Don’t forget it’s softwood cutting time of year, softwood being neither the new green growth nor the stiff, woody growth but lies between the two, bendy but snapable...if you know what I mean?

This is a great way of increasing your plant stock for free: just pop into the garden in the morning preferably for freshest cuttings and snip off a 8cm non-flowering side shoot from any of the favourite plants.

These can include honeysuckle; salvias; hydrangea; spiraea; pyracantha, hypericum and potentilla. Trim any leaves off from the bottom half of the cutting and pot up allowing two or three per 10cm pot filled with a compost and perlite mix.

Cover with a clear polythene bag with a rubber band around base to secure and keep moist, they should have rooted within six to eight weeks. Free plants marvellous!

A second planting

OK so you may be enjoying an abundance of fruit and veg at the moment maybe like me trying to think of a hundred and one things to do with a runner bean, but it won’t be long before things tail off.

To keep up the momentum you may not realise that a second planting is possible for some veg including Runner beans; French beans and Borlotti beans for an autumn crop. Also carrots, all the lettuces and courgettes....if you don’t think you will have had enough of them by then of course, I’m always amazed how many dishes you can conceal a courgette in I grate them into everything!

Variegated reversion

Variegated plant leaves can revert back to non-variegated or plain green/yellow as a throwback to the plant’s parentage. The plain shoots contain more chlorophyll than the variegated and are more vigorous so can eventually take over the whole plant so it is best to cut them out or right back into variegated foliage.