Will Harts Garden Diary, things to do in June

JUNE

FRUIT

· Pick strawberries, raspberries, red and white currants, gooseberries, and cherries.

· Irrigate fruit when necessary.

· Mow grass and keep weeds under control.

· Continue disbudding wall trained peaches and nectarines, tie in selected shoots, thin fruit.

· Thin plums in two stages, early June and late June.

· Heavy set of apples, thin lightly, wait until after June drop for final thinning.

· Thin pears if heavy set.

· Continue to protect fruit against birds.

· Put straw down for strawberries, peg down runners for new plants

· Continue to tie in new shoots of raspberries.

· Once new raspberry canes produced, prune out old canes on new plantings.

· Train in new shoots of blackberries and hybrid berries.

· Thin gooseberries, Summer prune at the end of June.

· Summer prune red and white currants at the end of June.

· Continue to spray apples regularly against scab and mildew, also red spider mite if present.

· Spray apples against codling moth about mid- June and again 3 weeks later.

· Spray apples against bitter pit in mid-June if necessary.

· Inspect stone fruits for red spider mite and aphids if present.

· Inspect gooseberries for caterpillars of sawfly and magpie moth and control if necessary. spray for leaf spot after cropping if necessary.

· Strawberries spray for grey mould and mildew, control slugs if necessary.

· Spray raspberries and loganberries at dusk against rasps beetle, at first pink fruit on raspberries or 80% petal fall on loganberries and again 14 days later.

· Spray cane fruits against spur blight and cane spot, spray against grey mould as first flowers open.

· Summer feeding and weeding of lawns, sulphate of ammonia = nitrogen, spot treat weeds

· Water if there is a dry spell, soil surface may be hard; lightly spike the soil before irrigating.