Don’t let cabbage white butterflies lay waste to your crop
Cut sweet pea flowers
■ Sow foxglove and other biennials either in pots or in the garden.
■ DAHLIAS need weekly feeding and tall ones can be staked now. ■ it’s a good time to take softwood and semi-ripe cuttings – this is a great way to grow relatively expensive plants such as Buxus.
■ TAKE cuttings from tender plants to over-winter indoors.
■ Cut sweet pea flowers regularly to prevent them going to seed and enjoy their beautiful scent indoors.
■ Pinch out tomato shoots. Feed tomatoes, peppers and cucumber with high potash fertiliser once fruits start to form.
■ CHECK for cabbage white butterfly eggs under cabbage leaves and remove.
■ Sow spring cabbage, turnips, fennel and autumn/winter salads.
■ Cherry, plum and peach trees can be pruned if need be now – this is a job you can’t do in winter due to a risk of silver leaf disease. ■ Stop climbing beans when they reach the tops of their stakes so they divert energy to cropping on side shoots. remember to keep all vegetables sufficiently watered.
■ MISSED the potato planting season? you can get cold-stored tubers which can be planted now and will mature for Christmas. these are best planted in bags or containers that can be brought indoors to a greenhouse before first frosts.