August growing guide
🔆 High 17.9° | 🌙 Low 9° | 🌧️ 7.1 rainy days
With spring just around the corner, August is all about getting your garden ready to bloom.
Veggies
Tomatoes are the most popular homegrown veggie and can be grown easily in a well-drained sunny spot. Start by adding a couple of handfuls of dolomite lime per plant to the soil then two weeks later add plenty of compost. Avoid using chicken manure as it’s too high in nitrogen and can make the plant grow plenty of leaves at the expense of future fruit. I find the smaller cherry varieties work best in most conditions and are less likely to get attacked by fruit fly. The kids also love the bite-size fruits. Grow with companion plants such as basil to help ward-off pests. They work just as brilliantly together in the garden as they do on a plate.
Trim back perennial herbs such as rosemary, thyme, sage, marjoram and winter savory by about a quarter to help promote new growth. Any cuttings can be planted out or given away.
Don’t fertilise your garlic from August on, as this can lead to foliage growth at the expense of bulb development
As broad beans ripen, they can collapse under their own weight. Place a stake in each corner of the bed with a piece of twine around the perimeter at least half the height of the beans. This will help hold the plants up in windy conditions.
Regularly foliar-feed leafy crops such as lettuce, kale and silverbeet with a seaweed tonic and remove dead leaves regularly to increase air circulation and sunlight penetration.
What to plant this month: Beetroot, cabbage, capsicum, carrot, chicory, endives, herbs, mustard, potato, radish, rhubarb, sweet corn, tomato
Fruit
It’s the perfect time to pick navel oranges and mandarins while they’re at their best. Continue to protect frost-sensitive plants like lemons and limes which can be severely damaged when young. At the end of August, feed citrus with a complete fertiliser, which should green up any yellow foliage.
Prune passion fruit to thin-out overgrown growth, then fertilise with potash to promote flowering and fruiting.
Natives
Plant finger limes to have attractive, reddish-brown fruits filled with caviar-like balls of tangy flesh — just perfect for little fingers
Lightly prune overgrown shrubs such as banksia, callistemon and melaleuca. I like to leave the pruning where they fall to act as a habitat for a range of different birds and lizards.
Flowers
Fertilise annuals with a water-soluble fertiliser and dead-head old flower heads to help them extend their flowering. Plant summer-flowing annuals like alyssum, aster, carnations, petunia, verbena and zinnia.
One of the easiest seeds to grow is nasturtium. Sow now for masses of flowers for months on this spreading ground cover. It’s roots, leaves and flowers can all be eaten, plus it also acts as a habitat plant encouraging predatory ladybirds and lacewings into our gardens.
Improving your soil
Time to get your compost ready for the spring vegie patch by building up the pile with fresh and dead leaves, weeds, paper and old mulches. Regular turning ensures good air penetration which helps it break down quickly, as will adding compost activators such as comfrey or borage.
Check that all potted plants are well watered and secure as August is generally a cold and windy month
Ponds and water sources
Spring is a good time to give ponds a tidy up, so the water sparkles crystal clear throughout summer. Scoop out dead leaves and any decaying plant matter that has built up over winter. This will turn the water toxic if left in the pond during the warmer months. Make sure to divide up waterlily clumps that have become too large. Replant into baskets with new aquatic compost. To have a balanced ecosystem, ponds need a mix of oxygenating, floating and marginal plants - but take care not to over plant.
Pest watch
Aphids love the new growth on a variety of plants. Wash them off with a jet of water and spray with white oil. You can make your own by mixing a splash of vegetable oil with a little squeeze of dishwashing liquid in a jar. Shake mixture until it turns into a white liquid. Pour a teaspoon of this white mixture into a spray bottle and mix with water. Spray on aphids and scale.
Control leaf curl on deciduous fruit trees, such as apricots, peaches and nectarines, with a copper-based spray. Spray firstly when the flower buds begin to swell and then again as the buds begin to shoot.