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or many people, August is traditionally the holiday month. Unfortunately for them, it also often seems to turn out to be a month of cloudy skies and lots –and lots –of rain. I have no need to look at a calendar to know when the schools have broken up. I simply look at the sky.

Of course, for a gardener, rain is always welcome and, provided you have resisted the lure of a fortnight away somewhere damp and gloomy, this is the time to enjoy the vegetable garden at its productive peak, particularly if you are a fan of courgettes. Personally, I prefer to stay put in August and enjoy the fruits of my labours.

While the emphasis this month is very much on harvesting –and eating –there is still maintenance work to be done. Great growing weather for crops is also good news for weeds, so don’t be tempted to take a holiday from the hoeing.

Despite what I have said about the weather, you will still need to keep an eye on the watering, too. Rain is all very well, but it does need to be the right type of rain to really penetrate the soil. Keep a careful eye on any crops growing in pots, and plants that are setting fruit now, such as apples and pears. Don’t be tempted either to ignore globe artichokes, just because they look rather Mediterranean and drought-proof. They will repay regular soaking with a bountiful second flush. Christopher Lloyd most welcome zing to the salad courtyard, where they benefit always made sure he had artichokes to pick right the way through the summer, and loved to serve them

as a starter, simply boiled and dressed with olive oil, salt and pepper.

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Jobs for August

Keep sowing salad crops. A sowing every three or four weeks at this stage will see you into the early winter. You can thank me then. I like to do a late sowing of beetroot at around this time. There is still time for the roots to develop, and the leaves make a delicious – and colourful – addition to autumn and winter salads. This is also a great time to sow onion seed. It took me a while to find an onion that would do well in heavy clay soil, but now I have the answer: Allium cepa ‘White Lisbon’. I like to sow quite thickly, so that I can add the thinnings to my salads. There is still time to get summer and winter radishes into the ground too. They are quick growing and an excellent from the heat reflecting from walls one candidate for this month’s

choice for shadier areas of the garden. Getting tomatoes to ripen can sometimes feel like a race against time. Maximise the amount of sunlight that reaches the fruit –and reduce the risk of blight, which can be spread by soil splashing up on to the plants when you water –by stripping the lower leaves from your plants and pinching out the diagonal shoots that often appear between the main stem and the branches. Once my plants are around 1.5m tall I like to pinch out the tops too, to encourage them to put their energy into fruiting. Now is a good time to give your perennial herbs a good cut back and clean up so that they have the time to recover before the cold months. Take out any old and damaged wood, cut back to where you can see new growth and remove any weeds. Then water well with

WHAT TO DO YOUR CROPS WITH

If like me you are a salad obsessive, August is a time to rejoice as the peppery leaves sown last month start to appear. Rocket, mizuna and mustard greens will all add a bowl, and will keep cropping through the colder months.

Growing aubergines is a new adventure for me, and one I am thoroughly enjoying. I find they work particularly well in pots in an enclosed space, such as a and can be moved around to take advantage of the sunshine. I love to make a simple baba ganoush by grilling them until they are properly charred, then scooping out the flesh and blending with tahini, olive oil and garlic.

But there can really be only a liquid feed such as seaweed.

recipe: the courgette. The punchy flavourings of lemon, anchovies and capers complement the mild, sweet flavour of the vegetable and should help to prevent courgette fatigue –a very real risk at this time of year – from setting in.

You can find Aaron’s delicious courgette salad recipe at gardensillustrated.com/recipes