July Garden Guide
July... Brrr! Most frosts on Aotea take place this month. A great time to pore over seed catalogues, and start planning the next season as all optimistic gardeners do....
In the Vege Garden
If you are desperate to get something in the garden, and you have everything going for you, as in great drainage, all day sun and a north facing slope you could try planting something now. But tempting as it is to try to sow and get plants in super early, our experience is that they usually take a long time to get going, and that by being patient, later plantings will overtake those planted too early.
Also, planting in the cold risks plants bolting (going to flower) when the weather warms up.
Sow (in the greenhouse) for planting in August:
Banana shallots (latest in August)
Brassicas (Asian greens like pak choy, as well as cabbage, cauliflower, kale, and broccoli)
Lettuce (cool-season varieties such as Cos, Tom Thumb and Little Gem)
Parsley (soak for 24 hours before sowing)
Flowers for beneficial insects: alyssum, hollyhocks, sweet peas for flowers, violas, stock, calendula
Direct Sow:
The soil is usually at its coldest and wettest now, so most veg will sulk and not do much if directly sown.
Exceptions are sugar snap and snow peas. You can plant them directly or pre-sprout them by lying them on a damp tea towel, and once the roots start to appear, plant them into a well-drained, sunny part of the garden. Or sow into seed trays and plan out when their little shoots appear. Prepare the garden space with a climbing frame for climbing peas. PROTECT FROM BIRDS! And slugs and snails.
Our favourite variety: Bohemian Sugarsnaps: very vigorous, climbing up to 2 metres, and extremely productive over 2-3 months.
Coriander can be soaked and directly sown as well.
Plant:
Strawberry Plants: Time to plant new plants: don’t leave it too late! They need time to build up a leafy crown that can then support a good crop of yummy berries! May is the ideal time but you can plant them as late as July. Either use healthy plantlets from runners in your garden or a friend’s, or ask on our Facebook group page!
Remove all flowers on all your new and one-year old strawberry plants right through to end of August. This lets them put all their resources into growing a robust healthy plant that will fruit prolifically.
Our Strawberry Growing Guide is an in-depth guide to have healthy productive strawberry beds.
Potatoes (well sprouted and with frost protection)
Globe artichokes (seedlings)
Jerusalem artichoke (dormant tubers)
Rhubarb
Asparagus crowns
Yacon
Lettuce (cool-season varieties such as Cos, Little Gem, Tom Thumb, Perella Montpellier)
Flowers for beneficial insects: alyssum, sweet peas for flowers, violas, stock, calendula
Watch out for:
Slugs and snails
Birds after new seedlings
Frost! Keep an eye on weather forecasts and protect susceptible plants: potatoes, bananas and tamarillos!
In ongoing wet weather, brassicas can develop downy mildew- purple/grey lesions that eventually spread and eventually kill off the leaves. Break off affected leaves and feed to chooks or hot compost.
Feeding the Soil:
Where you have harvested heavy-feeding winter crops such as cabbages and caulis, dig in some compost/vermicast
Planning a New Garden?
It can be daunting thinking about starting a new garden, especially if the area you are looking at is infested with kikuyu. A very successful method is to tarp new garden areas with strong black plastic, well weighted down. It will need at least four months over the cool winter/spring temperatures to kill kikuyu. Tarp in July and the area can be worked in November. (Tarping in summer heat works alot faster.)
Harvesting:
Cut cabbages from the stem and cut a cross into the stump- four baby cabbages will grow and they will be ready in about 8 weeks.
When harvesting brocolli, leave a few leaf nodes on the fat stem supporting the brocolli head, they will eventually sprout new florets for a second and third crop.
Cut older silver beet leaves first, they will get leaf spot in wet weather. If they already have leaf spot, remove those leaves, feed to chooks.
In the Orchard
Plant temperate fruit trees (stone, pip and citrus):
prep the soil well
pay special attention to giving trees adequate space in our humid climate 5m for stonefruit, 3-5 m for pip fruit depending on rootstock, 2-3 m for citrus depending on variety
ideally have a pile of woody mulch on hand to spread around the base of the tree - this will encourage benefical fungi to colonise the roots.
Prune fruit trees on a dry day
prune pip and stone fruit, starting with the stonefruit, as they are the first to flower
plenty of time before apples break leaf so leave them til last
clean up and burn/hot compost any mummified fruit and prunings
use clean, sharp tools
Other tasks
Divide and replant rhubarb (every 2-3 years)
Lift your dahlia tubers if the growth has completely died back, especially if you have wet soil, to stop them from rotting. Store in sawdust/potting mix.
If you have bare areas of the garden that won't be needed for a few months, protect the soil and either cover them with mulch or even better sow a green manure of field peas and/or tick beans which don’t mind the cold.
Start planning your summer garden! Sort out your seeds, borrow books from the library, go to workshops, learn online and dream!
