The Vegetable Plot – June

Once upon a thyme

There is a certain satisfaction growing your own herbs. Be they sown from seed or little pot plants from the garden centre that you grow on in containers outside the back door. Once you have an herb garden, no matter how large or small, you have ahead of you a feast of culinary delights.

Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme. Bouquet garni and herbes de Provence, here we come. Now is a good time to plant thyme and not just for adding flavour to food. In early summer the shrubs are covered in tiny mauve, white or pink flowers rich in nectar and which are also edible. 

While gathering herbs for your banquets, you’re providing a veritable feast for bees and other pollinators. Thyme also provides a fragrant, attractive edging for vegetable beds and in gravel gardens.

Now the frosts have passed, you can plant out outdoor tomatoes, aubergines, peppers, sweet corn, French beans and runner beans. If you have tomatoes growing in the greenhouse, feed them when the first flower trusses appear and keep them well ventilated. There’s plenty of sowing can be done, spinach beet, Chinese cabbage, chicory for forcing, and it will soon be time to thin out vegetable seedlings.

Blanch leeks planted in trenches in April, lift autumn sown onions and potatoes as required. Brassicas can be planted out now. Your broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower and kale should be ready to go into the ground.

• Hoe weeds between rows of vegetables such as leeks and onions
• Succession sow salad crops, lettuce, endive, radishes and root vegetables
• Sow carrot, beetroot and swede for winter
• Feed plants in full growth with weak liquid manure or other fertiliser
• Pick asparagus and harvest early potatoes
• Enjoy peas sown in autumn and broad beans