June 2024
June from the Potting Shed
The mild weather along with the moist ground has meant we have had plenty of slug and snails damaging all our seeds and crops. It appears that there is no single way to prevent damage to our crops.
Continue to sow salad crops, French beans and sweet corn as well as beetroot and brassicas for the coming season. If it is not too late to keep an eye out for broad bean aphids and as soon as any signs on the tips of the plants remove the tip of the plants. This removes the soft succulent growths that the aphids enjoy and also helps the plants produce better pods.
Net your fruit, especially strawberries and other berried fruits. Hopefully the blue-tits will have managed to find the caterpillars by now and fed their young with them. I have had bird feeders among my fruit bushes all winter to keep on top of any lurking pest.
It is also a good time to sow wallflowers and Sweet Williams for next year. Any shrub that has finished flowering at this time of the year can have this year’s flowering wood removed down to the new shoots which will bear the flowers for next year.
Geoff Hawkins
