Garden Notes: June

Here is the penultimate set of my Garden notes..for the other sets click 'Label below and scroll down.

June Notes

Water priority should be pots and shrubs planted last year, leafy vegetables, tomatoes, beans and peas - courgettes need water once the fruit swells. Don’t waste water on lawns that should green up in the autumn. Water evenings to reduce evaporation. However watering early mornings reduces slug damage significantly. Soak thoroughly once-a-week rather than a daily sprinkle - cut-off plastic bottles sunk in the ground are great for getting water where it is wanted.

Hang nasturtiums in a basket in fruit trees infested with woolly aphids - hoverflies lured to feed will lay eggs and the larvae munch on the aphids

Continue sowings - peas to avoid pea moth, carrots to miss the first carrot root flies - thin out other seedlings - use lettuce and onion seedlings for salads

Remove any flower stalks from rhubarb to increase production or leave for their dramatic display

Continue hand weeding but look out for any self-sown seedlings if they are in the right place you can leave them - water plants after weeding

Plant out brassicas started earlier in pots - look out for cabbage white eggs and caterpillars - remove by hand where practical. Fill space between brassicas with ‘catch’ crops like lettuce

Ventilate greenhouse all night if necessary and damp down to maintain a humid atmosphere - thin cucumbers and feed tomatoes once fruit is the size of marbles and continue removing side shoots and staking plants

Keep making compost - turn the heap to accelerate rotting

Don’t transplant lettuces at this time as they usually run to seed in hot weather

Prune plums and cherries now to avoid silver leaf infection - net fruit against birds and thin all tree fruits after the end of natural drop

Peg down strawberry runners to make new plants

Cut down nettles to encourage ladybirds to move onto other plants - make a liquid feed from the nettles

Take softwood cuttings of shrubs and propagate climbers by layering