10 gardening tips for June

A fruitful time in the garden, June is the month to pick fruit, baby veg and to keep watering and feeding.

1. Now’s the time to plant out courgettes, sweet corn, pumpkins, dwarf, climbing and runner beans. But if the weather is still bringing in cold winds don’t forget to protect all young plants with plastic bottles or fleece until they begin to grow.
2. If you fancy a bit of fun, plant up an old boot or painted bucket with herbs or flowers. Drill drainage holes in the bottom first.
3. Or have a go at making a bag garden out of a sack; great for planting up things like salads.
4. Stay ahead of weeds with a regular hoe. It’s good to dig out the perennials ones, such as dandelions, before they produce more seed.
5. Keep watering newly planted plants. Make sure you water directly by the plant’s stem and not the whole of the bare soil, to keep weeds in check.
6. On damp, dull days give indoor plants an instant boost with a liquid fertiliser. Once a week should do it. Do the same with flowering and fruiting plants in the garden too, including tomatoes, strawberries and hanging baskets.
7. Six weeks after flowering, daffodils can now be cut back. Also dead head early flowering plants if berries/fruits aren’t desired, this helps retain the plant’s vigour and with some plants may encourage more flowering.
8. If carrots, beetroot and lettuce seem overcrowded gently pull a few young plants up to allow others to swell. You can eat these baby veg.
9. Keep a close eye on fruit and veg plants: look out for pest outbreaks and watch bean and pea pods swell, then start picking!
10. Why not take some of your early homegrown produce down to your local Big Lunch in early June?