Ensure all vegetables get a regular, consistent supply of water, using rainwater or recycled grey water wherever possible . This will aid healthy development, and help to avoid diseases, disorders and bolting.

Continue to hoe off weeds in dry weather. Done in wet weather, the weeds are liable to re-root.

Sow spring cabbage, turnips, Oriental vegetables, chicory, fennel, and autumn/winter salads such as lamb’s lettuce.

Carrots can still be sown, but beware carrot fly when thinning existing seedlings

Last chance to sow French and runner beans (south of England only).

Plant out leeks and brassicas for a winter supply, if not yet done.

Summer cauliflowers may need shading to prevent the curds scorching in bright sun.

Pick courgettes before they become marrows.

Over wintered onions can be lifted and used.

Don't forget to stop cordon tomatoes by removing the main shoot. Look for the leaf that's above the fourth truss and cut it off here. This should ensure that all the fruits ripen by the end of the season. Bush tomatoes can be left to their own devices.

Climbing beans may also need stopping, to maximise cropping on existing sideshoots. Stop them when they reach the tops of their supports.

Beans need sufficient watering to help the seed pods set.

Remember to pick your bean and pea pods as they mature, to stop them becoming tough and stringy later in the summer.

Climbing or cordon-grown vegetables may need checking to ensure they are tied in sufficiently to supports. Branches can easily snap off as the fruits mature. Leaves shading larger fruits can be removed to maximise sun exposure for ripening.

Any non self-blanching celery cultivars will need earthing up (with a protective collar of paper between the stems and the soil). Endive cultivars can be blanched by covering with an up-turned pot (with the drainage holes blocked off) filled with straw to exclude the light. Blanching makes these vegetables sweeter and tender.

Herbs can be harvested to keep the young shoots coming throughout the summer. Excess pickings can be dried for use throughout the year.

Pest & disease watch

Watch out for early leaf rots caused by potato blight and tomato blight.

Stunted potato plants should be lifted to check the roots for the tiny nodules of potato cyst eelworm.

Look out for asparagus beetle. Pick off the scarlet adult beetles and creamy-black larvae from the stems and foliage.

Keep an early eye out for the sunken brown patches of blossom end rot on tomatoes, especially if the weather has been dry. It can be a sign of irregular watering. Pale, haloed ‘ghost spots’ can be avoided by not splashing the fruits when watering tomatoes.

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