Kitchen Garden Magazine

Grow your own fruit and veg with the UK's No. 1 Kitchen Garden magazine

Under cover

June can be a relatively easy month in the polytunnel or greenhouse. Admittedly there are lots of growing plants that need ongoing care and attention, but the summer crops should all be growing well and the autumn and winter ones won’t be sown for another month or so. In fact, if you want a summer holiday, the end of June is about as good as it gets in terms of not leaving too much responsibility for seedlings, or excessive harvesting duties, in the hands of a neighbour

Tomatoes

Keep tying stems into support canes, or strings. The lower trusses should be filling up with green fruit and you may even get some ripe cherry tomatoes before the month is out. Ripening at this point in the year depends on sunshine levels, but once some fruit ripens, it will stimulate other fruit close by to do the same. For this reason I never strip all red fruit off the first truss to ripen.
Larger tomatoes will be a few weeks behind the cherry ones. Beefsteak varieties may only be flowering in June. Don’t forget to mist first trusses lightly, but later trusses should set without this treatment.
Keep removing sideshoots. These spring up from around the base of the plant as well as where the leaves meet the stem. If lower leaves overshadow trusses, then remove a few to allow light in. There should be plenty of leaves growing further up the stem to feed the plant.
Tomatoes are greedy feeders. Use a high potash liquid feed, such as a seaweed-based one, at weekly intervals while fruit is swelling.

Cucumbers

These will be cropping abundantly from the earliest sowings. Plants should have cucumbers at all stages of development at any one time, but this relies on regular harvesting. If large cucumbers are left to mature and ripen seed, then the plant will think it has achieved its mission and will stop producing young fruit.
If you haven’t grown an all-female variety, then your work may be cut out in nipping out male flowers to prevent the females being pollinated and hence producing bitter fruit. Recheck the seed packet, it will tell you if you need to nip or not!
Keep twirling stems round strings or tying them in to sticks to provide support. Once the stem reaches the roof you can let it trail back down again, but do take care that the stem doesn’t snap at the highest point.
Watch out for roots rotting and keep piling fresh compost round the base of the stem. Use a liquid feed every week and add a teaspoonful of epsom salts to the watering can if leaves show signs of magnesium deficiency – older leaves turn yellow between dark green veins.
Powdery mildew shows as white spots on the leaves – use a milk and water spray to help deter this disease.
You can still buy in cucumber plants, to produce later crops. Plants put in growing-bags this month should be cropping well next month.

Peppers, aubergines and melons

These are some of the most tender crops and you don’t lose much by waiting until early June for planting out. In fact all of these will suffer if they are put out in an unheated structure where night-time temperatures drop below 12C (54F). Buying in young plants in June is often the easiest way to ensure good crops. Choose plants with strong stems and plenty of leaf. A larger pot is always a good sign too. There may even be the first flower buds.
All of these plants are greedy feeders, but they hate a wet root run. Plant on a mound over well-rotted manure for the best crops.
Peppers and aubergines should produce their first flowers this month. Peppers are self-fertile and generally don’t need help with pollination. Aubergines always give a better set of first fruit if you use a soft paintbrush to transfer pollen. Dampen the bristles by running the brush between your lips — no more, or it will be too wet.

Sweetcorn

If you planted this out last month, stems may be 60cm (2ft) tall in June. Sweetcorn is a really greedy plant. Feed and water regularly to optimise the number of cobs per stalk.
Some varieties produce sweeter cobs if they aren’t cross pollinated with other varieties. You can still sow seed for an autumn crop in June. I would sow in the border, rather than risk roots drying out in pots, at this stage.

 

For much more advice, see this month's issue, available to buy online!

Copyright information

All content is ©copyright Mortons Media Group 2008 • Organic Garden & Home magazine | Subscribe | Buy current issue