• Not much to say here really! Leafy crops should still have time to get going, so a late sowing of winter lettuce, spinach and Swiss chard is worth a shot.
• Sowing salads for baby leaves in the polytunnel is well worth the effort right through the autumn.
• Quick growing crops such as spring onions and radish can be successful, particularly with the help of a cloche to keep the chill off at night.

• The ground should still be warm throughout the month and so now is the time to plant out any seedlings sown in August. Spring cabbage, broad beans and kale still have the time to put on some growth out in the garden before the first frosts slow them down in October and November.
• Strip off all the leaves on your tomato plants to give the remaining trusses of fruit the best chance to ripen with as much light as possible.
• September is a great time to have a good clean out in the greenhouse or polytunnel. Try to remove any dead plant material to prevent pests and diseases overwintering. Scrubbing down benches and paths is a really important but horrible job if left until a cold winter’s day!

• With a bit of luck, you should be able to start digging good sized carrots this month but don’t forget to keep your carrot fly netting in place.
• This is your last chance for ripe tomatoes, fruit on the edge of ripening can be brought in to finish off on the kitchen windowsill but the really green ones are best used in chutney.
• Squash and pumpkins should keep on growing through September, but an early frost will damage the fruit, so they are best harvested sooner rather than later. Unlike most other crops they will last the longest when stored at room temperature rather than in the fridge.
• Chilli peppers can seem to take forever to ripen and the hotter they are the longer they take. Luckily, they can be harvested green and will ripen up on a windowsill.
• Pears often won’t ripen on the tree and need to be brought inside to finish the process. Use the size and colour to tell you when to pick them rather than waiting for them to fall off the tree.
• Potatoes can be safely kept in their rows this month and dug as needed as long as the stems and leaves have been cut down.
• Runner and French beans should happily crop throughout September, keep picking to keep them productive and try to harvest them before they swell up and you can see the outline of the seeds within. Don’t worry if they get too big though, you can always leave them and save the seeds for next year.

• Wild rose hips are in abundance this Autumn and can be made into a fruit leather of delicious syrup to sweeten your porridge.
• Crab apples can often be found in the hedgerows. We get through jars for crab apple jelly by the dozen.
• Sloes for sloe gin.
• Hazel nuts are a real treat if you can beat the squirrels to them!!

And to find out more about foraging in the wild, with guidance on how to be safe and and also responsible in what you select, we have a booklet available for download. It was produced in 2019 for the Scottish Foraging Fortnight, which was developed through Scottish Government and EU support under the LEADER programme. The booklet – titled Come Foraging! – distils guidance from the then Scottish Natural Heritage (today NatureScot) who supported the Foraging Fortnight.

We also have here a Guide to Some Common Wild Edible / Medicinal Plants Around Orkney created by ethnobotanical researcher Anna Canning. This lists a range of wild plants, from Dandelion and Nettle to Red Clover and Crowberry, with notes on how to identify them and how to use them.

With the children back at school and a little more time on our hands, we’ve managed to get the vegetable garden back under control through August. Plenty of sunshine and rain has kept our plants growing well and there seems to be a bumper crop of apples and pears on the way.  The majority of our fruit and vegetables come from the garden at this time of year. It’s really nice not to have to worry about adding potatoes or greens to our supermarket order for a few weeks and enjoy the fruits of our labours for a while.

Kale and cabbages are two crops that I think are often underrated. We get an almost year-round supply of greens from just three sowings of kale, one in March, one in May and one in July. By the end of August, they are quite prone to aphids, so a spray of organic insecticidal soap doesn’t go amiss. They disappear when the colder weather comes in. One large cabbage will feed our family three times over. The slugs have been out in earnest this summer, so we always try to spot them hiding amongst cabbage leaves before cooking, but one or two always get through much to the disgust of the children!

We have been working our way through the potato patch, the earlies have all been eaten and now we’re onto our maincrop. Our Maris Piper have been particularly tasty this year, making lovely crispy chips, but have suffered from quite a lot of scab. Whilst they don’t look very appetising when they come out of the ground, the scab comes off really easily with a quick scrub away and it doesn’t affect the flavour at all. For now, we are keeping them stored under the soil out in the garden.

The runner beans seem to be a bit slow so far this season, usually we’re inundated by August, but this year the flowers aren’t setting so readily. Luckily the French beans have grown well, and I’ve been enjoying their delicious waxy pods throughout the month. I tend to grow climbing varieties such as ‘Cobra’ and ‘Blue Lake’ because they suffer less from slug attack than their dwarf cousins which can also get quite muddy when their pods hang down to the ground.

One by one my leeks seem to be going to seed, just like my onions did earlier in the season. I’m hoping that as the temperature goes down, there will still be a few that haven’t bolted. I try not to start digging leeks until they’ve had a frost to sweeten them up, normally late in October, but this year I might start early if I see any more flower stalks emerging.

As we harvest and empty the vegetable beds, we’re putting cardboard down to cover the soil and save us some weeding. In the past I’ve sown green manure, but I’ve not got round to it this year and we have a surplus of cardboard boxes. The only problem I can foresee is that we’re creating a perfect habitat for slugs, who not only enjoy the nice moist environment but also love to lay their eggs under cover and away from birds. I’m planning to turn the cardboard over occasionally in order to evict any unwanted tenants.

Our squash plants have been enjoying the regular downpours and have now escaped the beds and are spilling out over the paths. They won’t be ready to harvest for a few more weeks but I’m enjoying their vibrant orange flowers and exotically shaped fruit. I’m particularly fond of ‘Jack be Little’ which produces perfectly formed mini pumpkins.

By the end of August, I feel as if I’ve consumed my own body weight in plums. We have a ‘Victoria’, a greengage and an ‘Oullin’s’ gage in our garden which all seem to reliably crop every year. The problem with the greengage is that you don’t always notice when the fruit are ready to pick, as they stay green until they ripen and fall off the tree. We were caught unawares this year and had more ripe fruit that we could eat. What we couldn’t give away went on the compost heap, so nothing really went to waste.

It’s always a joy to see the change in seasons, the trees around my house are already showing a hint of gold in their leaves, particularly the birch and beech. The shortening days and cool mornings are natures ways of telling us to get ready for the colder months ahead.