Poppy Okotcha on the vegetables she enjoys growing at home

POPPY OKOTCHA KEEPS THE EDIBLE PRODUCE COMING, ENSURING THIS IS ONE OF THE MOST BOUNTIFUL MONTHS

July is a funny month. There’s so much to taste, smell, watch and touch in the garden, and in the wild that time sort of warps and I don’t notice it passing at all. The month whirls past at speed, but each day seems to go on forever. I can spend a whole morning sitting in the grass watching ladybirds go about their business; an afternoon gathering up veg, cooking and eating it in the sun.

In my garden I’m gathering fresh, crisp cucumbers, sun-sweet tomatoes, buckets full of courgettes, salads and herbs. This part of growing food always feels like an exchange. I gave time and love to the soil, I sowed seeds, cultivated a healthy ecosystem and in exchange the ecosystem, soil and plants feed me. That cycle of reciprocity feels good.

Fresh garden pea, potato and foraged mint soup is the meal of the month. As I eat I can smell lemon balm hanging on my hands. In July, after she’s flowered, I give lemon balm a vigorous hair cut, right back down to the ground to encourage another wave of lush growth. The cuttings smell heavenly– bundles can be hung around the house for the scent, or throw the lot on the compost heap. Remember to keep a good ratio of browns (carbon-rich matter, like dry leaves and stems) whenever adding greens (nitrogen-rich matter, like lemon balm prunings) to the compost heap.

Some other plants destined for the compost pile this month are my broad beans. Having grown up, flowered and given lovely fat beans (many eaten, some saved to sow next year’s crop), the plants have completed their life cycle and can now be cut right down to the ground. Instead of digging the roots out and disturbing the soil I leave them in the earth to rot down and feed the soil food web.

Once the broad beans are out, I fill the space with some fast-growing dwarf French bean plants, sown a couple of weeks ago and keen to get in the ground.

I’ve been noting which of the three no-dig beds is giving a better crop and healthier plants. Back in February, each bed was mulched with a different peat-free, organic compost, two bought in and the third homemade compost. Experiments like this can be a really fun and useful way to figure out which peat-free growing medium works best. Peat is extracted from peat bogs, which are significant carbon sinks (area for area storing more carbon than rainforests) and important habitats, so instead of being dug up for use in our gardens it is best left right where it is. Last year I discovered my container-grown tomatoes were happiest in spent mushroom compost.

“In my garden I’m gathering fresh, crisp cucumbers, sun-sweet tomatoes, buckets full of courgettes, salads and herbs”