Seasonal Tips for Summer - Fruit

Soft fruit is really in season for the summer and there’s little better than harvesting a bowl or two fresh from the garden. The flavour is tremendous. Tree fruit is swelling too now and needs attention to ensure the best crop ever this season.

Protect strawberry plants from slugs and snails. Use Slug Buster for fast effective control or a barrier of Slug Blocker to prevent these pests from reaching your vulnerable plants.
Keep the fruit garden well weeded so that the weeds do not compete with your plants for vital moisture and nutrients. Persistent perennial weeds can be carefully treated with Weed Buster. This Glyphosate based weedkiller is systemic, which means it is taken into the plant and transported through the whole plant right down to the roots where it effectively kills every part of the plant. Apply to weed foliage when they are vigorously growing, from April onwards. Take great care not to let the spray drift onto any other plants, as it will kill all plants that it touches. Alternatively choose the new Westland Resolva 24HR. This new technology combines the speed of a contact weed killer with the deep down root killing activity of a systemic weedkiller Resolva 24R works so quickly that you can actually see effects in 24 hours so you really do know it is working.
Protect fruit bushes, especially raspberries, currants and gooseberries from bird damage. Cover with fruit netting to keep the birds off while the fruit is ripening.
Support branches laden with plums to prevent them breaking off and causing damage to the tree and loss of the crop.
Finish pruning plum trees, as the silver leaf fungus to which they are susceptible is less of a problem during the summer. Keep pruning to a minimum and ensure that it is completed before the end of August.
If you haven’t already done so, propagate new strawberry plants by selecting runners (young strawberry plants, attached to the parent plant), choose parent plants that are healthy and cropping well to ensure good, strong offspring. Fill small pots with Multi-Purpose Compost with added John Innes. Bury the pot, with the compost surface exposed, just beneath a healthy runner. Use a piece of bent wire and pin the stem connecting the runner to the parent plant into the compost so that the base of the runner is directly over the pot. Pinch out the growing tip of the runner stem. The selected runner will quickly root into the compost. It can then be cut from the parent plant and allowed to develop. Lift the pot and place it somewhere sheltered for the plant to develop a good strong root system, ready to plant out.
When your strawberry plants have finished fruiting, cut all the leaves off to the ground. Clear away the leaves and stems and top dress around the plants with organic Vegetable Growing Compost.
Keep a watch on apple trees and harvest early ripening fruit as soon as it starts to ripen.
Protect fruit bushes from the birds using an appropriate barrier that will not trap them or other visiting wildlife. Fruit cages are a good idea for fruit bushes. Fruit trees can be protected using old net curtains or bird scaring tape that hums in the wind.
Propagate Tayberries and loganberries by tip layering. Bend a healthy cane to the ground and dig a hole level with the tip. Incorporate some Multi Purpose Compost with added John Innes into the hole and bury the tip into it to a depth of about 6in (15cm). These should root easily and will be ready to cut from the main stem by mid autumn. Cut them off above a healthy bud and leave the plant to establish for 4-6 weeks. Then they can be dug up and replanted into their final positions, or potted up for friends. Plants propagated in this way should fruit after 2-3 years.
Keep an eye on greenhouse grapes that may be showing signs of mildew, especially in very warm weather. Spray them with water daily if possible and if the problem is bad, prune out affected growth. Keep the air flow within and around the plant as good as possible, remove overcrowded leaves and thin heavy bunches of grapes by removing every third grape.
Summer prune apple trees by cutting back the lateral shoots to three buds and the side shoots to one bud. Prune out stems that are growing vertically but leave most of those that are horizontal so that you keep the potential fruit crop within easy reach.

Gardening tips for this Summer:

If you would like to refer back to the Seasonal Tips for April/May click here.

If you would like to refer back to the Seasonal Tips for February/March click here