Garden tips for July

Dry spells can greatly influence the quality and yield of fruit and vegetables, so it is important to check plants regularly. If they require watering, it is best to give them a good soaking so the water can percolate deep into the soil. This encourages them to root deep and be less susceptible to drought. If the water runs off before it has chance to soak in, mound up the earth around the base of plants to form a basin to hold back the water and allow it to soak in where needed. Prevent the water from evaporating by watering in the evening or early morning and mulch established plants with well-rotted compost.

Harvest crops while they are in peak condition. Peas, beans, salad leaves, radish, turnip, carrot and beetroot are all more tender and sweet when they are harvested young. Left too long they can become woody or bitter. Don’t underestimate how much time it takes to harvest crops: set aside some time each week to check the garden and harvest the things that are ready to eat. Regular harvesting also helps to prevent gluts. For example, one common mistake is to sow too many lettuce seeds at the same time. However, if you harvest most of the lettuces while they are young, an oversupply of big lettuces becomes less of a problem.

There is still time to sow a range of quick-growing vegetables, such as radish, turnip, beetroot, fennel and kohl rabi to provide harvests into the autumn. Even if these crops are still small by the time the weather starts to get worse they can be eaten as ‘mini-veg’. A range of other crops, including parsley, spring cabbage and chard, can be sown now and over-wintered to provide a spring harvest. Use a cloche to protect from hungry pigeons and the worst of the winter weather.

If you have propagated or bought leeks or winter brassicas such as kale, cabbage and purple sprouting broccoli, now is the time to plant them in their final position.

Cultivated blackberries and hybrids such as loganberries, tayberries and boysenberries will produce new stems to provide fruit next year. These plants are usually very vigorous and need training to posts and wires, a wall or fence. New stems should be tied to the supports as they develop. Doing this now prevents the plants becoming a tangle later and helps prevent wind damage.

Some apple, pear and plum trees could now be developing lots of fruit and it may be necessary to support branches to prevent them snapping. If a tree produces too much fruit the quality may decline, with diminished reserves resulting in a failure to produce any fruit next year. This is known as ‘biennial bearing’, where the tree goes through a cycle of producing lots of fruit one year and none the next. Reduce the risk by thinning the fruit.