Gardening: Your jobs for the weekend (Aug 8/9) | Brian Kidd

• Prune summer-fruiting raspberry canes as soon as they finish fruiting and ensure the area in which they are growing is not allowed to dry out. New canes should be growing out of the ground. These will bear next year’s fruit. Tie the new shoots on to wires as soon as they are long enough.

• Get into the habit of summer-pruning apples, look at the main branches and there will be side shoots growing out of these branches. Cut these back to half their length. This will induce fruiting spurs and a better crop next year. Try to summer-prune every year from now.

• Sow seeds of indoor cyclamen in the greenhouse or even on a windowsill. They take a long time to germinate. Because they make a tiny tuber, even before the first leaf can be seen, see if you can find a scented type.

• Stop watering indoor amaryllis. Put the pot on its side somewhere indoors up in the sun. This will make the foliage die down. In October the leaves are cut off even if they are still green and the bulb is then repotted in the same sized pot in DRY, not even moist but DRY John Innes No 3 compost, kept in the light with NO WATER until the fat flower bud emerges in February next year.

• Ensure azaleas, rhododendrons and in particular camellias are really moist at the roots. This will ensure the buds won’t fall off next spring. Premature camellia bud-drop in spring is caused by the roots being dry in August and into the autumn. It has been very dry for weeks now so make this a priority.

• Plant freesia corms indoors in a large cool window or better still in the greenhouse. Plant five in a 5in diameter pot and get hold of some hazel fans to support the long grass-like foliage. It gets very long and untidy and the hazel fans keep the foliage togethe. As a result, the flowers will be on long stems, not curly useless specimens. Just imagine the perfume at the end of February onwards…

• Lift main crop potatoes as soon as the foliage dies down. The longer they are left in the soil the more slug damage will be seen. If you want to save time, cut the haulms down and remove the weeds. It is surprising how much time can be saved. Oh, and do this job on a nice day!