Tag Archives: fruit

Day Lily

August Garden Jobs

August Garden Jobs

The Flower Garden

  • – Keep everything well watered especially Camellias and Rhododendrons to promote development of buds for next year.
  • – Day LilyStake any flowers that are overly tall or heavier at the top to keep them safe from wind damage.
  • – Dead head lilies, perennials and bedding plants to help with longer a flowering period and next year’s growth.
  • – Prune wisteria and summer flowering shrubs once they have flowered.
  • – Prune rambling and climbing roses after they flower.
  • – Collect seeds and store them appropriately to plant them out next year.

The Kitchen Garden

  • Broad Bean Plants with flower showing– Harvest beans. Both French and Runner beans need to be picked early and often. This will prevent them from going to seed, stop them from becoming stringy and also encourage a second growth.
  • – Add a high potash feed like Tomorite to pepper, cucumber and aubergine plants when you see the first fruits.
  • – Water and harvest sweetcorn; harvest when milky juices come out of a corn if you pop it.
  • – Trim herb plants; cutting back old growth will allow a second growth that can be harvested before the cold weather sets in!

The Fruit Garden

  • – Feed citrus plants with a specialised feed or fertiliser.
  • – Give any container foods a high potash feed such as Tomorite.
  • – Protect your precious crops from birds with a netting over your fruit.
  • – Begin harvesting fruit trees such as plums, apricots, peaches and cherries.
  • – Remove mulching from around strawberry plants to avoid the spread of disease and plant out any rooted Strawberry runners for next year.
  • – Blackcurrant bushes need to be pruned after all of the fruits have been harvested. Only prune the stems that fruited this year.
Tomatoes on plant

July Jobs in the Kitchen Garden

July Jobs

July is known to be a hot and dry month so a lot of watering in the vegetable garden is necessary. Aside from this, there are many other ‘July jobs’ to be done to ensure a fruit and vegetable yield as high as possible! Here are the jobs that need doing this July;

Vegetables

  1. tomatoes on plant1. Reduce water loss by mulching to trap the water and hoeing to break up the soil.
  2. 2. Sow the final seeds; you can still sow these in July
    1. Turnips, beetroot, carrots, chicory, spring cabbage and radishes
  3. 3. Plant out; broccoli, leeks and cabbage are all ready to be planted out into firm soil now
  4. 4. Pepper plants – should be moved into a larger pot
  5. 5. Tomato plants – pinch out side shoots and feed them with a fertiliser such as Tomorite once a week. Also remove leaves underneath the first fruit to avoid disease. Ensure that when you water them the moisture is spread evenly to avoid split fruit or blossom rot.
  6. 6. Aubergine plants – get rid of the growing tip after you count around 5 fruits to allow them to put their energy into this.
  7. 7. Courgette plants– also get rid of the growing tip. Picking young fruit regularly will enable more fruit to grow.
  8. 8. Runner beans– harvest beans regularly as this wills top them becoming stringy and will also allow new beans to develop.
  9. 9. Check often for disease, blackfly and butterfuly eggs and get rid of anything that you find including any dead foliage around the plants.

Fruits

  1. ripe raspberry1. Give fruit plants a good soaking in any dry spells, especially those with swelling fruits such as apples.
  2. 2. Net around your fruit plants to deter birds.
  3. 3. Give the fruit trees a thinning to help give a larger yield.
  4. 4. Give fruit plants that are in containers an high potash feed such as Tomorite.
  5. 5. Prune apricot, peach, plum and cherry trees and blackcurrant bushes once you have harvested.

Ask our experts in store for any more advice!