Planning what to do

Below is a checklist of jobs that need doing in the veg garden.

Late summer

By late summer harvesting crops is in full swing. Frequent picking of beans, peas, tomatoes and deadheading flowering herbs helps promote continuous cropping. Garlic, onions and shallots will topple and can be gathered, dried and stored.

Clear spent crops as fast as possible to eliminate pests and diseases and expose weeds to cultivation. If you have time on your hands and the soil is sufficiently moist, sowings of green manures - fodder radish, fenugreek and mustard for example - can scavenge fertiliser that might otherwise be lost to winter rains and improve the workability of stiff soils.

Train beans and tomatoes to their supports. Nip out sideshoots and tops of trained tomatoes and pinch out the tops of climbing beans as they reach the top of their supports.

Feeding crops with more fertiliser is often worthwhile, and container-grown vegetables will respond to regular liquid fertiliser. Watering, in a targeted fashion, is often essential in late summer.

Tall winter crops such as Brussels sprouts and purple sprouting broccoli can be earthed up or staked to hold them steady against strong winds.

As land becomes free, sow quick-growing crops of beetroot, French beans, kohl rabi, radishes, winter salad leaves and turnips. Plant out seedlings raised in early summer.

Sowings for next spring should be done now, including spring cabbage, leaf beets and spring onions.

Potatoes can be planted for autumn crops of new potatoes, although blight can be damaging in wet, warm autumns.

Pest and disease attacks often fall off in hot, dry weather, but caterpillars can be very damaging to cabbage family crops if allowed to develop. Potato blight remains a risk in wet periods. Affected potato crops should have their foliage removed and burnt, before lifting two weeks later when the blight spores will no longer infect the tubers.

Potatoes should be gathered and stored as soon as ready to avoid slug damage.

Carrot fly is still active and countermeasures should not be relaxed as an infestation now can ruin the roots.

Relax! The real effort of the year is over and vegetable growers can enjoy the results of their earlier activity. Take the opportunity to visit gardens where vegetables are grown to get ideas for next year's crops.