Welcome to your essential July seed sowing guide for continuous harvests! While many gardeners think the main growing season has passed, strategic planting now ensures your garden remains productive through autumn, winter, and into early spring.
Though July's planting possibilities are fewer than May's abundant options, this focused approach actually gives you the most benefit in extending your harvest calendar. Continue your monthly successional sowings of quick-growing crops like spring onions, spinach, radishes, and lettuces to maintain fresh harvests. This is also the perfect time to introduce autumn and winter salad varieties that will bridge the gap when temperatures drop later in the year.
Don't believe everything you read on seed packets! While conventional wisdom suggests it's too late for many brassicas, experienced gardeners know July sowings of calabrese, cabbage, and purple sprouting broccoli will still produce harvests around March next year. Kale is particularly well-suited to July sowing, while beetroot, pak choi, chard, and even French beans can still be productive when planted now. The key is understanding how these plants develop through seasonality rather than strictly following calendar rules.
Garden management becomes crucial as summer progresses. The combination of warmth and moisture brings potential pest challenges, but encouraging biodiversity through wildflower areas and nesting boxes brings natural predators that help maintain balance. This is also the time to learn the subtle harvest indicators—potatoes are ready when foliage naturally dies back and onions signal harvest time when their tops flop over. Looking ahead to bed rotation becomes essential as early crops finish, creating space for autumn and winter vegetables that maintain productivity throughout the year.
Want more gardening insights? Next week's episode explores homemade fertilizers based on listener questions. Share the podcast with fellow gardeners, subscribe on YouTube, and send your own gardening questions to info@mastermygarden.com to help shape future content!
If there is any topic you would like covered in future episodes, please let me know.
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Until next week
Happy gardening
John
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
how's it going, everybody, and welcome to
episode 283, master, my gardenpodcast.
Now, this week's episode is theusual one that we do at the
start of the month.
Now, I realized june's one wasslightly late, but on the first
friday of every month we do aseed sowing guide for the month
ahead.
And, yeah, this proves to bereally, really popular episodes,
because it gives people a sortof a reminder or sort of keeps
(00:37):
to the front of their mind whatthey can sow in that month, or
what's suitable to sow.
And, you know, as we enter July, the list is getting quite
small.
Now, you know, we've gone fromthe month of May, I suppose,
with the most possibilities forsowing seed, and as we progress
through June and into July, thatlist gets smaller.
Still useful to do this, though, because it's the continuation
(01:04):
of sowing that makes sure we dohave crops as we get, you know,
into the back end of the yearand even through until next year
.
So, while it's not the, youknow, you know in in most
people's minds, it's not the,the sort of main sowing period,
and it's certainly not it's thetime that actually gives you the
most benefit.
(01:24):
By sticking to, you know, akind of a monthly sowing guide,
you can ensure that you havesort of continuity of your crops
.
As I say, that list is gettingsmaller, but it is certainly.
It is certainly still worthsowing and continue to sow
during this month, the, thegarden itself.
(01:45):
The growth has been phenomenal,while all of Europe, I think, is
getting caked with sunshine andreally dry spells and quite
high temperatures.
Speaking to somebody in Francethis week and they're struggling
, to be honest, it's sometemperatures into high 30s in
degrees Celsius, the UK againspeaking to someone there last
(02:08):
week and they're finding thatthings are just burning up.
It has been dry and has beendry for a long period of time.
Here we are still getting, youknow, a good mix of showers,
good mix of showers and, andwhile it's not raining
(02:28):
constantly, we're definitely notgetting, you know, the same
levels of sunshine that they areacross the water, and so growth
is still phenomenal.
You know, everything is reallyreally growing strongly at the
moment.
All the vegetables are growingreally, really well.
They're, you know, things arefilling out their the likes of
potatoes and onions.
They're growing and expandingand getting bigger and, from a
(02:51):
veg perspective, things aregrowing really really well in
the polytunnel.
Tomatoes are doing really welland just just at the point of
harvesting, or starting toharvest, the first few harvests
will be small, but there's a fewred ones starting to come and
that's that's obviously the bigexcitement, and that's, you know
that, um, probably a few weeksahead of last year, so it is,
(03:14):
you know, in terms of growth, ithas been a really, really good
season so far.
It is, you know, as I say,we're still getting showers here
and there.
Just today here we've had norain, but I was driving earlier
on, I was 20 minutes away andthe rain that fell in the space
of 10 or 15 minutes was justphenomenal.
(03:34):
Now, it was the sort of rainthat fell so heavy.
It was probably not ideal, itwas going to run off, but we, we
we still do have very, verygood growth levels because of
these high temperatures andbecause of, you know, relatively
decent water levels or ormoisture levels within the soil,
and that in itself brings sortof other potential problems
(03:58):
which we'll kind of touch on atthe end.
But for now, the the seed sowingguide.
So let's get into it.
I suppose, and what you'relooking at again this month is
we have the usual successionalsowing crops and these are.
These are the ones, as I'vesaid before, they'll repeat on
every single month and they'rethe kind of ones that you do
(04:20):
need to continue sowing becausethey'll you'll use them quite
quickly typically, and they'realso ones that will run to seed
quite quickly, so you're notgoing to get long periods of
time out of it.
So you do kind of need to besowing them every month if you
want to continue to fresh,freshly harvest some of these
crops, and so what we're lookingat there is spring onion.
