July’s Kitchen Garden

July’s advice follows on from the June calendar and a lot of the advice for June still applies in July. There are, however, plenty of new tasks you should carry out in July.

Harvest your veg – There are lots of vegetables that will now be ready for harvesting, such as carrots, peas, potatoes, beetroot, tomatoes, lettuce and other salad veg such as radishes. Radishes, however, will need to be taken out of the ground as soon as they ripen, as they will start to rot very quickly.

Pick courgettes and marrows – Do this regularly to encourage them to produce more fruit and keep you topped up all summer.

Harvest your herbs – You can be drying out your herbs now and freezing them for later use. Pinching out the flowers will also enable your plants to bush up and out giving you more to pick.

Pinch outside shoots of tomatoes – Doing this will ensure that the nutrients are concentrated in the fruits. Also, clearing some of the leaves from around fruit will help to aerate the fruit and prevent disease.

Keep on top of weeds around your vegetable plants – Hoeing in between rows regularly will stop weeds from taking hold.

Sow some more plants – You can still sow some new plants in July – beetroot, carrots, lettuce and radish can be sown directly into their final positions.

Thin out fruit trees – Take out fruitlets from bunches, leaving the healthiest to develop into ripened fruit.

Thin out seedlings – Removing some of the weaker plants will ensure that the healthier ones produce a better yield.

Continue earthing up potatoes – This prevents the potatoes going green when the light gets to them.

End of the rhubarb season – You should stop pulling rhubarb by the end of this month in order for it to bulk up at the crown and conserve some energy for next year’s crop. After July the stems will start losing their sweetness anyway and may become bitter, so make the most of it this month and then leave your rhubarb alone from August onwards.

 

Vegetable seeds to sow in July…
Radish (harvest in 30-50 days)
Kale (harvest in 70-80 days)
Rocket (harvest in 25 days)
Spinach (harvest in 40-50 days)
Beetroot (harvest in 90 days)
Carrots (harvest in 50-75 days)
Lettuce (harvest in 45-55 days)
Cabbage (harvest in 80-180 days)

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