Top grow your own fruit for June

Stems and leaves should now be growing rapidly. Tie in new growth carefully, as young shoots are fragile. Remove excess leaves and cut back the stems to leave approximately 5 leaves beyond where you see flowers. A vine expert once described the process as removing enough leaves to create a partially see-through screen.

At this time of the year, apple trees naturally shed excess fruit so don’t be alarmed if you see young apples falling to the ground. This is known as the ‘June drop’ and usually occurs at this time of the year when the tree sheds surplus fruit. It can also occur if the weather has been bad after flowering and/or there has been poor pollination of the fruit.

June is traditionally the month when many varieties of strawberries are producing delicious ripe fruit. The plants also start to produce runners (baby new plants), so keep a look out for these. Peg down the baby plants into the ground to encourage roots to form, giving new rooted plants later in the season. Alternatively, you can cut off the runners when they appear if you don’t want new plants and this will encourage the plant to produce more fruit.

This month, gooseberry plants bear lots of tiny fruit, and now is a great time to thin them out to allow remaining berries to grow larger. You can use the thinnings to create a tasty fruit pie or jam. The rest of the fruits will be ready to pick from July to August.

Keep an eye out as stems will suddenly put on growth spurts and will need tying-in. This also applies to other cane fruit like raspberries, tay, and loganberries. From mid-summer, the berries will begin to ripen, ready for harvesting when they’re plump and rich in colour.