A spring onion is one that wecan continue to sow and, for any
(04:42):
of you that listen to podcastsfor a while, it's on the list
every month and then, as we getlater on in the year, when
there's no possibility of themsort of getting too strong, too
quick, I'll do a huge sowing.
At that stage, you know, muchbigger than I would do on a
monthly basis, and because thegrowth levels are slowing down,
(05:03):
you'll be able to harvest forlonger periods of time.
So we're not there yet, so I'lljust do a standard sowing this
month.
But spring onion is is onethat's regular on.
That's on it every month.
For me, anyway, I would sowevery month.
The next one is spinach and youdo need to kind of sow this
regularly as well, especiallythis time of year, because what
ends up happening is it'srunning to seed quite quickly.
(05:23):
So you're only getting, youknow, a few weeks harvest and
then it's sort of looking tobolt and that happens very, very
quickly, regardless of whetherit's inside or outside.
You get a little bit longeroutside, but the fact that
you're able to continue sowingthat means that you will
continue to have fresh spinachto harvest.
Radish is the same again, goingto run to seed quite quickly at
(05:45):
this time of the year.
So the fact that you can sowevery month is a big, big help.
Lettuces were probably you knowthis is a can be a tricky month
for lettuce because if you getreally high temperatures,
lettuce won't germinate, kind ofabove 20 degrees.
So at this stage it can beactually tricky and you might
wonder why seeds haven'tgerminated if especially if
(06:07):
you're, if you have them in apolytunnel or a greenhouse it's,
you know, if it's above 20degrees that they don't
germinate and they'll just sitthere.
So just watch out for that.
You can direct sow, certainlyat this stage of the year.
That will help.
Sometimes they can get a littlebit hotter in seed trays, you
know they can get.
The heat can be a bit moreconcentrated, they can dry out
(06:28):
easier.
But if you direct, sow them,you know, either in the, in the
greenhouse or outside, youshould have good results.
But continue to sow lettuce andwe'll switch varieties as we
move a little bit furtherthrough the year.
But for now you're on yournormal, all your normal, all
your normal varieties you canstill sow away.
You will start to introduce atthis stage some of the autumn
leaves, things like you know,the winter salads, the mezuna,
(06:53):
clitona, some of those willstart to introduce these later
in the month and there they willbecome more regular as we move
through august and intoseptember, and they're the ones
that will give you this, youknow, bridge this gap at the
back end of the year, when thetemperatures start to drop and
when we start to move to morewinter-like conditions later on
in the year.
These are the ones that willcontinue to give you these
(07:16):
winter salads that we all likeat that time of the year.
Next one that you can sow atthis stage is cress.
Again, it's a regular one thatwe'd sow and you can sow all of
the herbs as well.
So coriander, again, I'vementioned before.
That will kind of be a repeat.
So because again it runs, runsthe seed quite quickly, but then
things like dill, sherville,parsleys, all of those can be
(07:36):
sowed.
Now you know, rosemary, any,anything, any of the herbs
really can be sown now.
Then, in terms of you knowbrassicas, we're starting to get
to the point where we won't sowit is anymore.
Now for the month of july.
I still think it's worked.
Some, you know, somepublications and some seed
packets will tell you it's toolate.
(07:57):
I still think at this stage ofthe year it is worth doing a
sowing of these.
So what am I talking about?
About here, the likes ofCalabrese.
Again, you will be switching tosort of autumn and winter
varieties, if possible Cabbageyou know Savoy's and winter
cabbage.
Technically speaking, it is alittle bit late in terms of
getting you know your harvest atthe typical time, but you'll
(08:21):
still get a harvest.
It might be just into kind ofMarch time of next year, so
it'll be slightly slower to cometo maturity, but I still think
it's worthwhile doing anothersowing it does.
The same goes for purple sproutand broccoli.
Again, all the seed packetswill say that you should have
this done, there's no morechance to sow.
But I still think again you canget a sowing done now.
(08:43):
Allow the plants to grow onthrough august and september,
october.
Obviously growth will stop.
Then you start to get throughjanuary, february.
You're unlikely to have anyharvest unless we've a really
grotty winter, which you know wetypically won't but we could
have.
But either way is, at somepoint in time you'll get a flush
of growth, typically throughway is, at some point in time
you'll get a flush of growth,typically through March and at
(09:04):
that point in time you should beable to get a bit of a harvest
off, which will be late now.
It's touch and go at this stage,but those things are worth
doing if you have the space.
So I would definitely.
I would definitely try a sowingof those.
One that's definitely okay tosow is kale.
You can sow kale away thismonth, no problem at all.
Another one that'll be on thelast sowing this month.
(09:24):
Again, technically you shouldhave it done in June.
But beetroot, I will do asowing in the polytunnel,
probably at the end of the month, and just give it a sowing.
At that stage you'll just get alittle bit of germination.
There won't a lot happen untilprobably later on in the year,
and then we should start to seelittle baby beets later in the
(09:44):
year and, and you know, it'salways there's always with with
a greenhouse or even outside attimes if the weather plays ball.
Some of these sowings, whilebreaking the rules a little bit,
they do give you theopportunity to, you know, do
things that, as I say, the, thebook or the the back of the
packets may say is not possible.
So just if you have the space,why not?
(10:06):
Then pak choi can, can be.
So this month.
Charred is another one again.
