The Vegetable Plot - JUNE

Warmer weather means more pests on the move so keep an eye open for carrot fly and cabbage root fly. Reduce stress on cauliflowers by transplanting when the seedlings are still small but just big enough to handle. 

The various vegetable seedlings from April and May sowings will need thinning. Stop broad beans growing any taller by pinching out the tip. Celery can be planted out along with runner beans raised under glass in April. Do the same for aubergines and capsicums that are hardened off.

• Sow chicory for forcing 

• Plant marrows and ridge cucumbers raised under glass and hardened off 

• Plant out sweet corn grown under glass in mid-May 

• Plant tomatoes well hardened off and feed regularly as they set fruit 

• Water in the warmer weather tomatoes and everything in the greenhouse 

• Sow and thin Chinese cabbage, sow French beans for crop in September 

• Sow parsley 

• Dig early potatoes big enough to be used 

• Expose shallot bulbs to allow them to swell and ripen 

• Stop cutting asparagus by around the end of the month 

• Start to thin apples and pears 

• Train bush fruit shoots 

• Grow raspberries