July 2024
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Dear Home Food Growers,
July is here, hopefully bringing the much needed sunshine and warmth for our summer gardens, as it seems to give hope but not stay for long.
This month every day counts for succession sowing, given declining daylight and challenging conditions. It is also peak time for harvests, new transplants and maintenance to enjoy the garden during Autumn and Winter.
1. What to Sow
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Beetroot, Carrots, dwarf French beans and large Brassicas: Last week to sow outdoors, and also good to sow asap for indoors to enjoy in autumn, and overwintering for brassicas
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Chicory: Perfect time to sow by mid July latest for outdoors, to have a good size later in the year
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Kohlrabi and Fennel: You can succession sow these crops already now for outdoors, and later in the month for indoors
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Lettuce, Herbs, Salad onions, Endive, Chard: You can sow these anytime during the month based on your harvests and available spacing
Succession sowing for autumn and winter
2. What NOT to Sow
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It is now too late to get decent produce from summer loving vegetables such as cucumbers, courgette, summer beans, sweetcorn as well as winter squash. You can check out decent sized seedlings to still transplant, especially if growing indoors
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Better to wait early August for Mustard Greens, Spinach, Pak Choi, Tatsoi, Rocket to enjoy during Autumn and Winter
3. Jobs to be Done
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Addressing diseases: Especially for outdoor growing during this wet season, proactively manage diseases (e.g., powdery mildew, downy mildew, blight) by creating better air circulation around plants by pruning, as well as removing highly infected ones
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Pest Management: Continue diligently with slug checks, covering crops with mesh (e.g., for flea beetles, caterpillars, carrot root flies, and allium leaf miner). For caterpillars, I recommend to use Bt (Bacillus thuringiensis) once every three weeks / a month - instead of other alternatives such as neem oil given minimal impact to other insects. Aphid damage seems minimal with the wet weather, further lessened by lady birds as natural predators. Check the timings of pests on the plants you are growing
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Succession Sowing: With harvests creating new gaps in the garden, July is crucial for succession sowing. You can find our succession sowing guide here and check out our upcoming workshop in August to learn more!
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De-weeding: Regularly check and remove weeds to proactively manage
4. Harvests & Seasonal Chef tips
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Raspberry and Nasturtium leaves: For a Mediterranean delight, you can experiment with stuffed Nasturtium leaves with Raspberries. Check out our latest video on this recipe here.
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Potatoes and Broad Beans: Perfect way to give in to your carb cravings while balancing with high fiber and protein, check out the recipe here. You can also top this with fresh Fennel.
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Carrots, Beetroot and Peas: Small bulbs and sizes are ready to harvest and enjoy for oven grills, making vibrant coloured dishes. For inspiration here.
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Tomatoes, cucumbers and courgette: Time to enjoy these long-waited summer vegetables!
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Salad Leaves, Radish, Turnip and Herbs, making perfect bases for summer salads.
July beauty
5. Events & recommended products
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Highlights from the June Urban Gardening Workshop: Backyard Goodness / MOES Tuinen hosted the first of the Urban Gardening series, focused on how to start. Participants learned about garden structure to design their own space effectively, with No Dig gardening principles, experimented with various compost types and got hands-on experience with sowing. Thank you to everyone who joined us!
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Next workshop: Sowing Essentials on 24th August. Our next workshop is planned at Amstelveen, in our own Backyard, to prepare for autumn and deep-dive into (succession) sowing. We will focus on sowing planning, succession sowing and propagation incl. multi-sowing. Click here to attend - if you have not already done so.
