(heartfelt music)
- Hello, and a very warm welcome back to the garden.
Today I'm gonna share with you what I think
is the most important summer gardening tip
to ensure you can enjoy a big harvest from your space.
(uplifting music)
So this video is heavily inspired by a video that I saw
on the No-Till Growers YouTube channel
and is actually the thumbnail.
On the thumbnail it said, just keep planting.
And I thought, you know what?
That is the tip of summer.
So the thing about mid-summer onwards
is literally every day you come to the garden,
there's just more and more growth.
So many things are coming through.
This is buckwheats and I've also got chocolate sunflower,
and it is really easy to get caught
by all of this growth, but it's also crunch time
because we're starting to quickly run out of time
where we can put new plants in the ground.
In a way I feel that in July,
I do perhaps the most transplanting
compared to any other month, because in July,
it's actually a very big transitional month.
Firstly, we are out of the hungry gap,
which means we have so much food coming out,
but there's a lot happening on the ground.
These beans will be out within the next week or so,
so this means space appears ready for new plants.
And we can't forget that as gardeners,
we're very much limited by the climate
and so time is running out because if I, say,
sow tomatoes now, there's no way that they'll develop
and ripen in time before the first frosts come.
And so because of the limitations of the climate,
for me now the focus is just keep harvesting,
just keep planting,
and throw a lot of the rules out the window.
My strategy for the rest of July is simple,
and that is to make sure that there isn't
a single spare bit of space in this whole garden.
And I'm gonna be really focusing on making sure
that every single square inch is filled up.
Because at the end of the day,
just having plants in the ground
is really gonna help with soil health,
and if we can eat it, that's an added bonus.
So part of this strategy also covers August,
because we're still harvesting a lot in August obviously
and that's where gaps can emerge.
And the thing about actually sowing seeds in July
in modules ready to transplant in August,
three for example, that I'm really focusing on this year
are gonna be fennel, pak choi, and turnips sown in July,
it means you've got
that kind of three or four week head start.
So as soon as you take some things out in early August,
you can squeeze those in
and still get an extra harvest from the same space.
Because I know that time is kind of against me
for getting new crops in the ground,
there sometimes has to be an element of sacrifice.
This is a parsley here that has just gone crazy
and it's doing the parsley flop.
Every single vegetable might end up doing
some kind of flop I found in this garden.
And I've gotta think between, do I keep both plants in
because it's great for the pollinators
or do I remove one so I can get in extra food
and save a bit more money?
And this is just, there's no right or wrong answer for this.
This is just a kind of a thought or decision
that you should apply in your own space.
One distinct advantage of July and August
is because there's so much growth happening,
it's actually creating micro climates within the garden.
On this side of this Atlantis Brokali,
there's actually quite a nice bit of shade
and this is perfect for growing things like lettuce,
which in the full summer sun is not gonna cope very well
and it runs a risk of bolting or running to seed.
What that also means is if you've got a shady side,
you'll also have a sunny side,
and I've decided to plant a pumpkin here,
which is gonna make the full use of the sun.
And I'm either gonna train it up or down and around
and just along and see if I can grow
any pumpkins in a small space.
Yes, it will confine the pathway a bit,
but I'm willing to sacrifice
a bit of pathway space for some more food.
Another really important thing
to help you enjoy nice harvests,
and I've got the carrots coming in now
which is really exciting,
is to actually think about preserving.
Because what I could do
is I could leave these carrots in here
and they can occupy this space,
or I could harvest them, preserve them,
and then I could sow or plant another crop.
So one of the most effective and delicious ways
of preserving your harvest is actually using fermentation.
There's so many ways that you can apply fermentation
using homegrown produce,
and last year, my colleague Sam and I,
we created a kitchen garden fermentation online course,
and we tried to make it as accessible as possible
to teach you in around 12 lessons, around 12 recipes,
how to start fermenting your produce
and unlock new flavors and new experiences,
and I really hope you enjoy.
So there's a link down below
if you're interested in taking it.
Here's an example of just trying to fill in
as many gaps as possible.
I've got some outdoor cucumbers here,
which we're gonna create a pyramid style frame for these,
but I've got some quinoa plants
that I've got from our other garden projects.
So I'm actually gonna plant these in here
and plant a nice row along the edge of this bed,
just to see what happens.
And if they fail, at least it'll look really cool.
I'm showing you another example here,
I can put in a row of leeks because these are dwarf beans,
and the useful thing about them
is that they're on a single stem,
so they can flop over and away from these leeks.
So I'm gonna put a nice row here.
These are winter giant leeks that I can harvest
and enjoy from around late November onwards.
There's quite a few things happening in this area here,
and I've got some pak choi seedlings,
and this row of direct sown celtuce right at the end,
it didn't germinate.
I'm not sure what happened there,
but it's an opportunity for me to put in
about five different pak choi plants
and then fill this up with a bit more food
and still squeeze in a harvest
before the really cold weather starts to come.
A nice habit to get into is as you are watering
these new plants that you're putting in
and just anything that's growing,
to start adding a little bit
of any kind of liquid amendments that you've been creating.
You've probably seen it
if you've been watching my channel this year,
I've been using a lot of those.
And the reason why is that as plants grow,
they're using nutrients and sometimes they might need
a little bit of a supplement,
especially towards the end of a growing season.
So that's all liquid amendments are,
they're a nice supplement to help you grow food
that tastes amazing and is very healthy
and supports a healthy soil.
And I'll show you an example of feeding cucumbers
at the other site using a nettle feed.
They've basically tripled in growth in about a week.
It was insane.
So here we are in our other garden,
and this is literally cucumber city.
These are just going absolutely nuts.
Every single day we come here
and there's more cucumbers coming out,
and I think the thing that's really helped with this
is actually feeding it with a nettle feed,
and we've been using that regularly over the past weeks
and we've also mulched them with grass clippings,
but they absolutely love it.
And so just adding a little bit of supplemental feed
here and there to if there's any nutrients they're lacking
to make sure that that area is covered,
and you then get really healthy, productive,
high yielding plants like these.
July's a month where you just keep on planting.
You want to get as much food
and enjoyment from your space as possible.
If you're new to growing or you're unsure
about perhaps the best ways to utilize smaller spaces
within your garden, this video, which I made last week,
is gonna give you all of the tips and the strategy
to make sure that you're making the best use
of every single square inch.