What I’m Sowing and Growing in August

July has probably topped June in the crazy month awards, with a few days colder than February and then blazing hot a few days later followed by gales and heavy rain. The beans have suffered the most, only just starting to climb. The squash and brassicas (that survived cabbage root fly) have thrived.  The lettuces all ran to seed, so did half of the red onions and the chard.  The new lettuces thrived though and we just managed to keep our supply going.

Fortunately we’ve learned how to enjoy abundant self-sufficiency, grow lot of varieties, in different places and more than we need.  That way we always have a wonderful abundance and friends and family get to enjoy the few things that are in surplus, which is different each year.

Hopefully August will get things growing again, there’s not much I can do to help so my focus now switches to preparing for an abundant winter and spring, which means carefully timed sowings in August and September, with a just a few sowings in October and November and fewer still over winter. Watch the associated videos as they are released.

For me the most important thing is that the allotments have become a very relaxed place as we potter around, planting and harvesting, with no real work to do until late September/October when we transition everything over for winter veg.  Of course all of this late rain (after a very dry spring) means very little watering.

In this video I show you the progress of my June and July sowings which are doing fairly well.  Most of the peppers are now doing well (about 2 weeks later than last year), the early tomatoes seem to have been worth the effort and the main tomatoes in the polytunnel is all growing strong (also 2 weeks late).  The outside tomatoes are a disaster though!

In the video I also spend a few minutes on the computer to show you the databases that I’m using to capture all of my knowledge about the 250+ varieties of fruit and veg that I grow and also the details of what I’m sowing.

Before we get to the video though you might like to check out my latest tour, which shows everything that’s growing.

July allotment tour – big problems but no shortages

So finally we get to the video for August’s sowing and growing, with a sneak peak at September too:

What I’m Sowing and Growing in August

This video shows several databases that I’m using to manage my allotment this year.If you would like to find out more about these databases please take a look at the following video, and it’s associated description:

If you want to get a copy of the tools that I demonstrate in this video please click on this link and create an account.  Once you have an account then click on this link to browse all of my databases, if you want, you can take a copy of the databases to use for yourself.

If you want to download any of the following views to a spreadsheet you can clock ‘download CSV’ to get your own private copy, or use the web based database I’m using by watching the video above.

When looking at these databases please bear in mind that they are live views onto rapidly evolving data. The content and design is being constantly improved. If you want to look at snapshots and/or take your own copies, please look at the video above and it’s associated description.

Here’s a complete read-only view of the sowing log and varieities database with all of my data:

Here’s what I sowed in June:

Here’s what I sowed in July:

Here’s what I’m planning to sow in August and the rough plan for September!

For completeness here’s a view of my complete sowing database with all the details!

Watch out for the next video showing what I’m sowing in September!