What to plant in August (UK)

Updated July 2026 · 5 min read

August feels like harvest season, not planting season — the beds are full and the sowing bench is dusty. But it's a proper turning point: the last month for quick summer crops, the first month for winter ones, and the single best month of the year to plant strawberries. Here's what still goes in the ground.

🍓 Strawberries — August's headline act

New strawberry plants (or rooted runners pegged down from your existing plants) go in now, while the soil is warm and there's a whole autumn ahead for them to establish. An August planting fruits properly next summer; wait until spring and you'll get barely a bowlful. Space them 35–40cm apart in your sunniest spot, water them in well, and keep them moist through any late-summer heat. If you have established plants, this is also the moment to pot up their best runners for free new stock.

Veg to sow in August

🥬 Winter salads

Rocket, mizuna, mustard greens, land cress and lamb's lettuce sown in August germinate in days and keep producing long after summer lettuce has bolted. Sow a short row every fortnight; from late September, cover with fleece or a cloche and you'll pick leaves into winter.

🌿 Spinach & chard

Late August is the classic sowing for overwintering spinach ('Medania') and Swiss chard. Both crop in autumn, sulk briefly in midwinter, then surge back for a big early-spring harvest — some of the most productive sowings of the whole year.

🌸 Spring cabbage

Sow spring cabbage in early August in a seed bed or modules, ready to plant out in September–October. It stands through winter and fills the April "hungry gap" with sweet greens when little else is ready.

🥕 Quick crops that still have time

• Radishes — 3–4 weeks from sowing; you can squeeze in two more batches.
• Baby turnips — 'Milan Purple Top' sown now gives golf-ball roots by October.
• Salad onions — sow in August for pulling from late autumn, or overwinter for spring.
• Kohl rabi & pak choi — both actually prefer the cooling days of late summer; August sowings bolt far less than spring ones.
• Carrots — first days of August only, with a fast variety like 'Adelaide', for sweet baby roots before the frosts.

Flowers to sow and plant in August

• Autumn-flowering bulbs — colchicums and autumn crocuses go in now and flower within weeks: the fastest payback in bulb-world.
• Madonna lilies — the one lily that wants shallow, late-summer planting.
• Plant out biennials — wallflowers, sweet williams and forget-me-nots sown earlier in summer move to their flowering positions now.
• Order spring bulbs — the catalogues open in August and the best tulip and daffodil varieties sell out first. Buy now; plant later, on the right schedule.

Three jobs that set up autumn

• Summer-prune trained fruit — apples and pears on cordons and espaliers get pruned in August to keep them productive.
• Keep harvesting — courgettes, beans and tomatoes stop producing if you stop picking. Little and often keeps them cropping into autumn.
• Clear and re-sow — as crops finish, don't leave beds bare: re-sow with winter salads or a green manure so the soil stays covered and fed.