MONTY DON

Love your squash but don’t have the space to let it spread? Monty has the solution – grow it vertically!

QThe fruit on my fouryear-old pear trees are fully formed and look beautiful but they’re rock hard. How can I get them to ripen?

APears never ripen properly on the tree so have to be picked when still hard and then allowed to ripen – somewhere sunny and warm is best. They should be harvested when they’ll come away from the branch if gently lifted.

QI brush and mow my lawn – which is mostly damp – twice a week to try to eliminate weeds. But worm casts still spoil it. What can I do?

AWorm casts are a nuisance to lawn owners at this time of year. Usually, you brush them back across the lawn and they’re recycled back down into the soil. However if it is too wet, they can’t be brushed. So move your lawn to a sunny spot or learn to love the worms!

QI have lots of small domeshaped brown mushrooms on my lawn. I’ve tried digging them out but they keep returning. What can I do?

ANothing! All grass is host to thousands of different fungi – there’ll be even more if it’s damp – and without them your grass would die. The mushrooms may indicate the presence of decaying roots of a tree that grew on that spot.

Write to Monty Don at Weekend, Daily Mail, 2 Derry Street, London W8 5TT or email monty.don@dailymail.co.uk. Please include your full name and address. We regret Monty can’t reply to letters personally.