Fiann’s tips for the weekend

* Stay on alert for potato and tomato blight.

* With apples and plum trees more than two years planted, the consensus is to thin back fruits to 3 or 4 per cluster – the aim is to have bigger fruit.

* Docks and ragwort can show this month, the latter a noxious weed demanding removal, but the dock can be dug up, and boiled to accelerate compost heaps

* Deal with woolly aphid with a dab of some methylated spirits via the end of an ear bud.

* Hang wasp traps to prevent them burrowing into fruits, especially near pears, plums, apricots, peaches and nectarines.

* Some pelleted chicken manure will dress the beds you’ve been harvesting from and replenish nutrients.