This month in the vegetable Garden It’s time to get the following vegetable crops planted outside: lettuce and salad leaves, radishes, kohl rabi, spring cabbage and endive, plus dwarf French beans (for a late crop). Winter spinach can also be planted from now through to September.

Get picking. Lots of fruit and veg crops will now be ready to harvest so pick regularly to keep new crops coming. Trim off old leaves and flower buds from herbs to produce fresh tender growth.

Fruit

If you’ve grown early varieties of peaches and nectarines they should be ready now. Pick fruits when they’re fully ripe and eat within a few days.

Other jobs to do include, cutting back shoots growing from the horizontal branches, pegging down strawberry runners and treating apple scab.

Vegetables

Encourage your strawberry plants to spread out by pegging down runners into the soil. They'll form roots and be ready to separate from the parent plant by August.

This is the month to enjoy the veg of your labour. Pick early dwarf and runner beans, beetroot, broccoli, cabbage, carrots, celeriac, celery, coriander, cucumber, endive, kale, lettuce, spring onions, bulb onions, peppers, rhubarb, rocket, spinach, strawberries, Swiss chard, and tomatoes.

To stop your courgettes becoming marrows, pick them this month too.

The amount of vegetables for growing is starting to go down. But there are some that you can start sowing: beetroot, spring cabbage; carrots*, radishes*, next years cauliflowers, coriander (Cilantro), endive, lettuce*, winter hardy spring onions, Pak Choi, radicchio, and turnips.

(*For continuation)

Herbs

Try growing basil, mint, parsley or thyme. After planting, place in a sunny spot near the kitchen so they're handy when cooking.