In August, it’s easy to leave the rake and the fork buried in the garden shed and hunker down in your warm sitting room rather than venture out into your dry and cold winter garden.

However, as we have found at Granny Mouse, with spring just around the corner, the spade work done during the month of August can prepare the way for the beginnings of a beautiful garden in September.

During the month of August, you’ll find our Granny Mouse gardeners pruning trees and shrubs to prepare for new growth.

Annual pruning is essential for removing dead wood, cutting back overgrowth and giving trees and shrubs a healthy start for the flowering season. Pruning shrubs not only beautifies them and ensures that they keep their shape, but even helps to increase flowering and stimulates the production of new flower buds for a second round of colour.

Early pruning also gives the cuts time to heal.

When shaping your shrubs, make sure you use a sharp pair of trimmers. Cut half a centimetre away from the leaf node which ultimately sprouts new growth and will grow in the direction of the cut.

Don’t throw away larger branches, you will find plenty of recycling and DIY projects for putting cut branches to use.

We also take time out to do some weeding during the last month of winter. During the winter months, when most bedding plants have died down or are resting, you have a better chance of spotting and pulling out persistent weeds when they are still small.

Although it’s not possible to have a completely weed-free garden, taking the time to remove weeds properly goes a long way and can reduce the amount of weeds that you have to contend with during the growing season.

We use a garden fork to loosen the soil around the weeds so that we can pull them out easily by the roots. If you simply tug off the top of a weed and leave the roots behind, they’ll just simply grow back.

August is also an important time to start working on your spring and summer lawn.  Raking – or ‘scarifying’- your lawn will remove dead growth and winter debris and bring light and air to the soil to encourage lush, green growth.

Any bare patches in the lawn can be re-seeded by loosening the soil. Keep these areas well-watered until seeds germinate and new grass establishes itself.

At Granny Mouse, we give our established lawns the “spring treatment” and wake them from their winter rest with a nutritious blanket of lawn dressing prepared in our own compost heap. Alternatively, you can purchase a good, organic lawn dressing at your local garden store and spread it according to the instructions on the pack.

Another must for August gardeners, is enriching the soil to prepare for summer flowers. Dip into your compost patch and mulch all flower beds where bulbs or perennials are about to sprout. Identify areas for new plantings and prepare them by turning over the soil and applying compost and bone meal.

If you are buying compost in bulk, make sure that it is from a good source as many gardeners have found that compost that is filled with weed seeds and spores can introduce a plague of new weeds to a garden.

In warmer areas that aren’t prone to frost, late August is also a good time to plant spring bulbs and spring and summer annuals such as pansies, petunias, lobelias, dianthus, begonias, gazanias and alyssum.

At Granny Mouse, we also find that August is a good time to rejuvenate our roses with some last minute pruning and fertilizer. If we spot any gaps, we head off to our nearest garden centre to find some new varieties.

That warm-you-right-up goodness of a steaming bowl of soup is the perfect way to end a busy day in the chilly air. In fact, for many it’s the perfect winter comfort food no matter whether they’ve spent a winter’s day outside climbing a hillside or curled up inside with a good book.

Although many of us think that great soup is only served in restaurants like those at Granny Mouse – or difficult to prepare so best purchased from a supermarket or deli, it is a lot easier than you think.

According to culinary artist Theo Mannie of Granny Mouse, it could be as easy as cooking up some of your favourite winter vegetables or even using up leftovers to create a wholesome and easy-to-reheat meal for later in the week. Then there are those tummy warmers that have more exotic ingredients.

At the end of the day, though, the secret is in the seasoning.

To get you started, Theo is sharing two of the Granny Mouse favourites – a hearty and healthy soup inspired by the flavours of the sea and a soup based on one of the staple veggies that we nearly always have in our pantries – the good old onion.

For a wholesome evening meal, he swears by this delicious French Onion Soup (simple but moreish) as well as the ever popular Seafood Chowder with Chorizo which captures the richness of the sea. Both can be served with fresh crusty bread from your nearest bakery.

French Onion Soup

Ingredients:

1kg onions, sliced
200g butter
1 pinch mixed herbs
1L chicken stock
1 clove of garlic finely diced
Bread
Grated cheese, preferably a strong smocked cheese

Method:

Using a heavy based pot, melt the butter on low heat. Place all the onions together with the garlic into the pot and allow to sauté till golden brown, turning only occasionally. This should take about 45min. Pour in the stock until the onions are just about covered, add a pinch of mixed herbs and cook for about 30min.

Cover a couple of stale bread slices with the grated cheese. Place under a grill until the cheese becomes golden brown.

Serves 4.

Seafood Chowder with Chorizo

Ingredients:

200g butter fish cut into cubes
100g calamari cut into cubes
100g mussels
200g smoked kippers
200g hake cut into cubes
100g chorizo diced
3 cloves garlic minced
1L milk
100g flour
2 bay leaves
200g butter, plus 100g extra for cooking
1 stick celery diced
1 onion diced
200ml white wine
1tsp peppercorns
10g fennel flowers
Salt and pepper

Method:

Place the kippers, peppercorns and bay leaves in a pot. Pour the milk until the fish is completely covered. Cook on low heat for about 5min, but do not boil. Strain the milk and set aside both the fish and milk separately.

Pour the wine into a sauce pot and allow to come to a boil. Once this has happened, add the mussels to the pot, cover and cook for 3min, strain and set both aside.

In a heavy based pot, sauté off the onions, celery and chorizo with 1100g butter on medium heat for about 5min until the vegetables begin to get soft. Place the rest of the butter in the pot, add the flour a little at a time stirring constantly until the flour has dissolved and combined forming a paste.

Pour in the wine from the mussels, continue to cook and stir until all the liquid has been completely absorbed. Once this has happened, begin to pour the milk from the kippers. Continue to cook and stir until the sauce no longer has a taste of flour.

Once this has happened and there are no lumps, add all the seafood except the mussels. Reduce the heat and cook until all the fish is ready. Chop the fennel and add it to the pot together with the mussels. Season to taste and serve with some warm bread.

Serves 4.