As high summer kicks in there is still plenty to do on the plot. But make sure you take time out to sit and enjoy the fruits of your labours
July, the month of the slipping sun. With both sunrise and set dropping by around 30 minutes over the coming month, we will lose an hour’s daylight by 31 July. Time, then, to speed up in the vegetable garden. Sow chicories, endives, fennel, fast-growing salads, spinach, radishes, oriental leaves. It’s your last chance to grow peas and beans and beetroot (late carrots can still wait a little).
July is about management: regular watering, maybe my favourite thing (soak not sprinkle is the mantra, though spraying bean flowers is said to help them set); weeding, they’ll likely grow as fast as any stuff you sow; feeding, particularly the needy, greedy crops such as squashes and tomatoes – remembering to pick out tomato side shoots and tips after, say, five trusses, though I don’t always follow my own advice. Pinch out the tips, too, of climbing beans when they reach the top of the support.