You don't need to sow charredon a regular basis but you can
do a sewing of it, especiallygood to put into a greenhouse at
this stage.
Once you do your sewing of itespecially good to put into a
greenhouse at this stage onceyou do your sowing, then plant
out into the, into thegreenhouse and you'll have
charred kind of all winter andagain right through until next
(10:29):
spring and into early nextsummer.
So not again, not not one thatyou can technically sow at this
stage, going by the rules, butit will work.
French beans is another onethere that would fall into that.
It's again a little bit late interms of, you know, in terms of
sowing, but they're going togerminate so quickly.
(10:50):
If you've got good quality seed, you'll sow those.
You will be planting them outin probably two weeks time.
You should be able to plant outin two weeks time and then,
once they get into the ground,they will grow really, really
fast and you should be able toget a harvest a good harvest,
you know, in a couple of monthstime off those.
So some of those ones, you knowthe conventional wisdom will
(11:14):
say don't sow these, but they'redefinitely worth a shot.
So the ones that I'm talkingabout here are, you know, some
of the calabrese, purple sprout,broccoli, cabbages, french
beans, beetroot, and they areall worth a shot at this stage,
you know.
You know inside, inside oroutside, they're worth, they're
worth a shot.
The other thing that is sort ofon the agenda and I mentioned it
(11:35):
just in relation to the weatheris the in the UK, I know it's
been very dry, but here it'sbeen.
We're getting these periods ofwet, so slugs can become an
issue.
I actually don't have any issueat the minute touch wood with
with any slugs.
So no issues from slugs up frommy point of view, but just be
(11:56):
vigilant of that over the comingweeks.
You know we've we spoke aboutkind of the husbandry things
that you can do.
Root fly is definitelysomething to watch out for.
If you, you know, if you'regrowing carrots or that, try not
to do too much tinning on them.
The less tinning you do, thebetter.
In terms of prevention ofcarrot root fly, use bio netting
(12:17):
or enviro mesh, you know, wherepossible.
Then things like aphids, justkeep an eye out for those,
particularly on salads.
Again, I'm not having any issueswith with aphids at the moment,
or caterpillars, which is thenext one that I was going to
mention, the I have an abundanceof birds in the garden at the
moment.
There was, you know, definitelyin terms of having those birds,
(12:41):
the likes of the, the blue titsand so on.
They are really, really doingtheir job in terms of
caterpillars and aphids in thegarden.
So I've mentioned it before thelikes of wildflower meadows,
the likes of nesting boxes, allof those things that bring
biodiversity into the garden.
They all help and they helpfrom a practical gardening
(13:02):
perspective as well.
You know, sometimes we talkabout these in a kind of a nice
way that you know it's good toencourage in wildlife, but there
is practical benefits and Ithink that's you know, from a
gardener's point of view.
If you're able to show thosepractical benefits and prove
those practical benefits, thenit's of massive, massive benefit
to you as a gardener to havethese creatures, to bring in
(13:25):
these, I suppose, allies in thegarden to fight against your
aphids, your caterpillars, yourslugs and so on.
So yeah, those things some ofyou will be having issues with
them at the moment.
Keep an eye out for them, bevigilant.
The next thing is blight, andthere seems to be a huge amount
of confusion around blight.
We mentioned it a couple ofweeks ago.
There was a blight warning onthe on the weather here in
(13:47):
Ireland, and that you know.
That prompts people to startworrying at this stage, though.
A lot of airdees, a lot ofsecond airdees.
You will start to see naturaldying back of the leaves at this
stage, and sometimes people getconfused as to is this blight
or what is this?
(14:09):
And nine times out of 10, justlooking in the Facebook groups
everyone says oh, it's blight,it's blight.
You have to do this and youhave to do that Sometimes when
you're talking about earlies andsecond earlies, given that
we've had a really, reallygrotty spring.
They've reached their potential.
Natural thing at this stage isfor the foliage to die back, and
(14:30):
so just be aware of that.
And the other question thatpeople ask is when are your
potatoes ready?
And the same goes for onions,actually we might talk about
that in a minute.
But when are the potatoes readyto harvest?
Well, it's very straightforwardreally.
You know there is x amount ofdays in a typical typically.
So you're looking for 80 to 100days for your earlies and your
(14:52):
second earlies and 100 to kindof 120 days for your main crops.
But that is very much a guide.
Sometimes, if you get kind ofhit hit, kind of perfect weather
conditions.
So if the potato hits theground during warm, warm enough
temperatures, which in mostcases it did this year, and then
it gets good, warm temperaturesand adequate amounts of
moisture all the way through,your harvest interval will be at
(15:16):
the lower end of that scale, soyou can harvest quite quickly
or quicker than in other years.
So when are your potatoes ready?
Well, they're ready.
When they're ready.
Just have a look.
I know that sounds a little bitsilly, but have a look.
Um, I know that sounds a littlebit silly, but have a look at
them, see you know where.
What's under them is there adecent amount of potatoes?
Is the size of the potatoes.
(15:39):
Are you happy with that?
If the foliage is still greenup on top and still growing and
vibrant up on top, then they'llstill continue to fill out.
If it's not, and they'restarting to wither back and the
potatoes underneath are at anadequate size, then the plant
has just ran its natural lifecycle and they're ready to be
harvested.
And that's a good indication ofwhen to harvest and the guide
(16:04):
of 80 to 100 days and so on.
