Late August - Early September

No dig success is so clear in the featured drone shot of my "new garden", created since 2021. There was a lot of bindweed at first, Convolvulus arvensis.

Happily now the main area of 640 m², 1/6 acre, has none except around the edges, where it continues to creep in. I explain how we managed this in a video I shall publish towards the end of August. See also this playlist on YouTube.

Vegetable gardens can be at their best for the next six weeks, after a summer of strong growth. It depends on how you have managed this year's unusual weather events.

Here I have found that no dig soil quality has really paid off. Together with sowing and planting on time, using the dates from my Sowing Timeline.

Plus my new 2025 Calendar will appear soon. We shall have copies for sale at my 1st September Open Day.

I am lucky with the weather here which averages 22°C, 72°F by day and 11 to 12°C, low 50s Fahrenheit by night. Many vegetables are very comfortable with that, including cabbage, see the new video.
I have just started to water them because it's staying dry, despite the clouds.

We have had only 21mm, 0.8 inches in 38 days to 17th August, one quarter of normal.

Under cover vegetables

These plants suffered a desperately slow start because of unusually cold conditions. During much of the second week of June, the nighttime temperatures in my polytunnel were 5 to 6°C, low 40s Fahrenheit. That does not kill these warmth-loving plants but sets them back massively. They grew small yellow leaves instead of big green ones. Even when it warmed up, they took time to recover.

Melon plants in my greenhouse suffered very little. It's warmer in there, thanks to the brick wall and glass holding more heat than plastic. They have already finished and a couple of tomato plants I put between them (see video) are enjoying the extra space. So is the watermelon crawling along the ground.

Sow more

We sowed a lot of spinach this past week and it's coming up now. Just a  little patchy because the seeds are two years old.

• There is still time to sow spinach, but don't delay. Outside it often survives winter, then crops again in the spring.
• Until the end of the month is good for salad rocket, to crop in autumn.
• Sow spring cabbage and spring onions. They will stand winter as small plants before growing mostly in the spring. See how they look in December!
• Sow also American land cress, and Claytonia winter purslane.

Have seeds ready for early September, of lambs lettuce / corn salad, and wild rocket.

For all of these vegetables, I sow three seeds per call, so that most cells have at least one seedling. However, for the spinach, I'm using seed from 2022, and germination is less consistent. Just good enough!

Plus in early September, and up to the equinox, you can sow salad and leafy vegetable seeds for planting under cover in October. They should crop through winter, in areas where frost is not too severe.

Second plantings, spacings, compost

Continue looking for gaps to sow and transplant. You don't need to be governed by rotation, when soil fertility and health are good.

Usually though, in the same year's plantings of summertime, I follow plants of one family with plants of a different family, as in the example above. And I apply no new compost before replanting, unless I feel the soil needs a fertility boost.

There are many possible spacings you can use, see this knowledge pack. Partly, it depends what you want. Such as the leeks above are close together, considering there are three leeks in each clump, multisown. Therefore, the harvest will be off plentiful medium leeks rather than fewer large ones.

Keep weeding!

This is important, to catch weeds before they can go to seed. Or if they are perennial weeds, before they can build strength back into their underlying root systems.

That's why it's best to keep removing new bindweed growth at least every week. And weeds add volume to your compost heaps.

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Facebook

This is a saga which won't finish. It's getting me down because there are so few options to remove the hackers, who doing what they like in my name.
With Rachel, my social media manager, we have worked hard to sort it out, but keep running into blind alleys.

Thanks to those of you who have offered help, that has been a massive silver lining to feel your support.
I'm still not sure what will happen, even I might have to come off Facebook altogether. Not that I want to! I am surprised how little help one can find from Meta, and even the experts seem confused sometimes.

The hackers are being clever and posting things which are not offensive, yet. Some people who have reported the post, say that Meta reply, and say there's nothing wrong with it! But I am totally excluded.

Please  report the page, plus tag the following accounts for support @ Meta & @ Meta Business Support

Just to be clear, there is now nothing from me.