The month of sunshine and strawberries! Well, it will be if you remember to put straw around the plants and crop protection netting over them!! Ask a friendly farmer for some straw and pop into the garden centre for crop protection netting, it’s worth it.
Start picking early fruit such as raspberries, red, black and white currents, cherries and early plums. Leave red and white currents on a stalk, this will help them keep longer and taste better.

Cut out old raspberry canes as soon as the last berry is picked, this will help reduce fungal attack.
Keep cropping courgettes, this will stop them turning into marrows and encourage more fruiting.
Runner beans peas French beans, again keep cropping to encourage more pods. Remember, you can blanch and freeze surplus veg to use at a later date and they taste just as good as fresh picked.

Early potatoes such as Jersey Royals, will be about ready for lifting, check first by lifting one plant, if there are only small, pea sized potatoes, leave them for a few weeks longer and make sure they are well watered.
July can be a very dry month, to help reduce water consumption try mulching around shrub borders and the veg garden with bark, garden compost, rotted leaves or use a green mulch such as grass clippings a mixture off all these is acceptable.
Lawns, if it’s very dry raise the cut height by a notch and leave the clippings on the grass, once the rain starts again! Lower the cut and remove clippings.

Check all plants for pests and diseases, use appropriate sprays, if you are not sure come and ask which is best for you to use.
Keep hoeing weeds, this is best in dry weather as it stops the weeds from re-rooting.
Regularly dead head flowers especially in hanging baskets, also don’t let your hanging baskets dry out, this will shorten their life span. Feed regularly even if you have used slow release fertiliser, just don’t feed as often, every 3rd watering depending on the growing conditions.