Life on Pig Row: August in the garden

Andrew Oldham writes about Pig Row, which is three gardens over a quarter of an acre in Scouthead.
Visit their website at www.lifeonpigrow.co.uk

August in the garden is flurry of harvesting, a steady trickle of vegetables and fruit over July and early August has by the end of the month become a flood.

You will have courgettes that go from dainty finger like snacks to hefty marrow sized backpacks in a blink of an eye. And tomatoes that will threaten to breakdown your greenhouse and enough lettuce to send a warren of rabbits loopy.

It is easy to forget as the crops come in that you will need to replace them. The worst thing any of us can do as gardeners is to leave beds empty. Empty beds lead to soil erosion and with the promise of wet weather, winds and snow later in the year we must protect our soil now.

Dirt is our most precious commodity; it sustains us and every animal on our planet. If you can do one thing this month protect it. You can do this by sowing a hardy follow on crop like spring greens, hardy year round lettuces such as lambs lettuce or you can sow oriental greens, like mizuna or pak choi. These will lock down the soil and prevent it from eroding.

You can go down the green manure route, the best green manure for Saddleworth soil we’ve found is red clover. This legume locks nitrogen in the soil, and can be left to overwinter or in some cases left up to two years before being shorn off with a lawnmower or shears and allowed to rot down.

There is a fallacy that you have to dig in green manure, it is not the case, it is often best just to cut down the foliage and allow the roots to rot down six to eight weeks before planting in the same spot.