That's a typical in a normalseason and that's roughly what
it's going to be, but in somecases, if everything goes
perfectly, it can be 70.
If everything was like lastyear where you had a really,
really cold and wet spring and alot of you know a lot of plate
(16:24):
of crops just kind of sat andstagnated a little bit, then it
could be like 110 days or 115days for your earlys or
secondaries.
You know that that's just theway it can be.
So the potatoes are ready toharvest when they're ready to
harvest and the foliage up ontop will tell you that there's
nothing left to give here andthis is the best we're going to
get, and then you harvest themand enjoy them and that's that's
(16:45):
the thing.
For onions it's kind of the samething I would, depending on the
soil, so like if you've theright, the right soil conditions
, they should be growing.
If there's too much nitrogen,you'll end up with a big fat um
neck on the onion and a big, abig kind of fat, uh bulky stock
(17:08):
coming off it.
You don't really want that.
So what you want is the onionto be bulking out but the stem
itself to, you know, to berelatively, relatively big, but
not a big bulging one.
If there's too much nitrogen,that's what you'll get.
You'll get more leaf growth andless sort of bulb fill out, but
(17:28):
in when to harvest basically ifthey're grown in the right side
conditions, you'll see at acertain point in time the top
leaves will have to undertingyou'll have a good size bulb
underneath.
The foliage will kind of fallover and as soon as they do that
they're ready to harvest.
You're not going to get muchmore of a fill out into your,
into the bulb at that stage.
(17:50):
So harvest them, don't do toomuch cleaning, just lift them
out of the ground, put themsomewhere where the where the
leaves can dry out.
So allow them to get a bit ofsun, a bit of wind across them,
allow them to dry out and thenstore them in a dark, cool place
.
And again, when you're puttingthem into that cool, dark place,
don't do too much cleaning onthem, you know.
Don't go pulling off, you know,stem or roots or cutting off
(18:14):
roots or anything like that,because all of those cuts that
you're going to make are peelingoff outer leaves, because
that's going to allowopportunities for for rot to
develop.
So bunch them up, not too muchcleaning, not too much cutting
or preparing on them, tie themup, put them into a dry, cool
place and then, as you'reharvesting or as you're, as
(18:34):
you're using these over thecoming months, just keep
checking them, keep give them alittle bit, you know, squeeze
them.
If there's any that arestarting to feel a little bit
soft, use up them.
And the ones that are really,really strong and hard, just
leave them and and do them later.
So that's kind of just a way tokeep on top of it, and then
you'll have almost no waste.
You'll have be able to get afull, full crop from the same
(18:57):
more or less goes for garlic.
You're looking for when is itready to harvest?
You're looking for that bigsize.
You're looking for the, theleaves, to start changing color.
They're going to tell you that.
You know.
There's nothing more I can dohere.
The bulb has fully formed, andthen again the same process dry
them, don't do too much cleaning, don't damage them, and then
you'll have a really, reallygood harvest.
(19:20):
When I'm talking about theseharvests, that at this stage
most people's vegetable beds aregoing to be fairly full, I know
mine certainly are a few gaps afew gaps.
I haven't harvested outsideonions yet.
I've harvested inside onionsand brilliant crop, again from
polytunnel, same with garlic,but I haven't harvested outside
onions yet.
And but in a couple of weekstime the onions will be
(19:43):
definitely ready, they'll becoming out.
I'll be definitely taking out,secondarily, potatoes, and so
there's three beds that I knoware going to be freed up.
So with that in mind, I have aneye on what's going to be going
back into those beds straightaway.
Things like leeks can go backin there and they'll give you a
winter, winter and early springharvest there.
(20:05):
So that's, you know.
You're looking at your beds now.
They might be full, but just belooking a few weeks down the
road, down the road, and that'show you get your your continuity
.
So for me here, as I say, acouple of beds are definitely
going to be freed up in a coupleweeks time and straight away,
as soon as you know potatoescome out, for example, I'm going
to get leaks back in there andthat's that's going to help with
(20:28):
having some continuity.
Um, so, yeah, that's that's kindof the seed sowing guide and
that's kind of what's on theagenda for the month.
Um, in in a another, anothermonth or two, we will look at
perennial sowing, again,brilliant time to year coming
into the autumn.
So we will look at that.
But, and and next month we willdo another seed sowing guide
(20:51):
for august.
You know, in terms of thevegetable garden and it is
getting smaller, august will besmaller again, but there's still
bits and pieces that we can sewon.
That will give us thislongevity and this will give us
this, I suppose, extension ofour harvesting, which is what
we're all looking for.
As I said before, we have thisspace.
We might as well utilize it asbest we can.
(21:12):
And, yeah, that's, that's thethe seed sowing guide, and next
week's episode is a reallyinteresting episode and it's a
listener question.
So it's a listener, keeno'reilly, who's listening to the
podcast for a little over ayear.
He's in his garden for the lastkind of two years and he's
found the podcast in the lastyear and getting great benefit
(21:32):
from it.
And next week's next week'sepisode is all about homemade
fertilizers and it's a questionfrom a listener.
When I mentioned it on thepodcast a few weeks ago for you
listeners to get in touch, youknow to send me messages, loads
of people got in touch oninstagram, emailed me on info at
mastermygardencom.
Please continue to do that.
