Articles LifestyleHome & GardenPeter’s Gardening tips for late Summer
image

Peter’s Gardening tips for late Summer

By Peter Mills Aug 14, 2017

Summer appears to be on hold!  Combines have stopped and the ‘Rain Came Down’!  It’s holiday time for a lot of us, as I write it’s absolutely pouring with rain in Devon and very windy.

We’ve had some lovely weather too, yesterday on a friends boat around Plymouth, caught some mackerel with the children, their little faces lit up, later cooked on the barbecue, a great end to a fabulous day, thank you, Tony.

Other days were spent messing around on the beach, rock pooling, picking up shells, paddling/swimming, a bit of bird watching and of course bucket and spade.

Visiting NT Gardens, Overbeck’s where I met the new Head Gardener Chris Groves, it’s a fabulous garden where you need to be a mountain goat to work!  The views are simply breath taking over the bay of Salcombe.  Another garden that we are fond of is Anthony another  NT at Torpoint, here there are very majestic trees of great age, the Black Walnut which children love to climb all over it.  The Cork Oak which to my mind is the largest I’ve ever seen, Quercus Suber, with branches spreading over 100 ft across

Wherever you are on holiday explore the gardens open around you, take your camera/phone, binoculars and as I’ve said on many previous occasions, stop, look and listen.  Use your senses and take in everything around you, from the smallest bugs to a very large prickly fellow, which I found in the garden of the cottage in Loddiswell, this hedgehog made those in Surrey look small, there’s obviously plenty of food for them in Devon!

My new prickly friend!

JOBS TO DO IN THE GARDEN

Here are a few jobs if you’re not on holiday, I am going to come home to a jungle in the garden and on the allotment. Correction I did come home to very long grass, tomato plants were blown over and masses of weeds!

  • Cut back vines just in front of fruit or tie in new stems you want to keep on young plants
  • Summer prune fruit trees to allow more light to ripen fruit and produce short spurs for next year’s flower buds. Cut back long shoots to 2-3 leaves, this can be over a foot of growth cut off – don’t worry.
  • Pinch out the growing tip on tomato plants to help fatten the tomatoes below, four trusses of fruit is ample for outdoor grown plants, remove lower leaves to help ripen fruit, feed and water regularly.
  • Take pictures of your garden and veg area to help you remember where plants are that you want to move, replace or fill gaps you have.  Also, very important if you are rotating vegetables, we all get forgetful!
  • Save seeds to give to friends and family or collect yourself for a Wildflower area.  
  • Plants to attract bees, butterflies and beneficial insects Now!
  • Buddleja, there are some more compact ones if you haven’t got the room, Buddleia ‘Blue Chip’. Hydrangea paniculata ‘Vanille Fraise’, Scabious in many colours and types, Echinacea ‘White Swan’ and others, Eryngium – Sea Holly, Crocosmia – Montbretia, Agapanthus which are looking fabulous now, Perovskia – Russian Sage, Sedums –Ice plant.  Do your bit for the insects,  I will talk about Wildflowers next month.
  • Veg to sow now:- Continue with lettuce, salad leaves, radish, mizuma, carrots, spinach, pak choi, parsley, beetroot, salad onions, Chinese cabbage, swiss chard,  perpetual spinach,  cavelo nero kale, wild rocket and turnip
  • Protect seedlings from Pigeons, flea bottle and cabbage white butterflies.
  • Voles have been causing havoc eating potatoes in the ground as well as the strawberries!!
  • Keep feeding fruit and veg with liquid feed – tomato/seaweed.
  • Pick climbing beans/runners regularly and courgettes too
  • Sow green manure on vacant ground to help soil structure, reducing the need to weed it.  Organic matter dug into the ground is hugely beneficial.  It stops the leaching of nutrients from the bare earth, sow rape, mustard or rye grass.
  • Brown rot on plums, pears and apples, remove any and destroy infected fruit.

Diary Dates

 

An autumn extravaganza

National Allotment Week – 14th to 20th August

RHS Harlow Carr –Autumn Plant Festival on 3rd and 4th September

RHS Wisley – Autumn Flower Show on 5th to 10th September, this includes 55 + nurseries and the National Dahlia Society Show.

I’m working at Wisley on the 5th and 6th of September in Gardening Advice at the show, so come and say hello and ask any gardening questions!

RHS Malvern – Autumn Show on 23/24th September

Whatever the weather throws at us enjoy the labours of your work.

It’s a very early autumn, go foraging for Blackberries, Sloes, Hazelnuts……

Please leave your gardening questions for me to answer and I will do my best to come back to you.

Happy Gardening!

Peter

Visit my website too ←

 

The following two tabs change content below.

Peter Mills

Peter has spent his life gardening, working in garden centres and advising in all aspects of gardening, wildlife, and bio-diversity in horticulture. He managed Clandon Park Garden Centre in Surrey at the age of 23 and was a gardening radio presenter with the BBC. This continued for 15 years, running live broadcasts from Chelsea & Hampton Court Flower shows, South of England & Surrey County shows. Now self-employed, Peter works on a wide variety of gardens from private to large estates and also concentrating on consultancy and advisory work to fellow gardeners. He works with the RHS Gardening Advice team at Chelsea, Hampton Court, Wisley Flower shows and is an RHS External Gardening Advisor

Leave a Comment!

Loading Comments