While much of England continues to move through drought conditions, some short spells of rain has helped. Rain is always the best water, and plants seem to prefer it to any other source.
The Last Push of Summer
By now, your tomatoes should be ripening. If they are not looking their best and the plants are heavy with green leaves, it is worth removing most of those leaves, around three-quarters, to allow more light to reach the fruit. This year has been excellent for tomato flavour, so your efforts will soon be rewarded.
Cucumbers will continue to crop, so keep harvesting them. They are likely to produce until the middle of September, and you may well end up with a glut.
Our own orchard fruits are ripening more than a month earlier than usual. Check your trees as it may well be time to start picking apples already. Store them in a cool, dark space such as a garage. Be selective: remove any that are rotten or mouldy so they do not spoil the rest, and check them regularly. Apples store best on their own, away from onions or other crops that speed up ripening and decay.
If you have an abundance, share your harvest with friends or preserve it for later use. Pickle, freeze, or make jams, chutneys and sauces. Remember to remove the calyx (the green stalk) from your tomatoes first if you plan to freeze them.
The Next Season
If you have not already done so, sow radicchio and winter salad crops, most of which will survive a typical English winter. There is great pleasure in seeing the blood-orange leaves of radicchio on a cold grey January day. Land cress is another good choice, a cut-and-come-again crop with a peppery bite that adds variety to salads and mustard leaf mixes. Now is also a good time to direct sow spinach, which should be ready from mid-October, hopefully before the frosts arrive.
Any autumn vegetables sown in late July, such as chard, beetroot, parsley and fennel, should now be planted out to give them time to establish before harvesting in October.
Pest Control
Check your cabbages morning and evening for caterpillars and remove them, otherwise they will strip your plants completely. You can also net them against the cabbage white butterfly to stop any more eggs being laid.
Flowers in the Field
This is the time to sow biennials such as hollyhocks, poppies and digitalis. It is best to get them into the ground before October while the soil is still warm, starting them off in seed trays if needed.
If your sweet peas have finished and the pods have dried, collect the seeds and store them in a cool, dark and dry place ready to sow for next year.
Our dahlias have been set back by the drought, but once yours bloom cut them every other day. As soon as a flower opens, take it and bring it indoors to enjoy. This will encourage more flowers.