(21:52):
It's great to hear from people.
Several of of the listeners Ihaven't, you know, heard from
before, like keen and he's youknow the episode and question
next week but always delightedto hear from people.
Uh, you know to to have to knowwho who's listening, where
they're listening from, to heara little bit about their story,
their garden or how the podcastis helping or what maybe future
(22:15):
content might help within the,within their gardens.
That's the whole idea of it.
And, yeah, as I said, loads ofpeople got in touch and continue
to get in touch.
Please.
The the more people.
The more people know about thepodcast, share it whatever you
can.
Anyone watching on YouTube justlike and subscribe.
Please Share the episode.
(22:36):
Share it on your stories.
Anyone that's active on any ofthe social medias, please do
tell people about it.
Share it, and the more peoplehear about it the better.
And that's been this week'sepisode.
Thanks for listening Until thenext time.
Happy gardening you.
how's it going, everybody, and welcome to
episode 283, master, my gardenpodcast.
Now, this week's episode is theusual one that we do at the
start of the month.
Now, I realized june's one wasslightly late, but on the first
friday of every month we do aseed sowing guide for the month
ahead.
And, yeah, this proves to bereally, really popular episodes,
because it gives people a sortof a reminder or sort of keeps
(00:37):
to the front of their mind whatthey can sow in that month, or
what's suitable to sow.
And, you know, as we enter July, the list is getting quite
small.
Now, you know, we've gone fromthe month of May, I suppose,
with the most possibilities forsowing seed, and as we progress
through June and into July, thatlist gets smaller.
Still useful to do this, though, because it's the continuation
(01:04):
of sowing that makes sure we dohave crops as we get, you know,
into the back end of the yearand even through until next year
.
So, while it's not the, youknow, you know in in most
people's minds, it's not the,the sort of main sowing period,
and it's certainly not it's thetime that actually gives you the
most benefit.
(01:24):
By sticking to, you know, akind of a monthly sowing guide,
you can ensure that you havesort of continuity of your crops
.
As I say, that list is gettingsmaller, but it is certainly.
It is certainly still worthsowing and continue to sow
during this month, the, thegarden itself.
(01:45):
The growth has been phenomenal,while all of Europe, I think, is
getting caked with sunshine andreally dry spells and quite
high temperatures.
Speaking to somebody in Francethis week and they're struggling
, to be honest, it's sometemperatures into high 30s in
degrees Celsius, the UK againspeaking to someone there last
(02:08):
week and they're finding thatthings are just burning up.
It has been dry and has beendry for a long period of time.
Here we are still getting, youknow, a good mix of showers,
good mix of showers and, andwhile it's not raining
(02:28):
constantly, we're definitely notgetting, you know, the same
levels of sunshine that they areacross the water, and so growth
is still phenomenal.
You know, everything is reallyreally growing strongly at the
moment.
All the vegetables are growingreally, really well.
They're, you know, things arefilling out their the likes of
potatoes and onions.
They're growing and expandingand getting bigger and, from a
(02:51):
veg perspective, things aregrowing really really well in
the polytunnel.
Tomatoes are doing really welland just just at the point of
harvesting, or starting toharvest, the first few harvests
will be small, but there's a fewred ones starting to come and
that's that's obviously the bigexcitement, and that's, you know
that, um, probably a few weeksahead of last year, so it is,
(03:14):
you know, in terms of growth, ithas been a really, really good
season so far.
It is, you know, as I say,we're still getting showers here
and there.
Just today here we've had norain, but I was driving earlier
on, I was 20 minutes away andthe rain that fell in the space
of 10 or 15 minutes was justphenomenal.
(03:34):
Now, it was the sort of rainthat fell so heavy.
It was probably not ideal, itwas going to run off, but we, we
we still do have very, verygood growth levels because of
these high temperatures andbecause of, you know, relatively
decent water levels or ormoisture levels within the soil,
and that in itself brings sortof other potential problems
(03:58):
which we'll kind of touch on atthe end.
But for now, the the seed sowingguide.
So let's get into it.
I suppose, and what you'relooking at again this month is
we have the usual successionalsowing crops and these are.
These are the ones, as I'vesaid before, they'll repeat on
every single month and they'rethe kind of ones that you do
(04:20):
need to continue sowing becausethey'll you'll use them quite
quickly typically, and they'realso ones that will run to seed
quite quickly, so you're notgoing to get long periods of
time out of it.
So you do kind of need to besowing them every month if you
want to continue to fresh,freshly harvest some of these
crops, and so what we're lookingat there is spring onion.
A spring onion is one that wecan continue to sow and, for any
(04:42):
of you that listen to podcastsfor a while, it's on the list
every month and then, as we getlater on in the year, when
there's no possibility of themsort of getting too strong, too
quick, I'll do a huge sowing.
At that stage, you know, muchbigger than I would do on a
monthly basis, and because thegrowth levels are slowing down,
(05:03):
you'll be able to harvest forlonger periods of time.
So we're not there yet, so I'lljust do a standard sowing this
month.
But spring onion is is onethat's regular on.
That's on it every month.
For me, anyway, I would sowevery month.
The next one is spinach and youdo need to kind of sow this
regularly as well, especiallythis time of year, because what
ends up happening is it'srunning to seed quite quickly.
(05:23):
So you're only getting, youknow, a few weeks harvest and
then it's sort of looking tobolt and that happens very, very
quickly, regardless of whetherit's inside or outside.
