Growing with the Moon in August

14 comments

August is the time to be thinning your brassica seedlings, remember to thin the leaf brassicas such as cabbage and kale on a leaf day and the flower brassicas such as cauliflower and calabrese on a flower day.

Use a proprietary organic garlic compound diluted and sprayed on your brassicas to encourage strong growth and to deter pests. Remember that a strong plant can survive an attack of caterpillars whilst a weak one will succumb.

Keep an eye on your onions grown from sets and if the stalks have flopped or the foliage has yellowed lift them between 6 – 18 August and leave on the surface to dry for several days.

On a fruit day remove the old canes from summer fruiting raspberries and dig out strawberry plants that have fruited three times leaving the runners to take their place.

Into the veggie garden to do some harvesting…

Whilst it is important to harvest crops for storage on the correct day, for example your main crop potatoes on a root day as the 1st and 2nd early potatoes are best eaten fresh you can actually harvest these on any day other than the nodes and perigee. This is equally true for any vegetable that you will be eating immediately so you can pick lettuce, tomatoes and other salad goodies when the moon is descending as well as when it is ascending!

Here I am lifting some first early potatoes Coleen, a wonderful waxy potato!

In August you should be sowing and hoeing the land at the following times:

Roots: Hoe/sow seed on 4 – 6, 13 (after 1pm) –15 (before 6pm) 22 – 23 and 31 (after noon) – 2 September. Winter radish and turnip can all be sown in the open ground; you can also try sowing carrots to eat as fingerlings.

Fruits: Hoe/sow seed on 2 – 3, 11 – 12 (before 1pm), 21 and 29 (after 2pm) – 31 (before noon). Runner beans can be sown in the open ground in the first half of the month.

Leaves: Hoe/sow seed on 1, 9, 17 – 19 (before noon) and 26 (after 10am) – 29 (before 2pm). Spring cabbage, endive, kohl rabi, lettuce and salad greens, parsley, Chinese Cabbage and Swiss chard can be sown in the open ground. Continue to transplant your Savoy cabbage, and kale seedlings.

Flowers: Hoe/sow seed on 8, 16 and 24 – 26 (before 10am). Plant out broccoli seedlings.

The tomatoes are finally starting to ripen.

If you are harvesting for storing then:

Harvest your root vegetables on 6, 8 – 9 and 11 – 18 August when the Moon is descending, the best days to harvest are 6 and 11 – 14 August. Harvest beetroot, carrots, garlic, onions, shallots, radish, spring onion, summer turnips and potatoes (2nd earlies).

Harvest all other vegetables on 1 – 5, 19 and 21 – 31 August when the Moon is ascending, the best harvesting days are 2 – 5, 21 – 24 and 30 – 31. Harvest broad beans, French beans, runner beans, cabbage, courgette, broccoli, cauliflower, marrow, radish, Swiss chard, lettuce, peas, tomatoes and spinach. Also harvest soft and top fruit.

No work or harvesting should be done in the garden on 7 descending node, 10 perigee and 20 ascending node.

• 1 Aug, 2010
• 11 likes

More blog posts by moon_grower