Gardening tips for September

September is the month of harvest and following this year's warm and wet summer the yields should be very rewarding.
Any glut should be prepared and frozen for use later in the year – investing in a good freezer book is well worthwhile as it's surprising how many different ways surplus produce can be prepared and stored.
Harvest main crop potatoes early in the day and rinse the soil off, leaving them for the rest of the day in the sunshine to harden their skin before storing.
Runner beans and French beans will continue to produce and the last of the peas should be coming in. Compost the foliage of the peas but leave the roots in the ground as the nodules on them contain nitrogen and will act as natural fertiliser for your next crops.
Now is the time to cut back hard your strawberry plants to within a few centimetres of the ground and remove all the debris to the compost bin to reduce the risk of disease. Plants more than three years old should be removed and replaced with the runners produced this year, preferably in a newly prepared bed.
Autumn fruiting raspberries should be producing well and will continue until the first frosts. These are well worth growing as they are far easier to tend than summer fruiting varieties, being cut to ground level in the winter to fruit the following autumn.
Finally, to ensure continuity of fresh lettuce, sow Arctic King for early spring leaves.