Organic Gardening Magazine

Sowing and planting

Start sowing again! Most of us begin the season with good intentions about successional sowing, and mislay them in the rush sometime in early May. This is the moment to start over.

Crops to sow in July
= ‘Early’ varieties of carrot, peas, kohlrabi, beetroot, and French and broad beans.
= Bolt-prone crops like chicories, endives, oriental vegetables and Florence fennel.
= Spring cabbages and kale.
= Summer salads.
= Spinach and chard.
= Winter salads like corn salad, winter lettuces, winter radishes, rocket, landcress and purslane.
= ‘Second-cropping’ potatoes.
For more on all of these crops, see pages 6-11.

If you have brassica transplants or leeks still awaiting a permanent position, get them planted out as soon as ground becomes available. If you are short of space, give the transplants priority and start your summer sowings in trays.

Crop care

= If the month is dry, use water wisely. Many parts of the garden (like the lawn) will survive a dry spell, but tomatoes and other fruiting crops will suffer, and leafy crops will bolt. Make sure these get regular and thorough watering.

= Pinch out the growing point of outdoor tomatoes after four or five trusses have set; in most gardens it is unlikely that any more will ripen successfully.

= If your onions attempt to flower, break off the flowering spikes as soon as you spot them; the bulbs should then continue to develop.

= Bend a couple of leaves over the developing curds of summer cauliflowers to keep the heads white.

 

Ponds

= Ponds and bog gardens will need to be topped up regularly if the month is dry. Use rain water if you possibly can; tap water is nitrate-rich and liable to make the water go green. If you must use tap water, top up little and often so that you don’t overwhelm the pond.

= If oxygenating plants are taking over, you can now thin them out without causing too much disturbance to wildlife. Leave the vegetation by the side of the pond for a day or two to allow any lurking pondlife to escape back into the water.

= During periods of hot, still weather, oxygen levels in a small pond may drop; if you have fish in the pond they will come to the surface, gulping for air. Spraying the pond with water from a hosepipe will increase oxygen levels temporarily.
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Harvesting

= Harvest early potatoes and onions as you need them; these will not store well and are anyway best straight from the ground.

= Lift garlic when the leaves have turned yellow and shallots once all the foliage has died down. Both may need another month, so don’t hurry them.

= July is a good month to harvest herbs for drying. You’ll preserve the best flavour if you gather your herbs mid-morning on a sunny day. Spread them out to dry somewhere warm and airy but out of direct sunlight, and then store them in airtight containers. Alternatively, chop the fresh herbs, put them into the compartments of an ice cube tray, add water and freeze. The cubes can then be added to your cooking as you need them.