As the curtain falls on strawberries and summer rasps, plan for next year’s delights. The drought has hammered this season’s crop so you’ll need to apply more TLC than usual.

Even though I’ve doled out as much precious water as I could spare, it wasn’t quite enough. Fruits were generally smaller, the crowns put on a little less growth and one or two older strawberries pegged out.

But the healthy young specimens I planted last autumn have done well, throwing out lots of runners beneath the straw mulch that had kept the ground reasonably moist.

I like taking runners from young plants so start by snipping back, clearing away and composting this year’s old leaves and fruiting stalks. I usually recommend a good haircut to encourage a fresh flush of foliage, but am leaving newish leaves just now to reduce stress. Then thoroughly water the bed, applying a top dressing of compost.

Dig out and remove all the weaker plants and then look for runners on healthy ones. Select one runner from each, snipping off all but the first developing mini plant. Fill and sink a larger than usual 13cm pot well into the ground close to the mother plant; peg the stem to the ground and plant in the moist compost. Keep well watered.

In September, cut the new plant’s umbilical cord and plant in a new bed. Because strawberries remain in the ground for 4 years, prepare it well. Dig over, add in good, well rotted compost and rake to a fine tilth. Space plants 30cm apart, with 45cm between rows and look forward to a good harvest next year.

If your plants aren’t strong enough to produce good runners or you simply want new stock, try to get hold of replacements this autumn. Strawberries naturally take root towards the end of the fruiting season to get well established before winter. I’ve found my autumn planted strawberries have weathered this year’s drought much better than any I put in during the spring.

So, order early from a reputable nursery, like Welsh Fruit Stocks, or from your local garden centre, aiming to get your strawberries in the ground no later than October.

Check exactly when mail order firms despatch their plants as it could be in mid-January, when your bed is rock-hard or snow covered. To my cost, I have sometimes found I can’t even keep the potted plants alive in a greenhouse during a harsh winter. If you do manage to keep your plants going till spring, you’ll get a pretty measly crop if you let them crop.

Raspberries have also been challenged. I found that a few canes on one pretty dry stool started fruiting but the stress of doing so was too much and they died back.

As with strawberries, extra care is needed. With summer fruiting rasps, cut out all the old canes and any spindly ones or those growing away from supporting wires. Restrict yourself to no more than 6 strong canes per stool and even fewer if a plant’s in a really poor state. Then very loosely tie the selected canes to wires. This lets canes move but not break during strong winds. Firmly tie in next spring.

With summer fruiting bush raspberries, I normally recommend removing only canes that are dying back or are spindly or those canes that are making the plant too congested; as you get new sideshoots from the current year’s healthy canes. But to reduce drought stress leave only the strongest new shoots.

As with strawberries, water raspberries and add a compost top dressing.

Plant of the week

Croccosmia ‘Hellfire’. Larger and darker flowered than Crocosmia Lucifer, with no yellow in the blooms. All Crocosmias are loving this summer. Hellfire is also a less aggressive spreader.