You get a little bit longeroutside, but the fact that
you're able to continue sowingthat means that you will
continue to have fresh spinachto harvest.
Radish is the same again, goingto run to seed quite quickly at
(05:45):
this time of the year.
So the fact that you can sowevery month is a big, big help.
Lettuces were probably you knowthis is a can be a tricky month
for lettuce because if you getreally high temperatures,
lettuce won't germinate, kind ofabove 20 degrees.
So at this stage it can beactually tricky and you might
wonder why seeds haven'tgerminated if especially if
(06:07):
you're, if you have them in apolytunnel or a greenhouse it's,
you know, if it's above 20degrees that they don't
germinate and they'll just sitthere.
So just watch out for that.
You can direct sow, certainlyat this stage of the year.
That will help.
Sometimes they can get a littlebit hotter in seed trays, you
know they can get.
The heat can be a bit moreconcentrated, they can dry out
(06:28):
easier.
But if you direct, sow them,you know, either in the, in the
greenhouse or outside, youshould have good results.
But continue to sow lettuce andwe'll switch varieties as we
move a little bit furtherthrough the year.
But for now you're on yournormal, all your normal, all
your normal varieties you canstill sow away.
You will start to introduce atthis stage some of the autumn
leaves, things like you know,the winter salads, the mezuna,
(06:53):
clitona, some of those willstart to introduce these later
in the month and there they willbecome more regular as we move
through august and intoseptember, and they're the ones
that will give you this, youknow, bridge this gap at the
back end of the year, when thetemperatures start to drop and
when we start to move to morewinter-like conditions later on
in the year.
These are the ones that willcontinue to give you these
(07:16):
winter salads that we all likeat that time of the year.
Next one that you can sow atthis stage is cress.
Again, it's a regular one thatwe'd sow and you can sow all of
the herbs as well.
So coriander, again, I'vementioned before.
That will kind of be a repeat.
So because again it runs, runsthe seed quite quickly, but then
things like dill, sherville,parsleys, all of those can be
(07:36):
sowed.
Now you know, rosemary, any,anything, any of the herbs
really can be sown now.
Then, in terms of you knowbrassicas, we're starting to get
to the point where we won't sowit is anymore.
Now for the month of july.
I still think it's worked.
Some, you know, somepublications and some seed
packets will tell you it's toolate.
(07:57):
I still think at this stage ofthe year it is worth doing a
sowing of these.
So what am I talking about?
About here, the likes ofCalabrese.
Again, you will be switching tosort of autumn and winter
varieties, if possible Cabbageyou know Savoy's and winter
cabbage.
Technically speaking, it is alittle bit late in terms of
getting you know your harvest atthe typical time, but you'll
(08:21):
still get a harvest.
It might be just into kind ofMarch time of next year, so
it'll be slightly slower to cometo maturity, but I still think
it's worthwhile doing anothersowing it does.
The same goes for purple sproutand broccoli.
Again, all the seed packetswill say that you should have
this done, there's no morechance to sow.
But I still think again you canget a sowing done now.
(08:43):
Allow the plants to grow onthrough august and september,
october.
Obviously growth will stop.
Then you start to get throughjanuary, february.
You're unlikely to have anyharvest unless we've a really
grotty winter, which you know wetypically won't but we could
have.
But either way is, at somepoint in time you'll get a flush
of growth, typically throughway is, at some point in time
you'll get a flush of growth,typically through March and at
(09:04):
that point in time you should beable to get a bit of a harvest
off, which will be late now.
It's touch and go at this stage,but those things are worth
doing if you have the space.
So I would definitely.
I would definitely try a sowingof those.
One that's definitely okay tosow is kale.
You can sow kale away thismonth, no problem at all.
Another one that'll be on thelast sowing this month.
(09:24):
Again, technically you shouldhave it done in June.
But beetroot, I will do asowing in the polytunnel,
probably at the end of the month, and just give it a sowing.
At that stage you'll just get alittle bit of germination.
There won't a lot happen untilprobably later on in the year,
and then we should start to seelittle baby beets later in the
(09:44):
year and, and you know, it'salways there's always with with
a greenhouse or even outside attimes if the weather plays ball.
Some of these sowings, whilebreaking the rules a little bit,
they do give you theopportunity to, you know, do
things that, as I say, the, thebook or the the back of the
packets may say is not possible.
So just if you have the space,why not?
(10:06):
Then pak choi can, can be.
So this month.
Charred is another one again.
You don't need to sow charredon a regular basis but you can
do a sewing of it, especiallygood to put into a greenhouse at
this stage.
Once you do your sewing of itespecially good to put into a
greenhouse at this stage onceyou do your sowing, then plant
out into the, into thegreenhouse and you'll have
charred kind of all winter andagain right through until next
(10:29):
spring and into early nextsummer.
So not again, not not one thatyou can technically sow at this
stage, going by the rules, butit will work.
French beans is another onethere that would fall into that.
It's again a little bit late interms of, you know, in terms of
sowing, but they're going togerminate so quickly.
(10:50):
If you've got good quality seed, you'll sow those.
You will be planting them outin probably two weeks time.
You should be able to plant outin two weeks time and then,
once they get into the ground,they will grow really, really
fast and you should be able toget a harvest a good harvest,
you know, in a couple of monthstime off those.
