Summer time – and mad dogs and Englishman head to the Tuscan sun. Or anywhere that isn’t their garden. This is insane because British gardens look lovely now and have started producing shed loads of peas, carrots, salad, beet, beans, courgettes and all the other produce we’ve spent months slaving over.

Here’s how to make the best of this perennial problem:

1. Persuade a friend or neighbour to pick flowers and produce while you’re away so that it doesn’t go to waste.

2. Having offered this generous gift, blackmail said friend or neighbour into doing the watering.

3. However, blackmail may never be enough. Leave strategically placed buckets, watering cans, hoses and even a hoe or two as a gentle reminder that a garden needs tending.

4. Move containerised plants, including house plants, into the shade

5. Buy irrigation mats, control valves to convert drinking water bottles into mini-irrigation systems and mini, low-cost automatic watering systems from your local or online garden centre. Just remember to install and test whatever you buy before you leave.

6. Add a thick layer of mulch to containers and to vulnerable plants – after they have been well watered.

7. Harvest as many flowers and crops as you can in the week before you leave. Enjoy them or give them away. This will have the added advantage of reducing transpiration rates on some of the plants.

8. If you are feeling rich invest in Fito Irri-Go Classico Holiday Watering Gel which gradually releases water into the soil or, for heavy feeders, Irri-go plus (also by Fito) which feeds and waters for a week. Not that plants like melons and tomatoes and any other thirsty plants would survive for long on either product.

9. Open all ventilation in the greenhouse. Just before you leave, damp the greenhouse right down.

10. Add ‘automatic watering system’ plus ‘underground rainwater storage system’ to your birthday or Christmas list. Have them installed over winter and you will have sorted next summer’s watering. Just remember one thing though – never sit down and calculate how much every potato, rose bud or marrow costs you to grow with the help of these irrigation systems.

Explore Gardens

• Hampton Court Palace Flower Show

• Chelsea Flower Show

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