·      Everything seems to go mad by July – especially with the rain we’ve had!

·      However, remember don’t be tempted to walk on or work wet soil.

·      By now you should have some crops; keep picking & tending.

·      Check supports of beans & peas to ensure the weight of the plant & crop doesn’t topple them over & tie in stems.

·      Weed around crops so that they don’t compete for nutrients and water, but don’t leave large areas of bare earth – “nature abhors a vacuum” and will promptly fill it with weeds! Cover up, mulch or sow a green manure.

·      Put all those weeds on your compost heap, adding some comfrey leaves or nettles along with paper and cardboard. Water the heap if dry. Separate out perennial weeds for drowning, stewing or the green waste heap.

·      Tidy plants up – remove dead foliage, check for slugs, pests and diseases which need attention at the same time.

·      Feed. Fruiting crops need a high potassium feed – berries, peas & beans, courgettes, corn. Leafy greens such as salads & chard need a higher nitrogen feed. Whatever you use, read the instructions and guidance for use carefully & don’t be tempted to over-feed. Soft leafy growth is much loved by pests such as greenfly. Comfrey of course is free!

·      Watering. Just in case a long dry spell comes back…………Haha! Remember that it doesn’t rain in a greenhouse! Tomato plants especially need regular watering (talking to & stroking……….) Light drizzly rain rarely penetrates under the leaf canopy of courgettes & cabbages, so these might need extra water directed at the roots. Don’t over-water onions or potatoes at this time of year.

 

·      Crops like peas, beans and courgettes need regular picking in order to encourage more fruit to form – don’t leave your courgettes to turn to a solitary marrow (unless you like marrows that is!)

·      Crops such as early potatoes can be dug up at almost any time, as and when you wish, or if you’re in a hurry to clear that bed & put something else in. If you’re unsure, rummage around the plant gently to see if the tubers are big enough – at least bigger than a plum. If not then leave the plants alone for another week or two. Be careful to dig out every teeny-weeny tuber otherwise you’ll be pulling up lots of volunteer potato plants amongst your other crops next year. You can put these small tubers in your compost heap, but the’ll probably re-grow there, so better to drown them in water for a few weeks, stew in a black sack or put on the green-waste heap.

·      Keep thinning out parsnips until 6”/15cm apart.

·      Salad leaves of all sorts will be growing fast. Lettuces tend to bolt (grow a tall central stem, which will eventually form flowers & seed, tends to be bitter) in hot dry weather. Reduce the risk of this by regular watering, picking before it’s too late, or planting in the shade. Cutting off the lettuce stem at ground level can produce a second crop of leaves. If you have too much lettuce for your own use try swapping with other produce from a neighbour. Minted pea & lettuce soup is an excellent way of using up loads of lettuce, peas – fresh or frozen and an opportunity to trim your mint bush & keep it bushy see recipes page. Bolted lettuce can be treated like endive see recipe page.

·      Use the flowers of rocket in salads. While in the subject of flowers, many can be added to salads: nasturtium, marigold, borage, viola, even day-lilies, most herbs such as chive, sage, rosemary & thyme, flowers of bolted brassicas. Wonderful colour & flavour!

·      Herbs should be cut back after flowering to keep them bushy and given a feed to encourage leaf growth. Carefully winkle out weeds from amongst your plants.

·      Garlic & onions planted last autumn will be ready now. “Hard-neck” garlic will produce curled stems with a long pointed flower bud on the end. These “scapes” are good chopped into salads, omelettes & sandwiches. As the foliage turns yellow and dies back, the garlic is ready for lifting. Tidy up the bulb and take home to use fresh – wonderful roasted see recipes page. For storing, the bulbs of garlic and onions must be dried off. Don’t wash in any way, but put in a well ventilated, dry place – outside on a nice dry sunny day or two is best - or hung up in a shed. When dry, gently dust off soil & allow to dry further & harden off the skins. The green stems of garlic make a good fungicide & pesticide as well as feed. Stew the stems & leaves in a bucket with a close fitting lid (because it stinks!) leave for a couple of weeks, strain off what you need, dilute approx 10:1 & spray or water on. Especially good on tomatoes.

 

·      There’s still time to sow more crops for this year.

·      Quick crops such as lettuce, salad leaves & herbs like parsley, basil & coriander, oriental leaves, spring onions.

·      You can still get a late sowing of peas and dwarf French beans in. Unfortunately there’s probably only a couple of months of good growing left as we’re past the longest (day-light) day of the year. Many crops will continue to grow well and crop well into the autumn; what will stop them, or kill them off will be an early frost. From September 1^st keep an eye on the forecast; one year I lost all my courgettes with a sharp air frost on September 4^th……

·      Some crops such as lambs lettuce, endives, mooli, winter lettuce, kales & spring cabbages should be sown now to September.

 

·      Apples, pears and plums. Reduce over-laden fruit crops by thinning; carefully picking off the smallest fruit to leave no more than 3 apples for example, per cluster. The tree may have already made much of the decision for you in “June-drop”; a natural response from the tree to a heavy crop of fruit which has set. It ensures that the tree only holds on to the fruit it can support. Heavy crops break branches & in the case of apples, leads to “biennial cropping” - cropping every other year. This is another way in which the tree regulates how much energy goes into producing fruit.

·      Summer prune apples, pears and plums. Summer pruning of apples and pears reduces leaf growth in order to promote fruit growth this year. It is done after a certain amount of growth has been achieved and is more important on young trees. Simply prune the current season's growth back 6 or 7 buds from the main stem. This will encourage more fruiting spur growths to form and also transfer more of the tree's energies into building up the current fruit crop.

·      Summer prune stone fruits such as plums as above, remove dead, diseased or overcrowded branches, pull up (don’t cut) suckers.

·      Summer raspberries. Cut down all canes which have fruited. Keep about half the best new un-fruited stems, cut the rest especially if congested. Tie in the shoots you’re keeping.

·      Strawberries. Once cropping is over, remove unwanted runners (you can pot up a few nice plants from rooted runners). Remove any straw mulch and dead leaves. Cut back what’s left to 3”/8cm above ground- new growth will start in preparation for next year.