ORCHARD : A fruit day on a waxing crescent — energy is flowing into fruiting wood. If you have strawberry runners rooted in small pots, prepare their final bed now: work in a good bucketful of compost per metre of row, then settle each plant 30 cm apart with the crown sitting exactly at soil level — too deep and the heart rots, too shallow and it dries out. Thin any overcrowded young fruits on your apple tree or pear tree to leave one fruit per cluster; this redirects the tree’s resources into fewer, better-flavoured fruits rather than a mass of small ones.
VEGETABLE PATCH : Transplanting fruiting vegetables suits the day well. If melon or watermelon plants are still in modules, set them out now — melon at 80 cm in the row with 100 cm between rows, watermelon at 100 cm with 150 cm between rows. Water gently at the base after planting to help roots settle in quickly.
LANDSCAPING : Wisteria summer pruning is a classic August task — cut back the long whippy shoots to five or six leaves from the main framework. Done now, it channels energy into the short spurs that will carry next spring’s flower buds.