July

July is generally one of the hottest months of the year and usually dry, apart from watering and harvesting there should be time to take stock of achievements as well as planning autumn and winter crops.

MAINTENANCE

I intend to keep up with the regular hoeing and weeding, at least the hot weather kills off the weeds before they have a chance to take again. I'll keep a ball of string in my pocket for tying in and I'll dead head as soon as the flowers go over.

SOWING AT HOME

There is still plenty of time to sow seeds for autumn cropping so I'll be putting in a small order to Marshalls, they have a good range of quick harvest vegetable seed that can be sown right up to early August.

LAST CHANCE

* Sow fast carrots. * Runner beans. * Beetroot. * Turnips. * Spinach. *Fast growing peas. *Salad leaves & salad onions.

PLANTING

I've very little planting to do this month, just a few lettuce and my savoy cabbage, I must remember to plant the savoys firmly in a hole well soaked with armillotox to combat club root and of course they will need the usual collars to stop the dreaded cabbage root fly laying.

FRUIT

I'll be letting the best cropping strawberry plants have a couple of runners, these will be pinned down into a 3 inch pots for rooting, the weaker plants will be identified and thrown out this month. I'm really looking forward to my autumn raspberries this year so I'll be treating them to a potash dressing and I'll also be thinning out the weakest stems, in this way there should be larger fruit and less chance of disease or bugs getting a hold, the idea is to let the air and sunshine in. As with my strawberries I'm determined to keep neat rows and individual plants instead of an unruly mess.

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