Tasks and tips from June to August

Now that the weather is warmer, the days are longer and the nights should be frost-free, there’s plenty to do on the allotment or in your garden’s veg patch.

Sow and plant

In June, it’s time to plant out Brussels sprouts, the last of your summer, autumn and red cabbages, and the first of your winter cabbages. Any cauliflower seedlings sown in spring should be planted out at the start of the season ready for harvesting later in the summer and autumn. Salad leaves are quick and easy to grow, and can be sown and picked throughout the summer months. In the hotter days of July and August, it’s time to sow veg such as kale, spinach and radicchio that will be ready for harvesting in winter, as well as planting seed potatoes such as Charlotte and Red Duke of York.

From waste to wellness

At Wiggly Wigglers based in Herefordshire, Heather Gorringe and her team help people turn their kitchen scraps into rich, living compost using worms and bokashi. Heather says: “It's simple, satisfying and transformative.”

Every time food waste gets thrown into a bin, it ends up in landfill where it releases harmful methane. But if you compost just 1kg of food scraps a week, over a year you'll divert 52 kg of waste. That's not just good for the planet, it's great for your soil.

Worms and bokashi are nature's recyclers. Bokashi is a fermentation process that pre-treats your scraps, locking in nutrients. Worms then turn it into compost teeming with beneficial microbes and nutrients; we call this living soil.

In this living soil you can grow nutrient-rich veg, herbs, and fruit that taste better and store longer. There’s also growing research linking soil health to gut health, thanks to the diversity of good bacteria present. “It's exciting, circle-of-life stuff!”, enthuses Heather.

Maintenance

Weeding is a constant, and important, job. Hoe between rows of crops, or for smaller areas, pull up weeds with your hands and a trowel. Watering regularly through the summer months is crucial. Remove caterpillars as you see them, before they do too much damage to your crops.

If you have apple, pear and plum trees, you can prune these over summer, as well as cutting the old raspberry canes right back to the ground after harvesting. Keep mud splashes off your strawberries by mulching around them, and keep birds off them by covering the plants with netting.

Keep an eye out for potato blight and tomato blight, especially if the weather is warm and damp. If you spot any potatoes with dark edges on the leaves, or tomatoes with dark marks on the stems and brown blotches on the fruit, remove and burn or bury theinfected plants at least 40cm deep. To try and prevent blight, consider crop rotation, allowing more space between plants and treat with fungicide.

Harvest

In June, you can enjoy peas, onions, salad, beetroot, radishes, strawberries and gooseberries. As the summer progresses, you’ll also be able to harvest runner beans, potatoes, strawberries and raspberries, followed by carrots, cucumbers, courgettes and blueberries. In August, beetroot, globe artichokes, onions, shallots will be ready; main crop potatoes might be ready from the end of the month.