High summer is here – enjoy it while you can! Although it’s a busy time in the garden and on the allotment, take time to sit down, have a cuppa or a glass of wine, and enjoy admiring your hard work.
Pruning your plums after harvesting helps to protect against silver leaf fungus
If hedges or shrubs need trimming, do ensure you check for nesting birds first. If there’s a nest, trimming must wait until the birds have fledged. Don’t forget to leave a saucer or dish of water out for hedgehogs and other wildlife visiting your garden, it can be a lifesaver in hot weather.
Veg and greenhouse crops are getting into their stride now and need harvesting regularly to keep them producing. Courgettes, particularly, can be suitable for harvesting one day and the size of marrows the next! Spring-planted garlic is ready to harvest once the leaves go yellow and start to die back. Lift the bulbs on a dry day and leave them to dry on the soil ready for storing.
In the greenhouse, feed tomatoes once a week with a liquid feed and remove side shoots. Cucumbers will also require feeding and training on string or a trellis. Keep making successional sowings of radishes and cut-and-come-again lettuce every couple of weeks.
Cherry and plum trees are best pruned immediately after harvesting, as they heal quickly and this can help prevent silver leaf fungus infection, which is more prevalent if pruned in winter.
Houseplants can be put outside during summer, helping to prevent them “cooking” in conservatories or on windowsills, while freshening them up.
Wisteria may need its unwanted growth, the whippy bits, shortened to around 30cm to stop it getting out of hand. If you sowed biennials such as Foxgloves or Wallflowers in spring, they can now be transplanted into a spare bed or pots ready for planting out in autumn.
Early summer flowering shrubs can also be pruned. Cut back some of the older growth on Weigela, Syringa and Philadelphus to new shoots lower down the branch, and remove around a fifth of the oldest stems at the base. This keeps shrubs to a manageable size and encourages more blooms next year. Evergreen shrubs such as camellias only require deadheading and removal of unsightly or diseased shoots.
Enjoy your summer gardening!
Maggie Baldwin
