Kitchen Garden - June

Harvest all crops as they mature. With a bit of luck you should be able to harvest your first new potatoes towards the end of the month. Other vegetables that can be picked are turnips, carrots, beetroots, early peas and broad beans.

Plant out runner beans and French beans in the trenches that were prepared earlier. It’s best to put in the supports before you plant out the beans. Water them well after planting. Alternatively, seeds can be sown outside.

It’s safe to plant outdoor tomatoes now. They can either go straight into the ground or be planted in a J Arthur Bower’s or New Horizon Grow Bag. Remember that tomatoes need a sunny sheltered spot and will do best against a south-facing wall. Keep them well-watered and feed once a week with J Arthur Bower’s or New Horizon Liquid Tomato Food as soon as the first tiny fruits appear.

Continue to plant out winter brassicas. Make sure the little plants are watered very thoroughly before moving them and keep well watered especially in hot weather. Place J Arthur Bower’s Cabbage Collars around the young plants to protect from cabbage root fly. If pigeons are a problem, cover the young plants with mesh.

The days are gone when salad leaves just meant lettuce. Nowadays there’s a huge range of salad leaf seeds. They’re easy to grow even if you’ve only got a balcony or a windowsill and it’s fun to experiment with different varieties. The leaves can be grown in any sort of container filled with your favourite J Arthur Bower’s or New Horizon Multi-Purpose Compost.

Continue to sow beetroot, carrot, turnip, swede, oriental greens and peas – all can be sown outside.

Remove the flower buds from chive plants. If the plants are allowed to flower many of the stems will become tough. It’s also a good idea to remove flowers of lemon balm to stop the plants self-seeding.

Strawberries should start produce their luscious fruit this month. If you haven’t got any plants you could buy some with fruits already forming. Plant them in pots filled with J Arthur Bower’s Multi-Purpose Compost with added John Innes and water well. Feed strawberry plants with J Arthur Bower’s or New Horizon Liquid Tomato Food – once a fortnight until the fruits start to form and then once a week until fruiting is over.

If your strawberry plants aren’t as fruitful as they were last year they may be past their best – plants need replacing every three years. Use runners for propagation. The best way to do this is to place small pots of your favourite J Arthur Bower’s or New Horizon Multi-Purpose Compost around the plants and peg a runner into each one. Aim to propagate no more than four or five runners per plant. If you don’t want to make new plants, remove the runners anyway as they will sap the plant’s energy.

Be ready for the June drop – this is when apples, pears and plums shed some of their excess fruit. If the fruit is still crowded after the drop you can thin it out still further. Plums in particular, are often so loaded with fruit that the branches can break under the weight.

Make sure you keep all fruit bushes and trees well watered, especially those that are newly planted. Mulching with New Horizon Mulch & Mix will retain moisture.

Rhubarb can be pulled until the end of the month but after that plants should be left to allow them to build up strength for next year.