Your fruit and vegetable update; Notebook

? VEGETABLES - sow a short row of spinach now for salad leaves or for steaming later in the summer. Sow carrots now but protect them from Carrot Root Fly invasions from May time by covering the row with a protective fleece tunnel. Sow dwarf French beans under a cloche now and then sow another row in May for successional harvests Plant or containerise chitted potatoes now and chit some more on a bright windowsill for later plantings.

? FRUIT - mulch rows of cane fruit now with well-rotted manure to preserve vital moisture for succulent fruits in June and July. Apply a general fertilizer to all fruit plants, bushes, canes and trees now to ensure good balanced growth. If your soil is a little on the acid side, give apples and pears a light dressing of garden lime to prevent the Calcium deficiency symptom, bitter pit, from developing inside the fruit later in the summer.