Vegetables

• Use a liquid feed on most crops in moist soil. This can be a proprietary feed from the garden centre or homemade from nettles, comfrey etc.
• Shallots should be lifted as they mature; ensure the foliage has completely died down first.
• A last sowing of dwarf French beans can be made early in the month for a September harvest.
• Sow and plant brassicas for winter and spring harvests. These should be planted out into firm soil as soon as they are ready.
• Keep sowing small batches of salad crops such as lettuce, radish, spring onions etc. preferably in a shady spot.
•  Beetroot, fennel and kohlrabi, sown earlier in pots, can be planted out.
• Thin turnips and swedes sown last month.
• Continue staking and tying tall growing crops, i.e., runner beans, asparagus left to mature once you have finished cropping towards the end of last month, Brussels sprouts, peas, broad beans, unless you grow in a very sheltered garden.
• Attract beneficial pollinating insects by growing plants rich in nectar and pollen nearby. This will ensure that crops which need pollination to occur to set a crop, i.e., runner beans and most fruit crops etc. will have a better chance of producing a good crop.
• Shallots should have ripened this month, harvest and lay on chicken wire to fully dry off before storing.
• Lift a few early onions for immediate use, leaving others to fully ripen before storing.

• Keep greenhouses, polytunnels etc. well ventilated, and in the hottest weather keep damping down greenhouses wherever possible.
• Continue to tie in new growth on tomatoes, cucumbers and melons.
• Tomatoes should be well-watered to avoid blossom end rot and fed regularly with a high potash (potassium) fertiliser. Continue to remove side-shoots, and on warm days tap the plant to aid pollination.
• Melons may require pollinating. To do this, remove a ‘male’ flower (one without a small fruit behind it) and push it inside a ‘female’ flower (one with a small fruit)