Island Life Magazine Ltd August/September 2007 | Page 76
life
GARDENING
them off at the base with a
sharp knife. Wear gloves if
your hands are particularly
sensitive to their prickly leaves
and stalks. Many other crops
will also have a better flavour if
harvested when still quite small.
Soft fruit
Pick the last raspberries, then
prune the stems of summer
varieties down to soil level. Tie
in new shoots, about 10cm to
15cm (4in to 6in) apart, and
remove excess ones. Prune
back the main shoots and
sideshoots of gooseberries
to five leaves to encourage
them to produce fruiting
shoots for next season. Peg
down strawberry runners
from new plants into the soil
or pots of compost to root.
Shear off the foliage just above
the crown of each plant and
clear away any debris.
Transplant crops
Transplant young winter
vegetable crops from their
seed-bed when their stalks are
about the thickness of a pencil.
Crops to sow
The following vegetable
crops can be sown now
directly outside: lettuce,
Chinese cabbage, spring
cabbage, endive, kohl rabi,
radish, winter spinach and
turnips for their green tops.
Potatoes
Hot and humid conditions can
encourage a rapid spread of
potato blight, so you could
consider spraying the crops
with a chemical fungicide
to prevent an attack. Extra
water given to potatoes
can also boost yields.
Apples
Finish summer pruning the
sideshoots on trained apple
trees. Find out how to grow
espalier apple trees.
September
Harvesting crops
Regularly pick crops so
that they are always tender
and fresh. Never leave
crops for too long before
picking them, especially
beans and courgettes.
Crops to sow
From August to early
September the following crops
can be sown directly outside:
o lettuce and salad leaves
o Chinese cabbage
o endive
o winter spinach
o turnips for their green tops
o final sowing of
spring cabbage
A cloche cover can help speed
up germination in colder areas.
Outdoor tomatoes
Pinch out the shoot-tips of
cordon tomatoes grown
outdoors once their third or
fourth truss has set fruit.
Protect late crops
of soft fruit
Cover autumn-fruiting
raspberries, blackberries and
other cane fruits with netting
to keep the birds away. Do
remember to check the netting
daily to ensure that no birds
or animals are trapped.
Apples
Keep an eye on early ripening
varieties, such as ‘Discovery’
and pick the fruit as soon
as it’s sweet enough to eat.
Most early varieties won’t
keep, so eat them while they
are at their best. Hang wasp
traps in the branches of
fruit trees to prevent wasps
from damaging fruit.
These will flower next spring.
Blackberries
Bury the tips of any shoots that
have developed this year into
the soil to raise new plants.
These tips will quickly form
roots and shoots will develop
next spring, when the new
plants can then b e separated
and planted elsewhere.
Sweet corn
When the golden silks of sweet
corn have turned brown they
should be ready to harvest.
Peel back the husks to check
that the cobs inside have
swollen to their full size.
Cook them within minutes of
cutting them if you can, to
ensure the sweetest flavour.
Herbs
Pick herb stems for drying, or
chop them up and keep them
in ice cube trays in the freezer.
Onions
Carefully lift ripe onions,
breaking the roots and
lay them out to dry before
taking them into store.
Trench celery
Wrap several layers of
newspaper or cardboard
around individual celery
plants, then pull up the soil
around them. Excluding the
light in this way helps produce
clean, blanched stems.
Peaches
Prune away all shoots that have
carried fruit and tie in new ones
that have formed this year.
76
Island Life - www.islandlife.tv