Reap the rewards during this month of plenty
July is a month of plenty in Scottish gardens, when we who like to grow our own get to reap the rewards of all our hard work and, thanks to extremely poor planning, when I always seem to go away on holiday.
Still, I find nothing gets me in the mood for a relaxing break quite like frantically topping and tailing gooseberries and stirring huge pans of jam into the small hours.
My currant and gooseberry bushes are bent double with the weight of fruit this year, which is surprising when I remember the frosty nights in April when they were flowering, but I’ll team up with my kids to get them all picked.
There will also be blueberries and strawberries this month, along with peas, broad beans, potatoes, carrots, beetroot, plentiful salads and the first tomatoes, courgettes and dwarf
French beans from the greenhouse.
Keep picking your fruiting and podded vegetables to catch them at their best and encourage them to keep cropping.
Lift garlic before the middle of the month, while it still has some green in the leaves so that the bulbs will be in good condition to store.
Leave the lifted plants somewhere well ventilated for a couple of weeks to dry out, before plaiting their stems together, and they will keep in the house or shed well into spring.
All this harvesting means that gaps will start to appear in the veg plot.
Sow lettuce, chard, chicory, spinach, rocket, pak choi, mizuna and mustards into modules now to have young plants ready to fill the bare soil quickly and grow away to produce abundant pickings in autumn too.
Elsewhere in the garden, deadhead bedding plants and roses to keep flowers coming and prevent problems with grey mould if the weather turns wet.
Prune those shrubs that flowered in June, such as weigela and philadelphus, this will give the right conditions so that new growth will ripen in time to flower next year.
Water and feed plants in containers regularly, along with any trees, shrubs, perennials or climbers that have recently been planted.
Climbers growing against walls or fences where rain rarely reaches the soil at their roots often succumb to the fungal infection powdery mildew during summer, which causes their leaves to develop a dusty, white coating.
Ensure that these plants are kept well watered to prevent them suffering stress caused by drought and help them to fend off these common pathogens themselves.
A 1:9 mixture of milk and water sprayed directly onto the foliage is also a surprisingly useful tonic to help return the affected plants to good health.
Prune those shrubs that flowered in June, such as philadelphus