July 2024 starts cool

Above is one of my current ompost heaps at 25 days since we added the first materials. I unscrewed the front planks for this photo, 23rd June, heap is 3.2 m², 36 ft.²

For more detail about gardening in high summer, see my June 25th newsletter. And you can subscribe on this site's homepage.

This is a top month for making loads of compost, one quarter by volume brown and three quarters green. if the leaves you add are moist, which is most of the time in NW Europe, you don't need to water the compost heap.

Warmth-loving plants are not having a great summer here, I hope it's better for you. I never saw such poor-looking tomatoes. While most cool-climate vegetables are growing well, such as peas, potatoes, broad beans and brassicas.

July jobs are to harvest, clear (weeds as well), then transplant as soon as you can. Soil does not need a rest! It stays healthier when roots are growing - keep resowing, replanting.

Despite difficult weather at times in spring and early June, my garden is giving plenty to eat and sell. The cropped area including paths is 1600 m², about 2/5 of an acre.

It's all no dig except for one bed, see the next photo. This method gives you top soil quality and structure, helping to plants to counter cope with any excessively wet or dry conditions. Look at the carrot growth below, compared to dug soil.

Keep sowing through July

‍Sowing dates for temperate climates:

In July's first week sow dwarf beans, beetroot and carrots (direct only).

Until mid month sow chicory for radicchio.

At any time sow salad onions, chard, lettuce and endive.

Around or after mid-July sow Florence fennel, coriander, chervil and Chinese cabbage.

• Wait until August before sowing spinach and salad rocket

Transplant leeks, brassicas, salads, beetroot.

See my timeline for sowings by month.

You can transplant small

No dig helps to a better control of pests like slugs (more toads, ground beetles), and helps plants establish rapidly. Their roots can rapidly connect with the mycelial network, which needs plant roots for its own nourishment.

Often when transplanting, I think to myself, wow, that's deep and there's tiny plants might struggle. Yet the success rate is high, 95 to 98% on average. And planting small is much less work than making holes for larger rootballs.

Harvests

At some point in July, you can pull second early potatoes (all tops can go on the heap), and onions, depending which type and when planted. If a quarter of necks have fallen over, they are ready.

Potatoes during July are at risk of late bight. If see the leaves suddenly wilting and pale brown (not just spotty),cut tops off as soon as you can. Again they are fine to compost.

My onions are massively damaged by downy mildew since the last ten days, even without much rain. They may not store if mildew reaches into the neck.

New space

Harvests make space, as in the photo below. If you can anticipate a harvest time to be less than four weeks ahead, that's an opportunity to interplant. It's useful when you do not have enough other space for planting. The Brussels sprouts and carrots overlap by a month and I don't put any new compost for the new plants.

After harvest

I aim where possible to second crop with some vegetable of a different family to the first vegetable. This does not always work out, and the main thing is to get all your plants in at the best time. This year I am trialling beetroot after beetroot.

I am trialling this question as well. in the photo below, you can see potatoes growing in the same soil, for the 10th consecutive year.

Pest protection

Keep up with pest protection, against insects especially. Once I see a lot of butterflies in the garden, I spray Bacillus thuringiensis every 18 days. In the UK you can buy it as "box hedge caterpillar killer".

In July, this is always a big issue, especially against insects. Since last year, I have Allium leaf miner, and am taking leek protection seriously! The flies seem able to crawl underneath mesh where it meets the ground!

The raised bed in photo I happened to have already -I'm not considering raised beds for all my leeks! But it means I can secure the sides. And you can water through the mesh. You can buy it made from plant matter, or plastic.