July, Harvest in Full Swing

July is harvest month — but don’t stop sowing yet. A little planning now means the garden keeps producing well past summer.

Sow now (outdoors)

Beetroot, carrots, and salad leaves for autumn harvests. Spring cabbage for next year. Swede if you haven’t already. Turnips for a quick autumn crop.

Plant out

Leeks, if you haven’t already. Brassica seedlings destined for autumn/winter harvest.

Harvest

This is the big one: courgettes (daily, or they’ll become marrows overnight), tomatoes as they ripen, beans, peas, potatoes, soft fruit, and the first sweetcorn in warmer areas.

Prune

Summer-fruiting raspberries after cropping. Wisteria’s summer prune. Trim lavender after flowering to keep it compact.

General jobs

Watering is the priority — early morning or evening, aimed at the roots rather than the leaves. Feed hungry crops like tomatoes and courgettes weekly. Keep picking to keep plants producing; anything left to over-mature slows the whole plant down. Raise the mower’s blade height on the lawn through the driest weeks — a longer blade shades the soil and keeps it greener than a close cut does. And trim back any alpines once their main flowering flush is over, to keep growth compact.

This weekend

Check under courgette leaves — it’s astonishingly easy to miss one for three days and find a marrow. Little and often beats a big harvest haul.

Warmer regions in the South may be a week or two ahead on ripening; the North, Scotland, and Northern Ireland slightly behind.