JOBS TO DO THIS WEEK

■ On sunny days, it can really heat up in the greenhouse, left. Use shading as necessary and keep everything watered daily.

■ In the veg garden you can sow outdoors courgettes, runner beans, French beans, sweetcorn and marrows, as well as successional sowing of radishes, lettuces and spring onions. Thin out seedlings sown earlier. ■ Inspect gooseberries for sawfly, remove if found and prune the current season’s growth back to five leaves. This shouldn’t remove any developing fruit which grows mainly on old wood.

■ If growing strawberries, cover the soil with black plastic or straw underneath them. Start a weekly feed when fruit begins to form. Use environmentally friendly methods to keep slugs away and netting to protect fruit from birds.

■ If you haven’t been sowing from seed, there’s a huge selection of flowering plants available in garden centres now – plug plants are good value and will leap into growth now that we have warm weather.