Start Early, Stay Out Late

In a Somerset summer, the garden is at its best before breakfast. The light is soft, the birds are noisy, and the soil still holds last night's cool. If you water at seven in the morning rather than seven in the evening, far more of it reaches the roots instead of vanishing into the air. Aim for a good soak two or three times a week rather than a daily sprinkle; plants grow deeper roots when they have to search for moisture, and you will spend less time standing about with a hose.

Push your watering can along the base of plants, not over the leaves. Wet foliage overnight is an invitation to mildew, especially on courgettes and roses. Tomatoes and cucumbers in grow bags or pots are the exception to the twice-weekly rule — they need checking daily, and in a hot spell, twice a day.

The other half of the bargain is staying out late. Our long evenings are the real luxury of a British summer, and they are short-lived. Move a lantern or two to the patio, keep a blanket within reach for when the temperature drops at half nine, and treat the garden as another room rather than something you look at through glass.

Shade That Works Harder Than You Think

Salads are the first thing to sulk in a heatwave. Lettuce bolts, rocket turns peppery and fierce, and spinach gives up entirely. A little shade fixes most of it. If you have a south-facing patch, plant your salad leaves on the eastern side of a taller crop — climbing beans, sweetcorn, or even a row of sunflowers — and they will crop for weeks longer than they would in full sun.

If you have no natural shade, a piece of horticultural fleece pegged over a simple frame will do the job. It does not need to be elegant. A few canes and some old netting strung between two chairs will keep the worst of the midday glare off a seed tray or a tub of cut-and-come-again leaves.

Mulching is the quiet hero here. A two-inch layer of garden compost or well-rotted manure around your plants in early summer locks moisture into the soil and keeps the roots cool. On the heavy clay we often garden on around the Levels, it also stops the surface baking into a crust that water simply runs off.

Eat Outside Whenever You Possibly Can

The single best way to make the most of a British summer is to lower your standards about what counts as an outdoor meal. It does not have to be a barbecue with twelve guests. A bowl of pasta, a plate of tomatoes and mozzarella, a jug of tap water with mint in it — carried out to the table — is the whole point.

Keep a tray by the back door with the things you need, so eating outside is not a logistical operation:

• Plastic or enamel plates that will not shatter on the flags
• A couple of tea towels weighted down with a stone
• Citronella candles or a simple coil for the midges
• A lidded tub for leftovers, so you are not carrying everything back in

Eat the first of the season's peas raw, straight from the pod, standing up by the veg patch. That is not a meal, but it is one of the great pleasures of having a garden at all.

Keep Everyone Busy and Useful

Children who have grown something will eat it. A pot of radishes, a couple of cherry tomato plants, or a sunflower in a bucket gives a child ownership of a small patch of the garden, and the watering rota becomes their job rather than yours.

Useful summer tasks that suit smaller hands:

• Deadheading roses, calendula and cosmos to keep flowers coming
• Hunting slugs after rain — a torch and a bucket makes it an adventure
• Picking strawberries and blackcurrants before the blackbirds get them
• Topping up the bird bath and the pond, which matter desperately in dry spells

Leave a corner a little wild. Long grass, a pile of logs and a shallow dish of water will bring in hedgehogs, frogs and bees, and there is no better entertainment on a warm evening than watching what turns up.

Make the Most of the Harvest

By late July the garden is generous to the point of embarrassment. Courgettes arrive faster than any family can eat them, so pick them small and often, and grate the surplus into fritters or a cake. Runner beans want picking every other day; leave them and the plants stop producing.

Sow a few more salad leaves and a row of beetroot in the first week of August. They will be ready well into autumn, and they fill the gap that opens up when the early crops finish. Herbs are worth cutting hard now and drying or freezing in ice cube trays — mint, parsley and chives all freeze well, and a bag of frozen mint in January is a small triumph.

And when the raspberries and blackcurrants come in, make time to freeze a few trays. A crumble in November, made from fruit you picked in the sun, is one of the best reasons for having kept a garden at all.

A Few Minutes of Planning Pays Off

While the days are long, take half an hour to think about autumn and next spring. Order spring bulbs now, before the good varieties sell out. Note down which tomatoes cropped well and which position the beans preferred, so you are not relying on memory in February. Give the lawn a slightly higher cut in dry weather, and let it go brown if it wants to — it will green up again after the first proper rain.

Most of all, use the garden rather than just maintaining it. British summers are unreliable and brief, and the gardeners who enjoy them most are the ones who sit down in them. Put the tools away, pour something cold, and stay out until the light goes.