Kitchen Garden Magazine

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Jobs for July

After the surge in growth that comes in spring and early summer on the plot the emphasis changes from sowing to growing this month as many springsown crops reach maturity. Head gardener, Sue Hoy has the lowdown on all the essential jobs for July

KG top tips

• Give runner beans a good spraying over with the hose in dry spells to help the pods set. In hot dry weather the flowers tend to shrivel without forming beans, but this extra moisture seems to help. It can also help to keep red spider mite at bay.

• Pick French beans regularly before they become large and tough and to keep them cropping. Heavily laden plants can drag on the ground, making the beans muddy in wet weather, so consider mulching the rows with straw.

• Sweetcorn is wind-pollinated, and it can be helpful to tap the tassels in still conditions to help set the cobs.

• Sow seed of rocket to add bite to summer salads. The seed will germinate quickly and produce usable young leaves in a few weeks.

KG QUICKIES

• The fine weather in early summer meant that butterfly populations started to build up. In warm, dry summers, cabbage whites can cause enormous damage to brassica crops – and cause a nasty surprise for anyone tucking into a tasty dish of buttered cabbage.

Check the undersides of leaves for signs of eggs (picture below) and dispose of them. The only way to stop the adults laying is to cover with fleece, which just isn’t practicable at this time of year, but spraying the cabbages with garlic-infused water will mask the cabbagey smell which attracts them to the crop in the first place.

• Sow spring cabbage for delicious greens in April and May next year. They can be direct sown in rows in the garden and transplanted to their final spacings, or started in a 7cm (3in) pot and grown on in modules – my preferred method. They can then be planted out in September. There are lots of different varieties available, but the old ‘Durham Early’ is good, as is ‘April’ and ‘Spring Hero’.

• Not many gardeners grow oriental greens like Chinese cabbage, indeed it can be tricky because of its tendency to bolt. But why not try sowing a mixture of oriental greens and using them as a different salad crop? They can add spice, bite and colour to salads used as a ‘cut and come again’ crop, or left to mature a little more, added to stir-fries. Most seed companies list oriental leaf mixtures including mizuna, komatsuna and mustard

 

FRUIT IN BRIEF

• Pick soft fruit in dry conditions. It can have a tendency to go mushy if it’s harvested after rain and doesn’t freeze as well.

• Tie in new shoots on trained fruit as soon as possible, and check ties on all fruit. Once a tie has cut into a branch, it’s irretrievably damaged and the tree is spoiled.

• Support branches bearing a heavy crop of fruit. The weight can easily cause branches to split and break, and not only is the tree damaged, but part of the crop is lost too.

• Water newly planted fruit trees and bushes in dry weather.

• Using a pair of shears, cut the old leaves off strawberries and remove straw. Pot up runners to provide vigorous new plants for next season.

For lots more advice, see this month's issue, available to buy online!

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