JuneThe first harvests, and the watering can
June is bright, generous and sometimes dry. The days are the longest of the year, and the vegetable garden grows before your eyes. Peas, broad beans, lettuces, radishes and the first new potatoes reach the table, and the strawberries are in full swing. Keep sowing: beans, winter carrots, beetroot, and already the cabbages for winter. Mulch, water in the evening, and stake the tomatoes as they climb.
Tips of the month
- Harvest peas, broad beans, lettuces, radishes, strawberries and new potatoes.
- Sow beans, maincrop carrots, beetroot, chicories and fennel.
- Transplant winter cabbages, Brussels sprouts and autumn leeks.
- Stake and de-leaf the tomatoes, and pinch out side shoots every week.
- Mulch anything still bare and water at the base, in the evening.
- Prune summer-fruiting raspberries after harvest, and thin the apples.
- Sow a fresh batch of lettuces and radishes every fortnight.
In the vegetable garden and orchard
What to do in june
Sow under cover
Nothing to sow under cover.
Sowing in the ground
Plant
On the plate
Eating in june
June is eaten in the garden: raw peas from the pod, broad beans dipped in salt, lettuce and radish salad, new potatoes with butter and chives, strawberries warm from the sun. Nothing to cook, or almost nothing.
Living well
Picking strawberries first thing in the morning, before the heat builds, and eating half of them on the spot: that pleasure can’t be bought. June is made for breakfasts outdoors.