We Grow Our OwnThe trials and successes of life on our allotment

July is usually one of the driest months so a lot of time may be spent watering. You can reduce water loss and save yourself some time by preventing water loss. Mulching with a layer of organic matter will help preserve moisture but may encourage slugs so you will need to take action against them.

Another good method of preventing water loss is to hoe. This not only kills the weeds but breaks up the top of the soil stopping water from being drawn to the surface by capillary action and evaporating.

Harvest

The harvest should be in full swing now, providing you with the following:

• Broad Beans
• French Beans
• Runner Beans
• Cabbage
• Carrots
• Cauliflower
• Celery
• Courgettes
• Cucumbers
• Kale
• Kohlrabi
• Lettuce
• Onions
• Spring Onions
• Peas
• Early Potatoes
• Radish
• Spinach
• Tomatoes
• Turnips

When you harvest your potatoes take care to remove all the tubers. Any left will not only sprout next year and become a weed but will also be a reservoir for disease and potato blight spores. It’s often worth forking over a few days after harvesting potatoes because more seem to miraculously appear.

Green Manure

When you have harvested your potatoes you might like to consider sowing a green manure crop. Mustard is fast growing and is supposed to confuse the potato eel worm into breeding at the wrong time. It is a brassica so don’t use it if you suffer from club root.

Another fast growing crop you can use as a green manure is French beans. Even if you have enough beans to feed an army, the plant produces a fair amount of leaf and stem plus the roots, as with all legumes, have nodules containing bacteria that fix nitrogen from the atmosphere. Free fertiliser as well as organic matter.

Planting Out

If they’ve not gone out yet, it’s time to plant out your leeks. Just dib a hole about 150mm 6″ deep and drop the leek into the hole. Water it in and the job’s done. Don’t follow old advice about trimming the tops and roots, it has no beneficial effect and is probably harmful. You don’t need to fill the holes with soil, enough will wash in with watering and rain. The reason you plant in a hole is to blanch the stem

You can also plant out Calabrese, Cauliflowers, Cabbage and Kale.

Cultivating

Keep on top of the weeds, it really is far easier to hoe them as small seedlings than as grown plants. Even if you can not see any weeds, hoeing will actually be killing tiny seedlings you have not noticed and will be helping reduce moisture loss as I said above.

Keep your tomato sideshoots in check, you want tomatoes not masses of foliage. Ensure they are watered regularly, drying out prevents the plant from taking up sufficient calcium and the deficit causes blossom end rot.

Don’t forget to feed your tomatoes as well, we demand a lot from them and need to keep them well fed. It’s a good idea to give your maincrop potatoes a feed as well. A major cause of poor crops with potatoes is poor nutrition. They are a very greedy plant and a boost now will pay a dividend in tubers. A feed balanced as for tomatoes is ideal. If you make your own feed from comfrey, this is ideal.

Keep your onions well weeded and don’t forget to feed them as well to get the best possible crop.

In the greenhouse

Ensure good ventilation. It can get incredibly hot in a greenhouse with strong sun and scorch your plants. You should also consider shading the house either with blinds or films or with a shading wash.

Fruit

Many fruits are ready to harvest or swelling. Swelling fruit requires a lot of water so ensure they have enough.

July is a good month for summer pruning apple trees.

General Tasks

Keep on top of the pests. Aphids and Blackfly are a particular problem. You can control them with pesticides or just wash them off many plants with a strong jet of water. A wash with soft soap will do no harm to the plants and will reduce numbers.

With broad beans you can pinch out the tops which are most attractive to blackfly. Another ‘trick’ is to plant some nasturtiums which attract blackfly. You can then pull the nasturtiums and their blackfly.

Keep an eye on your brassicas for butterfly eggs and caterpillars, these will most probably be under the leaves. Pick or wash them off before they dine on your dinner!