August is probably our peak harvesting month. Tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, carrots, cabbages, beetroot, beans, onions and potatoes will all be contributing to rainbow-coloured salads for high summer, all lifted by the addition of the fresh herbs that have been growing on the kitchen windowsill.

 If everything has gone to plan, then the next most important tasks this month will be cooking and preserving crops. We make a lot of jams and pickles, which prove popular with friends and family and have a freezer devoted to vegetables and vegetable dishes.

 When we harvest potatoes, we clean the crop and sort them, putting only the best quality tubers into storage. Any that are damaged (either by pests or in the process of harvesting) we cook immediately. We freeze the subsequent chips, mash, bubble and squeak, roasties, dauphinoise … to be used once the stored tubers run out next spring. We also make sure that some fresh peas and beans get frozen so that we can remember the heady days of summer in the depths of winter.

As growing areas are cleared it is worth thinking about whether or not you want to add perennial crops like rhubarb, asparagus, fruit bushes and Jerusalem artichokes. Once established these are all relatively low maintenance, but it is essential to make sure that the growing area is as free of perennial weeds as you can make it. Planting perennial crops is best done a little later in the year, but if this is something that you’re thinking about, then spend the next few weeks weeding assiduously.

For container growers there are options for re-planting as you empty out this year’s crops. Heat treated seed potatoes will give you new potatoes for Christmas and spring cabbages will give you an early harvest for next year – just make sure you protect them from pigeons.