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Tips and jobs
Tips for May   Tips for June   Tips for July   Tips for August   Tips for September   Tips for October   Tips for November   Tips for December   Tips for January   Tips for February   Tips for March   Tips for April  

Tips and jobs

Prune summer raspberries
Early-fruiting summer raspberries such as 'Glen Clova' are handing over to their later-fruiting cousins now – so it's time to tuck them up till next season. Snip out the stems that fruited this year right to the ground, then remove the weakest canes leaving about eight strong canes per plant. Tie to supports 10cm apart, water thoroughly and mulch thickly with well-rotted manure.

Make new strawberry plants
When your strawberry plants start throwing out long wiry stems with tufts of leaves on the end, it's time to swing into action – these are runners, and you can make loads of free strawberry plants from them. Fill a pot with compost, and pin the tuft of leaves down on the surface with bent wire and water in. Once it's rooted, sever from the parent plant and in autumn plant it where you want it to grow.

Plan for winter herbs
Cutting great fistfuls of fresh herbs for the kitchen is one of the great pleasures of growing your own, but it needn't stop at the end of the season. Sow a few trays of parsley seed now, pot up some mint and a clump of chives and you'll have herbs for your windowsill all winter too.

Top tips

Ripen pumpkins by putting a layer of bricks under each fruit – as well as keeping your pumpkins clean, they absorb sunshine by day to stay warm all night. Turn fruits regularly to make sure they ripen evenly.

Test sweetcorn by peeling back outer layers and digging your thumbnail into a kernel. If a milky, white sap oozes out, it's ready to pick – if not, leave it another week.

Support melons with old tights before they get so heavy they tear themselves off the vine. Cut the foot out of some nylon tights, slip it over the fruit and tie onto a support wire - tights don't just hold up tums!

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