Summer Enjoy the bounty of the ripening kitchen garden, with an eye on weeding, watering and successional sowing

Currants are a real asset in any kitchen garden. They are heavy croppers, require little maintenance and can be expensive to buy in any quantity. More importantly, their flavour in jellies, tarts, jams and cordials is superb

In the garden

For me, a vegetable garden in July is like a river in full spate, the growth of weeds and crops equally relentless. Courgettes and cucumbers never seem to stop coming, the dahlias, sunflowers and cosmos need picking or deadheading and pumpkins need feeding. Every corner of the plot seems to scream for attention, and that’s even before you begin the process of turning produce into plenty. Your ability to stay afloat depends on how much work you have put in during the previous months.

I have wasted many hot, summer hours hacking down overgrown paths and watering parched, under-mulched earth. I now put aside regular days in winter for laying down paths underlaid with weed-resistant fabric and covered in woodchip. To help lock moisture into the soil, I spend mornings barrowing down manure to spread over bare earth. This preparation leaves me time to prepare a bed for winter salads – sown now, it will see me through to spring (if planted any earlier many of these crops would have been plagued by flea beetles).

My mantra in July is hoe, weed, stake. Regular short visits to the allotment are the ideal I strive for. Running a hoe along rows of beetroot and turnip is far more effective if done frequently. Despite my best intentions, one thing I never seem to do in time is stake my tomatoes. My friend’s method of growing two-metre-plus ‘Alicante’ tomato plants up a string suspended from a horizontal pole is a sensible way to go. I’ve also seen straggling tomato plants laid over upturned plastic vegetable crates – an unsightly but effective method of keeping the fruits off the ground. If you are growing tomatoes in pots, water them regularly to prevent blossom end rot (dark, sunken patches on the fruit).

In the kitchen

The currant is a real asset in any kitchen garden. They are heavy croppers, require low maintenance and the berries can be expensive to buy in any quantity. Most importantly, the flavour of jellies, tarts, jams, cordials and puddings made with currants is superb. I have four plants: two red and two black. They ripen over about a month and I usually throw a bit of black netting around the bushes to keep off the birds.

As the season is quite short, I freeze lots. I use some to make the Swedish dish, rårörda röda vinbär (raw moved, or stirred, redcurrants). It’s an uncooked dish, very simple to prepare, requiring only sugar and a little preparation time. Take 200g of redcurrants washed and picked clean of the stalks. Add 85g of sugar and stir. Leave for three or four hours until the sugar has dissolved, stirring once or twice. Decant into a clip-top jar and store in the fridge (use within a week). You can use it in cakes, on crêpes or muesli, or to accompany meat.

Eliza Acton (1799-1859) was our first truly modern cookery writer. Her book Modern Cookery for Private Families (published in 1845) was the first aimed at the inexperienced cook, and her inclusion of accurate quantities and cooking times was innovative. Hugely influential in its time, it still holds appeal, thanks to Acton’s clear prose and concise instructions. My favourite is the chapter on preserves, packed with delights such as rhubarb, green gooseberry and greengage jams. The recipes are clearly the result of experience, evidenced by Acton’s pertinent ‘observations’. She notes some readers found her redcurrant jelly ‘scarcely firm enough for the table’, but don’t be put off – it has far more flavour than commercially produced jellies.

Here is her Superlative Red Currant Jelly recipe. ‘Strip carefully from the stems some quite ripe currants of the finest quality, and mix with an equal weight of good sugar reduced to powder; boil these together quickly for exactly eight minutes, keep them stirred all the time, and clear off the scum – which will be very abundant – as it rises; then turn the preserve into a very clean sieve, and put into small jars the jelly which runs through it, and which will be delicious in flavour, and of the brightest colour. It should be carried immediately, when this is practicable, to an extremely cool but not a damp place, and left there until perfectly cold. Currants 3lbs, sugar 3lbs, 8 minutes.’

What to sow

• Don’t forget about successional sowing. There’s still time to sow extra rows of beetroot, turnips, spinach, salad onions and fast-growing carrots.

• Harvest garlic and main crop onions. I lay mine out on upturned apple crates to dry out. I rub the papery skins off the garlic, trim their roots, and tie them as skilfully as I can. The singular taste of fresh, green onions is a treat in sandwiches with cheese.

• Looking forward to winter, my salad bed includes rows of radicchio ‘Rossa di Treviso’ planted in late June and the soft buttery leaves of mâche or lamb’s lettuce, the succulent leaves of miner’s lettuce, rows of mizuna and mibuna and the mustard ‘Green in Snow’. This, along with self-seeding rocket, should provide me with many months of vivid-green, peppery salad leaves.

What to cook

• Baked courgette flowers Allow 3 flowers each for four people. Take 300g soft cheese (eg ricotta), drain off any watery liquid, and mix with 3tbsp finely grated parmesan, the zest of 1 lemon, finely grated, 1tbsp olive oil, salt and pepper and 6-8 basil leaves (ideally lemon basil), chopped. Remove the stamens from the flowers, spoon in the filling, and twist the ends of the flower together to hold it in place. Preheat oven to 180°C, arrange the flowers on a baking tray, zigzagged with a little more oil, and bake for 6-8 minutes until the filling is warm and the flowers are still soft, not crisp.