GARDENING IN LATE AUGUST

• Feed fruit trees now with potash for next year’s fruits. 
• Excellent weather for planting identify any dull spots in your borders
• Prepare soil ready for sowing a lawn or laying turf during September and October
• Deal with problem lawn weeds, digging them out or applying herbicide.
• Deadhead border plants, unless you want to collect their seeds
• Deadhead dahlias to encourage further blooms to form
• Cut down perennials past their prime
• Sow hardy annuals, like poached egg plant, for early flowers next year
• Water camellias regularly as drought can cause the buds to drop next spring and feed now with an ericaceous  liquid plant  food
• Thin out heavy crops of plums to prevent branches snapping
• Hang wasp traps in fruit trees
• Use osmo Autumn feed to harden up your plants for the winter
• Continue to plant autumn vegetables

Sweet ruby jewels. Raspberries are often called strawberries on stilts! I think this is very unfair to both fruits. Growing both is well worth while. Strawberries are easy to grow but they have a very short season. And if you have ever eaten yellow raspberries I’m sure you will agree that strawberries are not in the same flavour league. By choosing your raspberry varieties carefully, you can enjoy the sweet, juicy fruits from late-June to late-September. While you may need space to grow raspberries, you don't need much time. They're also one of the best low-maintenance fruit crops you can grow. Raspberries take a little more work than strawberries ( but not much) and you have a much longer season especially if you use summer fruiting varieties followed by autumn fruiting varieties and in the unlikely event, any you can’t eat can be frozen or made into jams. There are two main types of raspberries summer and autumn fruiting. The summer fruiting varieties must be pruned immediately after picking the fruit. Simply cut the canes which bore fruit to ground level, leaving 6 or 7 strong new canes for next year’s fruit. Tie into the support wires and remove any suckers which have grown out into the path or between the rows. Give them a sprinkle of sulphate of potash to encourage fruit and that’s it until spring. Autumn fruiting varieties are pruned differently; all the canes should be cut back to ground level in February. There is no need for thinning the canes or tying in, yields are lower however than the summer varieties. Raspberries are happy as long as your soil is not too wet and will tolerate a little shade. I think there are few plants that give a better tastier return. Plant both summer- and autumn-fruiting canes in autumn. Although you can delay planting the latter until as late as March.