Get growing edibles in July
Find out which delicious veg and fruit you can grow and harvest this month with Sally Nex
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The harvest just gets better with every day that passes in July and I spend nearly as much time in the kitchen as in the garden. I have to remind myself to get out the seed trays again and sow next season’s crops - you can’t rest for long when you’re a veg gardener!
More July fruit and veg growing advice
July fruit and veg growing inspiration
Planting out brassicas
The purple sprouting broccoli, kale and sprouts I sowed back in May are sturdy young plants now and need planting out. You plant them quite far apart to allow room to grow – but I also plant fast-growing spinach or lettuce in between, to squeeze an extra crop from the same space.
Picking courgettes
The courgettes are really getting into their stride now – I visit my plants twice weekly to pick them over. It’s not just that I prefer courgettes young and sweet – I do – but also because when fruits get too big my plants think their job is done and stop producing more. So pick your courgettes young to keep them coming.
Keeping runner beans productive
The same applies to runner beans: pick them over twice weekly and you’ll catch beans young and tender, as well as keeping your plants productive. I usually grow self-pollinating runner beans like ‘Moonlight’ as they cope well with hot summers and produce loads of sweet, almost stringless beans.
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Picking & freezing fruit
I’m feasting on fresh fruit right now: everything is ripening at once, from tart blackcurrants and sweet redcurrants to the first summer raspberries. You can’t possibly eat them all – so I’m big on jam making, and any I can’t use right away go straight into the freezer.
Looking after strawberries
Best of all it’s strawberry time – and I’m picking plump, sweet, sun-warmed berries almost every day. I tuck straw under my plants to keep the fruits clean, and cover them with fine-gauge wire mesh too to keep birds and mice at bay – I prefer wire mesh to netting as it’s plastic-free and won’t trap wildlife.
Digging potatoes
New potatoes taste so good lightly steamed and served with a dab of melted butter. It’s making my mouth water just thinking about it. I dig up a few each day – you don’t want to hang around, as they lose that melt-in-the-mouth new potato flavour if you leave them in the ground too long.
Lifting & drying onions
Drying and plaiting onions is a late summer ritual in my garden and kicks off what I think of as the big harvest when I race to gather everything in before the cold weather ends the season. I dry onions on racks in the greenhouse for two weeks before plaiting them into handsome strings to hang up indoors.
Harvest herbs for drying
Herbs are at their plumpest and most fragrant now so it’s a great time to pick a bit more than you need to store for winter while they’re at their best. You can dry them but you often lose a lot of the flavour; I prefer to chop them finely, mix them into a paste with a little olive oil then freeze them packed into ice cube trays. One herb cube equals a dessertspoon of fresh herbs.
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Sowing salads
Veg gardeners always have to stay one step ahead – which is why I’m getting out the seed trays again to sow salads for refilling the greenhouse borders through winter (you can also plant them outside under cloches). I like the mildly spicy flavours of mizuna and pak choi, as well as winter lettuces, chervil and claytonia – you can sow all these right now.
Keep sowing carrots
Mind you, we’re not quite at the end of this year’s season yet. I keep sowing carrots, half a row at a time, every month till September for a steady supply, mostly fast-growing Nantes varieties but also small, round-rooted Paris Market carrots. They make short fat roots just 5cm long, but they grow really fast so you don’t have to wait long before you’re pulling them. They’re also great in containers.
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