Gardening in July: enjoy midsummer

Let the good times roll as the garden and crops hit their prime

Growing salad over the years has given me an inordinate amount of pleasure. Being able to grow at least some salad for every day of year is heartening and builds confidence. More delicious than I’d expected, fresh leaves from a mix of plants have varied flavour, texture and colour that’s hard to match in packaged stuff. I grow and forage plenty of leaves from perennial plants and also love the simple process of sowing and growing a colourful row of annual lettuce.

Harvest

Few things taste better than a fresh homegrown new potato. New potatoes are ready for us now - signalled by pheasants digging them up for seemingly no reason. This year I’m growing ‘Jazzy’, though I also often grow either ‘Anya’ or ‘Pink Fir Apple’ depending on which is available.

Other crops are starting to produce summer gluts including pea ‘Meteor’, which are still cropping for us. Keep picking peas and beans and they’ll produce more. Raspberries and gooseberry are ripening and our rhubarb are still producing strong stems to eat.

Semi-hardwood cuttings of shrubs

July is an excellent month to propagate new shrubs. Softwood and semi-hardwood cuttings root quickly in the warmth of midsummer. Key is to take a 10-20cm new shoot, strip the lower two thirds of leaves, place in compost in a bright spot out of direct sunlight - so they don’t cook. Cover with a transparent propagator lid or bag until new leaf growth is seen. I’ve written a guide on shrub cuttings with more detail.

You can take cuttings from all sorts of shrubs now including gooseberry, currants, honeyberry, rosemary, thyme, sage, potentilla, roses, salvias, fuchsia and hydrangea. Search online for your shrubs to see if they are suitable - most are!

Annual vegetables

A lot of my time and attention in summer goes on the tomato plants because we really love fresh summer ripened tomatoes. In fact, I get a little obsessed with tomato plant watching. Ours were slow to get going this year but are fast catching up. I tie thick 3mm twine to the beams of our polytunnel and then loosely tie the other end around the lower stem. I can then gently twist the plant around as it grows, this is enough to support the vine. Pinching off side shoots to put all energy into vertical fruiting. Once set up, I find vine tomatoes easier than bush types to harvest because the fruit is easier to reach.

I’ve pinched out the top lead shoot of our aubergines (above) to encourage the sideshoots to grow. This causes the plant to bush up, producing more fruit. It also makes the plants sturdier and less top heavy.

There is still time to sow and grow French beans, including borlotti and orca types meant for dried beans. Read my guide to how and the differences between these beans.

These are seedlings of Chicory ‘Rossa di Treviso’ sown a few weeks ago, they can be sown now too. Chicory makes a great crunchy base for a salad. Other crops to sow now include Florence fennel, spring onion, radish and turnip. We’ve been making delicious pickled turnip!

Meadows

If you are trying to introduce or enhance a meadow or pasture area, around about now (earlier down south) both yellow rattle and eyebright will start to have ripe seed. The best way to use these is to collect and immediately spread where you would like the plants to grow. Bearing in mind that eyebright grows best in already quite short or open grass, such as path edges or in already short patches.

Above are yellow rattle seed capsules that can be tipped into your hand. Eyebright seeds are produced next to their stem and need to be picked off painstakingly.

Young bedstraw plants I will wait to plant after the meadow cut later in summer

I find the most reliable way to start wildflowers is from small plants in plugs or 9cm pots. At this point in summer I would hold off planting these into dense meadows or other planting, and instead now wait until late-summer or autumn. Unless you can keep them watered and ensure they have enough sun. Otherwise they may dry out in heat or have light blocked by larger plants.

Wildlife

A common frog in our pond

At this point in the year the most important job for wildlife is to provide water during long dry periods as puddles will have dried up. If you have a pond, keeping it topped up is enough.

If you don’t have a pond, a low and wide dish is great. Or ideally a couple, one on the ground for ground dwellers and one higher up for birds and flying insects, out of reach of ground predators. Add a few pebbles or bits of wood for insects to land on or use to escape the water if they fall in.

The RSPB advice for birds was to only provide water in dishes if you can wash it every day to prevent the spread of disease, and I think that is sensible.

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Workshop focussed on establishing wildflowers