Direct sow broad beans, lift onions, pick sweetcorn and prune fruit on the allotment
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| Check brassica leaves for caterpillars
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'Broadcast sow broad bean 'Express' on empty brassica areas. The seed can be pushed into the ground where it lands and then grown as a green manure.'
On the allotment
BRASSICAS: Pick off caterpillars of the cabbage white butterfly to prevent your brassicas being eaten.
Broadcast sow broad bean 'Express' on empty brassica areas. The seed can be pushed into the ground where it lands and then grown as a green manure. You can harvest broad-bean seed from heritage varieties such as 'Crimson Flowered'. Cut back the tops to ground level so that the roots can be dug in.
COMFREY: Cut comfrey plants down in batches and add them to the compost bin.
DIRECT SOWING: We direct sow beetroot 'Boltardy'; carrots 'Autumn King'and 'Early Nantes'; leaf beet 'Perpetual Spinach'; radishes 'Jolly' and 'Pink Beauty' and onions 'Guardsman' and 'White Lisbon'.
GREEN MANURES: Chop mustard being grown as green manure and leave it for two days before digging in.
HARVESTING: Harvest runner beans and turnips.
LEEKS: Plant out leeks.
LETTUCES: We plant out lettuces 'All the Year Round', 'Sangria', 'Unrivalled' and 'Valdor'.
ONIONS: We lift onions 'Lancastrian' and 'Mammoth' and place on chicken wire to dry in the sun – but bring them under cover if rain is forecast. Sort through onions that have been left out to dry and remove any that show signs of disease or rotting before you store them.
POTATOES: Cut off all potato top growth if it shows the first signs of blight, such as brown blotches on foliage. Lift potatoe beds ready for harvest. First early potatoes beds can be raked over.
SLUGS: Use slug control if you notice damage around new plantings such as lettuce. Organic pellets are now available.
SWEETCORN: We pick sweetcorn 'Mini Pop' if the cobs have reached about 15cm (6in) long. Protect from birds if you need to.
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| Remove sideshoots from tomatoes
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TOMATOES: Remove sideshoots from tomato plants.
WEEDING: Continue weeding between crop rows to keep competition between plants for moisture, light and nutrients to a minimum.
Fruit
APPLES: Harvest early varieties of apple, such as 'Discovery', as they ripen. Collect fallen fruit each day.
PRUNING FRUIT: Due to the risk of silver leaf bacterial infection to some types of tree fruit, you should prune plums, cherries, damsons, peaches and nectarines once they start into growth. If you have not done this yet, pinch out the tips of these fruits to maximise the harvest.
In addition, if you have not pruned fan-trained fig trees already, do so now, starting with crossing and diseased branches, as well as ones growing out from a fence or wall, and remove about a quarter of the oldest branches. When cutting these out, it is important to leave a 5-7cm (2-3in) stump from which the replacement young shoots will grow.
RASPBERRIES: Pick raspberries and other summer fruits. Prune back all fruited raspberry stems and tie in new shoots to fruit next year.
Look further
Nick and Sue Hamilton run
Barnsdale Gardens in Rutland, Leicestershire, formerly owned by the late Geoff Hamilton.
* Photography: Redshift Photography
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