So some of those ones, you knowthe conventional wisdom will
(11:14):
say don't sow these, but they'redefinitely worth a shot.
So the ones that I'm talkingabout here are, you know, some
of the calabrese, purple sprout,broccoli, cabbages, french
beans, beetroot, and they areall worth a shot at this stage,
you know.
You know inside, inside oroutside, they're worth, they're
worth a shot.
The other thing that is sort ofon the agenda and I mentioned it
(11:35):
just in relation to the weatheris the in the UK, I know it's
been very dry, but here it'sbeen.
We're getting these periods ofwet, so slugs can become an
issue.
I actually don't have any issueat the minute touch wood with
with any slugs.
So no issues from slugs up frommy point of view, but just be
(11:56):
vigilant of that over the comingweeks.
You know we've we spoke aboutkind of the husbandry things
that you can do.
Root fly is definitelysomething to watch out for.
If you, you know, if you'regrowing carrots or that, try not
to do too much tinning on them.
The less tinning you do, thebetter.
In terms of prevention ofcarrot root fly, use bio netting
(12:17):
or enviro mesh, you know, wherepossible.
Then things like aphids, justkeep an eye out for those,
particularly on salads.
Again, I'm not having any issueswith with aphids at the moment,
or caterpillars, which is thenext one that I was going to
mention, the I have an abundanceof birds in the garden at the
moment.
There was, you know, definitelyin terms of having those birds,
(12:41):
the likes of the, the blue titsand so on.
They are really, really doingtheir job in terms of
caterpillars and aphids in thegarden.
So I've mentioned it before thelikes of wildflower meadows,
the likes of nesting boxes, allof those things that bring
biodiversity into the garden.
They all help and they helpfrom a practical gardening
(13:02):
perspective as well.
You know, sometimes we talkabout these in a kind of a nice
way that you know it's good toencourage in wildlife, but there
is practical benefits and Ithink that's you know, from a
gardener's point of view.
If you're able to show thosepractical benefits and prove
those practical benefits, thenit's of massive, massive benefit
to you as a gardener to havethese creatures, to bring in
(13:25):
these, I suppose, allies in thegarden to fight against your
aphids, your caterpillars, yourslugs and so on.
So yeah, those things some ofyou will be having issues with
them at the moment.
Keep an eye out for them, bevigilant.
The next thing is blight, andthere seems to be a huge amount
of confusion around blight.
We mentioned it a couple ofweeks ago.
There was a blight warning onthe on the weather here in
(13:47):
Ireland, and that you know.
That prompts people to startworrying at this stage, though.
A lot of airdees, a lot ofsecond airdees.
You will start to see naturaldying back of the leaves at this
stage, and sometimes people getconfused as to is this blight
or what is this?
(14:09):
And nine times out of 10, justlooking in the Facebook groups
everyone says oh, it's blight,it's blight.
You have to do this and youhave to do that Sometimes when
you're talking about earlies andsecond earlies, given that
we've had a really, reallygrotty spring.
They've reached their potential.
Natural thing at this stage isfor the foliage to die back, and
(14:30):
so just be aware of that.
And the other question thatpeople ask is when are your
potatoes ready?
And the same goes for onions,actually we might talk about
that in a minute.
But when are the potatoes readyto harvest?
Well, it's very straightforwardreally.
You know there is x amount ofdays in a typical typically.
So you're looking for 80 to 100days for your earlies and your
(14:52):
second earlies and 100 to kindof 120 days for your main crops.
But that is very much a guide.
Sometimes, if you get kind ofhit hit, kind of perfect weather
conditions.
So if the potato hits theground during warm, warm enough
temperatures, which in mostcases it did this year, and then
it gets good, warm temperaturesand adequate amounts of
moisture all the way through,your harvest interval will be at
(15:16):
the lower end of that scale, soyou can harvest quite quickly
or quicker than in other years.
So when are your potatoes ready?
Well, they're ready.
When they're ready.
Just have a look.
I know that sounds a little bitsilly, but have a look.
Um, I know that sounds a littlebit silly, but have a look at
them, see you know where.
What's under them is there adecent amount of potatoes?
Is the size of the potatoes.
(15:39):
Are you happy with that?
If the foliage is still greenup on top and still growing and
vibrant up on top, then they'llstill continue to fill out.
If it's not, and they'restarting to wither back and the
potatoes underneath are at anadequate size, then the plant
has just ran its natural lifecycle and they're ready to be
harvested.
And that's a good indication ofwhen to harvest and the guide
(16:04):
of 80 to 100 days and so on.
That's a typical in a normalseason and that's roughly what
it's going to be, but in somecases, if everything goes
perfectly, it can be 70.
If everything was like lastyear where you had a really,
really cold and wet spring and alot of you know a lot of plate
(16:24):
of crops just kind of sat andstagnated a little bit, then it
could be like 110 days or 115days for your earlys or
secondaries.
You know that that's just theway it can be.
So the potatoes are ready toharvest when they're ready to
harvest and the foliage up ontop will tell you that there's
nothing left to give here andthis is the best we're going to
get, and then you harvest themand enjoy them and that's that's
(16:45):
the thing.
For onions it's kind of the samething I would, depending on the
soil, so like if you've theright, the right soil conditions
, they should be growing.
If there's too much nitrogen,you'll end up with a big fat um
neck on the onion and a big, abig kind of fat, uh bulky stock
(17:08):
coming off it.
