What to Sow in August
The turning point of the growing year — when a little sowing now sets up your autumn, winter and early spring harvests. Salad leaves, hardy greens and cool-season crops all go in this month, and it's the moment to start planning for September, the great hardy-annual flower window for next year's garden.
August has a particular feeling in the kitchen garden. The summer crops are in full swing, the harvest baskets are full — and yet the wise gardener's mind is already turning to the colder months ahead. Because August, quietly, is one of the most rewarding sowing months of the whole year: sow the right things now and you'll be picking fresh salad and leaves right through autumn and winter, while a little forward planning this month sets up a spectacular flower garden for next year.
This is a guide to everything worth sowing in August — not only the seeds from our own range, but the wider list too, because you may well have packets already waiting for their moment. We'll show you what we stock and love for an August sowing, flag the broader crops worth getting in if you have them, and then look ahead to September, when the hardy-annual sowing window opens and the real fun begins.
August Sowing at a Glance
The Theme
Sowing for autumn & winter harvests
Sow Now
Salad leaves, rocket, spinach, spring onions
Also Worth It
Oriental greens, winter lettuce, spring cabbage
Herbs
Coriander, chervil, parsley, dill
Last Chance
Biennials for next year's flowers
Coming Next
The September hardy-annual window
The August Shift
The single most useful idea to hold in your head this month is that you are no longer sowing for now — you are sowing for later. A lettuce sown in August won't be ready in the summer glut; it'll be there for you in October. Salad leaves sown now crop as the summer ones bolt and fade. And the flowers you plan for over the coming weeks will reward you next spring and summer, long before anything sown next year could catch up.
That change of mindset makes August sowing feel a little different — less urgency, more foresight. You're filling the gaps that will appear in the months ahead, keeping the ground working, and setting up harvests and flowers for a time of year when the garden usually goes quiet. It's some of the most satisfying sowing you'll do all year, precisely because it pays off when you least expect abundance.
A Quick Word on Protection
Many August-sown crops crop happily outdoors well into autumn, and the hardiest stand right through winter. But a cloche, cold frame or unheated polytunnel makes an enormous difference to winter salads and leaves — keeping them cleaner, drier and pickable in the coldest months. If you have any covered space at all, this is the sowing that makes best use of it.
Salad Leaves, Spinach & Quick Veg
This is the heart of August veg sowing. As the summer salads bolt and turn bitter, a fresh sowing now gives you tender, cool-grown leaves right through autumn — and the hardiest keep going into winter. Sow little and often, treat many of these as cut-and-come-again, and you'll rarely be without a salad bowl. Here's what we grow and stock for exactly this moment.
Grower's Tip
Salad leaves and rocket are brilliant sown thickly as a cut-and-come-again patch: scatter, let them reach a few inches, and snip across the top with scissors. They'll regrow two or three times, giving you far more from a small space than growing them on to full size.
Also Worth Sowing — The Wider List
Beyond our own range, August is prime time for several other cool-season crops that are well worth getting in if you have the seed to hand. We don't stock all of these ourselves, but a good August guide wouldn't be complete without them — so here's the wider picture for your plot.
Oriental greens are the great August secret: pak choi, mizuna, mustards and tatsoi all prefer a late-summer sowing, growing fast and sweet as the days shorten rather than bolting as they do in spring. Winter-hardy lettuces such as 'Winter Density' and 'Arctic King' sown now will stand through the cold for an early spring cut. Spring cabbage sown in a seedbed this month grows into sturdy young plants to overwinter and heart up beautifully next April, just when the plot is emptiest. And turnips, chard and winter salad leaves — lamb's lettuce, land cress and winter purslane — are all reliable, generous sowings for autumn and winter picking.
If You've Seed Waiting
Many gardeners have a drawer of half-used packets from earlier in the year. August is the month to raid it: any hardy leaf, salad or brassica is worth a late sowing now, either for an autumn crop or to overwinter as young plants. Little is lost by trying, and the rewards — fresh leaves in the lean months — are out of all proportion to the effort.
Herbs to Sow Now
Several of the best-loved herbs actively prefer a late-summer sowing — the leafy annual herbs that bolt and run to seed in summer heat grow beautifully now, staying lush and productive as the weather cools. Coriander and chervil in particular are far happier sown in August than in June.
Also Worth Sowing
If you have them to hand, parsley sown now under a little cover gives fresh leaves through the colder months, and a late sowing of dill yields tender, feathery foliage into autumn. Both are perfect partners for the season's cooking.
Flowers to Sow in August
August is a gentle month for flower sowing — it sits between the early-summer biennial window and the great hardy-annual push that opens in September. But a good number of hardy annuals and perennials can be started now for strong, early plants next year, and a few, like pansies and violas, will give you winter and spring bedding. Here's what we'd reach for from our own range this month.
Last Chance for Biennials
August is the final call to sow biennials — the cottage-garden flowers you sow this year to bloom next. Get them in now and they'll make leafy young plants before winter, ready to romp away and flower next summer. Miss the window, and it's a year's wait.
Planning Ahead — The September Window
Now for the one to get excited about. If you grow flowers for cutting — or simply love a full, frothy cottage border — the single most valuable sowing of the entire year is almost upon us. When September arrives and the summer heat softens, the hardy-annual autumn sowing window swings open, and it is genuinely a gardener's secret worth knowing. Use the rest of August to get ready for it.
Get a Head Start
Can't wait for September? A few of the very hardiest can be started in the last days of August in milder spots — the calendulas, poppies and snapdragons in our flowers section above will all take an August sowing. Everything else is best held for next month, when we'll walk you through the whole hardy-annual window in full.
While You're Here
Candle & Wax Melt Clearance — Massive Discounts
A gentle reminder that we're still selling off the last of our end-of-line candles and wax melts at a big discount. Once they're gone, they're gone — so if you'd like to stock up on cosy scents for the darker evenings ahead (or tuck a few away for gifts), now's the moment. A lovely little treat while you plan the autumn garden.
Shop the Clearance →A little sowing now, and a garden that keeps giving right through autumn, winter and into next year.
Everything worth sowing this month, gathered in one place — the salad leaves, spinach, quick veg, herbs and autumn-sow flowers that carry a plot through the colder months, all grown and trialled here on our own no-dig beds in Norfolk. Browse the full August collection and set up your autumn, winter and next-year harvests today.
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