The July Vegetable Garden in the UK...

The Vegetable Gardener's Diary - July

July is a productive month in the vegetable garden. It is a good month to sow successional crops such as salad leaves and vegetables. These should be sown a few at a time, 2 weeks apart to ensure a continuous crop throughout the summer months.

July is the time to:-

Sow Outdoors

• Lettuce
• Radish
• French beans
• Runner beans
• Spinach

Plant

• Any remaining seedlings raised during the spring and early summer

Harvest

• French beans (fine beans)
• Runner beans
• Celery
• Red cabbage
• Courgettes
• Tomatoes
• Lettuce
• Aubergines
• Peppers
• Chillies
• Peas
• Broad beans
• Spinach
• Summer cabbages
• Potatoes - second earlies and first maincrop
• Onions
• Shallots
• Garlic
• Carrots
• Turnips
• Beetroots

Things to do

- Weed and water regularly

- Pinch out side shoots and growing tips on tomatoes, feed with a liquid tomato fertilizer

- Remove leading shoots on climbing beans when they have reached the top of their support system

- Earth up Brussels sprouts and other brassicas

- Cut down any pea or broad bean plants that have finished cropping. Leave the roots in situ to release nitrogen into the soil

- Spray potatoes if necessary to deter blight

- July is the time to take cuttings of any perennial herbs you may wish to proporgate for the following year