You don't really want that.
So what you want is the onionto be bulking out but the stem
itself to, you know, to berelatively, relatively big, but
not a big bulging one.
If there's too much nitrogen,that's what you'll get.
You'll get more leaf growth andless sort of bulb fill out, but
(17:28):
in when to harvest basically ifthey're grown in the right side
conditions, you'll see at acertain point in time the top
leaves will have to undertingyou'll have a good size bulb
underneath.
The foliage will kind of fallover and as soon as they do that
they're ready to harvest.
You're not going to get muchmore of a fill out into your,
into the bulb at that stage.
(17:50):
So harvest them, don't do toomuch cleaning, just lift them
out of the ground, put themsomewhere where the where the
leaves can dry out.
So allow them to get a bit ofsun, a bit of wind across them,
allow them to dry out and thenstore them in a dark, cool place
.
And again, when you're puttingthem into that cool, dark place,
don't do too much cleaning onthem, you know.
Don't go pulling off, you know,stem or roots or cutting off
(18:14):
roots or anything like that,because all of those cuts that
you're going to make are peelingoff outer leaves, because
that's going to allowopportunities for for rot to
develop.
So bunch them up, not too muchcleaning, not too much cutting
or preparing on them, tie themup, put them into a dry, cool
place and then, as you'reharvesting or as you're, as
(18:34):
you're using these over thecoming months, just keep
checking them, keep give them alittle bit, you know, squeeze
them.
If there's any that arestarting to feel a little bit
soft, use up them.
And the ones that are really,really strong and hard, just
leave them and and do them later.
So that's kind of just a way tokeep on top of it, and then
you'll have almost no waste.
You'll have be able to get afull, full crop from the same
(18:57):
more or less goes for garlic.
You're looking for when is itready to harvest?
You're looking for that bigsize.
You're looking for the, theleaves, to start changing color.
They're going to tell you that.
You know.
There's nothing more I can dohere.
The bulb has fully formed, andthen again the same process dry
them, don't do too much cleaning, don't damage them, and then
you'll have a really, reallygood harvest.
(19:20):
When I'm talking about theseharvests, that at this stage
most people's vegetable beds aregoing to be fairly full, I know
mine certainly are a few gaps afew gaps.
I haven't harvested outsideonions yet.
I've harvested inside onionsand brilliant crop, again from
polytunnel, same with garlic,but I haven't harvested outside
onions yet.
And but in a couple of weekstime the onions will be
(19:43):
definitely ready, they'll becoming out.
I'll be definitely taking out,secondarily, potatoes, and so
there's three beds that I knoware going to be freed up.
So with that in mind, I have aneye on what's going to be going
back into those beds straightaway.
Things like leeks can go backin there and they'll give you a
winter, winter and early springharvest there.
(20:05):
So that's, you know.
You're looking at your beds now.
They might be full, but just belooking a few weeks down the
road, down the road, and that'show you get your your continuity
.
So for me here, as I say, acouple of beds are definitely
going to be freed up in a coupleweeks time and straight away,
as soon as you know potatoescome out, for example, I'm going
to get leaks back in there andthat's that's going to help with
(20:28):
having some continuity.
Um, so, yeah, that's that's kindof the seed sowing guide and
that's kind of what's on theagenda for the month.
Um, in in a another, anothermonth or two, we will look at
perennial sowing, again,brilliant time to year coming
into the autumn.
So we will look at that.
But, and and next month we willdo another seed sowing guide
(20:51):
for august.
You know, in terms of thevegetable garden and it is
getting smaller, august will besmaller again, but there's still
bits and pieces that we can sewon.
That will give us thislongevity and this will give us
this, I suppose, extension ofour harvesting, which is what
we're all looking for.
As I said before, we have thisspace.
We might as well utilize it asbest we can.
(21:12):
And, yeah, that's, that's thethe seed sowing guide, and next
week's episode is a reallyinteresting episode and it's a
listener question.
So it's a listener, keeno'reilly, who's listening to the
podcast for a little over ayear.
He's in his garden for the lastkind of two years and he's
found the podcast in the lastyear and getting great benefit
(21:32):
from it.
And next week's next week'sepisode is all about homemade
fertilizers and it's a questionfrom a listener.
When I mentioned it on thepodcast a few weeks ago for you
listeners to get in touch, youknow to send me messages, loads
of people got in touch oninstagram, emailed me on info at
mastermygardencom.
Please continue to do that.
(21:52):
It's great to hear from people.
Several of of the listeners Ihaven't, you know, heard from
before, like keen and he's youknow the episode and question
next week but always delightedto hear from people.
Uh, you know to to have to knowwho who's listening, where
they're listening from, to heara little bit about their story,
their garden or how the podcastis helping or what maybe future
(22:15):
content might help within the,within their gardens.
That's the whole idea of it.
And, yeah, as I said, loads ofpeople got in touch and continue
to get in touch.
Please.
The the more people.
The more people know about thepodcast, share it whatever you
can.
Anyone watching on YouTube justlike and subscribe.
Please Share the episode.
(22:36):
Share it on your stories.
Anyone that's active on any ofthe social medias, please do
tell people about it.
Share it, and the more peoplehear about it the better.
And that's been this week'sepisode.
Thanks for listening Until thenext time.
Happy gardening you.
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