length (2-3 leaves above basal cluster).

Slugs & Snails: 

The wet weather brings back slugs and snails – use Vitax Slug Gone or Slug Rid around your vegetables.  Both products are suitable for organic gardening.

Bag a bargain: 

There are bargains galore in the garden centre sales.  If you want to buy Herbaceous plants at half price, then take them home and split them up, re-pot to grow on and use Vitax Q4 Soluble Rootmore.  This will help produce a bio active root zone and stronger and healthier plants which can be planted out this autumn.  Vitax Q4 Rootmore can be used for trees, roses, shrubs bought in pots in the sales too!!

Dead-heading: 

Remove old flowers from roses, herbaceous plants, buddleias, dahlias, geranium etc.  This will promote more flowers and stop seeds being produced. 

Spring flowers: Spring flowering bulbs have arrived in the garden centres or are available online.  Don’t forget the autumn flowering bulbs for sale now as well.  If planting out, use Vitax Bonemeal in planting holes or if you are splitting, lifting or dividing bulbs that didn’t flower well in the spring sprinkle in the planting hole.

Wisteria Pruning:

Cut back all the long tendrils to 2-6 leaf buds creating short spurs roughly 2-6 inches in length.  These short spurs will produce next year’s flower buds and flowers.  Try and get this done by mid-September.  Wisterias have put on a lot of growth this year, remove from behind drainpipes around gutters, hanging tiles, telephone/electric cables etc.

Vegetables/Salads:

Now is the time to grow carrots, beetroot, lettuces/salad, leaf beet, spinach, spring cabbage, parsley, turnip, pak choi, Chinese cabbage and swiss chard.  Don’t forget to sow green manures to help improve the veg plot too.  Weeds are germinating like mad…..easy to pull up after the rain, or hoe off and allow to dry, then collect up and remove.

Happy Gardening whatever the weather.

Peter 

About Peter Mills:

Peter has over 35 years’ experience in horticulture working in garden centres before becoming a radio gardening presenter with BBC Radio Southern Counties. Working as a freelance consultant, Peter works with the RHS as an external advisor as well as trouble-shooting many gardening-related problems for a range of clients. A regular blogger for silversurfers.com, Peter provides ‘Top Ten Tips’ each month for VGW readers.