Page 21 - ALG Issue 2 2019

...June, July and August
of plants for this. FLOWERS
• Top fruit such as apples and pears should start to shed a little excess fruit – don’t be alarmed, this is perfectly natural and is referred
to as ‘June Drop’. However, young trees should not be allowed to carry too much fruit in the first few years, and should be thinned by hand. Also, if mature trees don’t seem
to be shedding much fruit, then it can be advisable to hand-thin these slightly, otherwise a large crop
of small fruits may be produced rather than a lesser crop of good- sized fruits.
• Keep a watchful eye over gooseberries for gooseberry sawfly attacks.
• Ensure all dahlias are planted out before the middle of the month, and stake well for the taller varieties, either one strong stake per plant
to which stems can be tied, or three or four 4” canes around the plant with string tied around to contain the plants. Keep them well watered.
• Gladioli for cut flowers may also benefit from the support of a cane per flower spike to keep them growing straight.
• Any annual cut flowers grown started under cover should be well hardened off and planted out early in the month.
FRUIT FLOWERS
BLOOMING GREAT
Keep dahlias well fed, they are greedy plants. Remove some of the flower buds that form in the leaf joints further
down the flower’s stems. This will give you bigger
blooms and longer
stems.
• Apples and pears that are trained as espaliers, step-overs, cordons etc. will need to be pruned this month. Reduce all this seasons growth by one third, pruning just above a leaf joint.
• Strawberry runners pegged down last month should be checked
for rooting, and where this is evident, sever from the parent plant, and carefully lift and transplant on a cooler day. Water well after planting. Three-year- old strawberry plants should be removed once fruited this month.
• Protect cherries from birds.
• Finish harvesting rhubarb by the end of the month. Give crowns a
heavy mulch of manure or similar.
• Keep all cut flowers well watered. • Keep tying in sweet peas and ensure that all faded blooms
are cut off, as if they are allowed
to remain it will slow down
the production of new blooms. Remember, the hotter and dryer the plants are kept, the shorter the flower stems will be – this makes them much harder to use as cut flowers.
• Cut any annual cut flowers
as they are ready. Where Helichrysums, Statice etc. are grown for drying, these should be cut just before the flowers fully open, tied in bunches then hung to dry somewhere that
is airy and away from rain.
FRUIT
• Finish all summer pruning
on trained apples and pears. Any early fruiting varieties that start to mature should be used straightaway; these never keep well.
• Prune blackcurrants by removing any branches that have carried fruit this year.
• Reduce side shoots on red and white currants by two thirds.
• Prepare new strawberry beds
to replace the ones that were removed this year. Plant out either new plants, or ones that you have raised yourself if not already
done so. Remove straw from around plants that have finished fruiting, lightly prick the soil and
Reduce side shoots on red and white currants
add a general fertiliser, then a light mulch of garden compost or similar.
• As summer fruiting raspberries begin to finish, prune out any fruited canes to ground level and tie in new unfruited ones, then treat as for strawberries above.
by two FLOWERS
thirds
• Continue as per last month.
• Ensure that any winter bedding
seeds are sown no later than the beginning of the month. Winter pansies, violas, wallflowers, primulas etc. can really brighten up plots in the duller months of the year.
VEGETABLE TIP
Start to earth up trenching celery. Tie cardboard or several sheets of newspaper around the stem to prevent too much soil from getting into the heart before drawing a little soil up. This should be done gradually over the next month, drawing up around 3’’/8cm at a
time.
Allotment and Leisure Gardener 21