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If August holidays brought a break from the garden, then September sees you back in the thick of it.
Not only does the harvest keep rolling in, but also old plants need clearing and new ones planting if your polytunnel, or greenhouse, is to keep producing right through the winter. Don’t waste the space! Get plants and seeds in the soil this month if you want to be a year-round under-cover gardener

Tomatoes

Plants should be producing more fruit than you know what to do with. Keep harvesting if you want to keep plants cropping for as long as possible. Cut off all lower leaves, and certainly all browning or damaged ones. There should be enough young healthy leaves near the top of the plant to take care of photosynthesis. You need to allow as much light and air to reach ripening fruit as possible.
Stop feeding by the middle of the month and cut right back on watering unless the weather is exceptionally hot and dry. Keep an eye out for blight and remove any brown blotched fruit and leaves to limit the spread of this devastating disease.

Grapes

If you have a vine, then this is the time to enjoy the harvest. Black grapes start to show their true colour early in September and delicious bunches should be dangling from the roof frame as soon as the sun allows them to ripen to full sweetness. Bunches need sun to fully ripen, and plenty of air to avoid mildews, so cut back lots of leaves. If you want to spread the ripening over a longer period, however, you can leave a few bunches in the shade for a while longer. Bunches may be really tightly packed and these can harbour woodlice and earwigs. Submerge picked bunches in a bowl of water for a while before serving, to avoid creepy crawlies galloping off the fruit platter!

Cucumbers

These can crop right through September if the month is warm. They can even push well on into October, but will begin to look really tatty at the first hint of cold weather. An unseasonable early frost, or even just a cold night, can finish them off in an unheated structure. Keep picking cucumbers, even if they are small and curled into unusual shapes – they still taste good and regular picking keeps plants producing.

Aubergines

There should be firm ripe fruit ready for harvesting this month. If no fruit has set and flowers are browning, it’s probably time to call it a day and uproot the lot. Even if fruit sets in early September it is unlikely to reach any decent size at this late stage. If you didn’t pollinate flowers with a soft paintbrush in early summer, make a note to do so next year. Check if there are webs on the leaves as red spider mite may still be a problem.

For more advice, see this month's issue, available to buy online!

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