June

June

In the greenhouse

• Water crops in pots and grow bags regularly
• Pot on seedlings
• Shade greenhouses to keep them cool and prevent scorch

Tip: Train your tomatoes

Greenhouse tomatoes should be trained to be a single-stem. Pinch of side-shoots so energy isn’t wasted on unwanted growth and check frequently as second stems can form in no time. Tomato fruits are self-fertile but to ensure food pollination and the setting of fruit, gently tap the flower trusses, or brush them with a feather, as they form. We have great expectations of our tomato plants, so apply fertiliser on a weekly basis to help them along. 

Fruit and vegetables

• Plant out marrows, squashes, pumpkins, and sweet corn
• Thin our seedlings to their required spacing
• Hand weed between crops
• Tie in new fruit canes to supports
• Cover strawberries and ripening berries with netting
• Crops to grow outside now are lettuce, endives, carrots, runner beans, French beans, cauliflowers, peas and sweet corn
• Watch out for woolly aphid on fruit trees – spray them off with soapy water
• Harvest lettuce, radish, other salads and early potatoes

Tip: Sow salad!

Short on space – you could sow a pot of salad leaves. Simply fill a large flower pot with compost and sow a few lettuce leaves into it. Choose a cut-and-come-again loose leaf variety rather than varieties that form large heads. You can then pick the leaves every week and the plants will continue cropping for months.