- Hello, and a very warm welcome back to the garden.
Now it might be July,
but it doesn't mean that the sowing season is over.
In fact, it is far from over.
And I've been inspired by my friend Liz Zorab,
who did a fantastic video the other year
about what crops to sow in July.
By sharing with you what I think, in my personal opinion,
are the 10 most productive crops
that you can sow this month.
So I'm just going through this Kohlrabi here
and getting rid of the lower yellow leaves
just to keep it nice and healthy.
And Kohlrabi is in fact, the first crop.
So this video's about if you growing
in primarily zone seven and zones eight.
And Kohlrabi is one of those crops that you can sow
over the next two-to-three weeks.
This is Purple Delicacy here, by far my favorite variety.
You can either sow them direct,
but what I prefer to do is just start them off
in a module seed tray like this; thin to one plant per cell.
And then when they're about, I don't know,
five-to-seven centimeters,
or two-to-three inches tall,
transplant them out into their final growing position.
And you can grow these quite close
and they're really productive, fast-maturing,
and add a nice variety of color to your autumn garden.
The second crop is actually my personal favorite crop
to sow in July,
because it's such a staple for me
up until around Christmas Time.
'Cause it stores in the ground where you plant it
up around Christmas, and that is beetroot.
I've got three rows here.
This is beetroot Boltardy of multisown clumps.
So that's four-to-six plants on average,
that are all growing.
And you can direct sow beetroot,
you'll just need to thin them out.
Multi-sowing is easier because thinning is super simple
when they're grown in modules.
You transplant them out and you have that instant impact.
So over the next week or two,
maybe start a couple of module trays full
of multi-sowing beetroots.
And this is something you can start harvesting
around September onwards.
And the other thing is when they're growing,
you can use the leaves and add these into your salads.
The next crop is something
that I love having in the garden so much,
because it looks different to a lot of the other things
that I'm growing.
And it's fennel.
You can use these leaves as garnishes,
you can eat these raw, chop them into salads,
or you can let them bulb and you can do all sorts of things.
Roasted funnel is one of my favorites.
Another thing I like to do as well,
is to do a simple pickled fennel.
And in terms of starting these,
over the next two weeks is prime time.
Fennel doesn't actually really enjoy a hot weather.
So if you start them in modules
over the next couple of weeks
and you transplant them two weeks later,
so just before August,
that means that the temperatures are beginning to cool,
and they're going to enjoy it and flourish and thrive,
and give you a really fantastic harvest
all through autumn and even into early winter.
Another crop that prefers cooler weather is Swiss chard.
So I grew Bright Lights here,
which is just a mix of different varieties
of different colors.
(chard crunches)
For example, I got a nice reddy-pinky variety here,
and this is more of a white beet variety.
And Swiss chard is great for sowing
after the heat of summer.
So anywhere from mid-July onwards.
I started this off early because even when it bolts
you can still eat these leaves.
These are go into seed, but it doesn't matter.
I just wanted something nice and colorful to add to salads.
And I've still got a very respectable harvest.
But if you want a truly good Swiss chard harvest,
start them around the end of the first week,
into the second and third week of July.
I prefer to start them off in modules
and then transplant them.
And then you're gonna get crops right into autumn,
and you can leave them in the ground, protect the crowns,
just mulch them with a bit of compost or something.
And then come spring,
they're going to send up a flourish of new growth.
So you're gonna have a spring greens in effect,
that you can enjoy in during the hungry gap.
So March, April, May,
before they then eventually run to seed.
Another plant worthy of the top 10 list is kale.
Now you might not know it.
I've got seven different varieties of kale in front of me.
Now usually you start off kale in April or May,
and then transplant it in June and July.
But there's no stopping you starting off kale in early July,
growing them on, then growing them on further in pots.
And once things like your tomatoes are cleared out
from your undercover growing space,
such as the solar tunnel behind me,
you can then transplant the kale
into undercover growing space,
and grow them undercover through winter.
Which means you're going to get a really nice harvest
from that space.
And you're going to help make that space,
nice and productive.
One of the most important crops to sow in July
is actually your winter radish.
Winter radish tends to be a lot more productive
than say your spring and summer radish.
And the other benefit is it can store in the ground
usually until January and February.
That's when we were harvesting ours.
So anything like a Black Russian radish
or something like Daikon radish,
which is what I'm sitting next to at the moment.
I'm not really gonna dare pull out another plant,
but the roots are seriously getting really deep,
so I'm getting excited about that.
Now with winter radish, you can start them off in modules.
But for me, what I prefer to do,
is just sow them thinly,
directly where they going to grow, thin them out if needed.
And I think that's how they produce the best quality roots.
As I'm sitting almost on this squeaky onion,
I'm next to the next crop.
And I'm cheating a bit, it's not one crop,
it's a triplet of crops,
and they all come under one umbrella:
and there's an annual herbs.
Which is something I'm spending a lot of time
and dedicating a bit more space this year in growing.
In front of me here, I've got Confetti Coriander.
Never grown that before, easily confused with Dill.
And then more easily distinguished is this parsley here.
And these are things, I've got some more dill as well.
You can see I'm growing tons.
I've got more parsley around here, it's absolutely amazing.
And I've got some caraway hiding around the corner.
But with dill, parsley, coriander,
these actually prefer cooler weathers as well.
Especially things like coriander.
So start them off over the next couple of weeks.
I tend to do modules for parsley and coriander.
Now with dill, it is recommended to sow them direct.
I haven't done that.
There's two salad crops that you can start off side-by-side
that work really well when started in July
and even into early August.
Those of course, are gonna be your lettuce and your spinach.
Things like a spinach Matador are great
because they're more resilient to bolting,
which is something that you really want to go for.
But one of the best ways to prevent issues happening
with bolting is sowing a little bit, little and often.
So even if an earlier crop wants to seed,
you've always got crops coming up
as succession crops to replace them.
And these are things that you can either sow direct,
like here, or you can start them off in modules
and then transplant them at a later date.
If you're growing your winter radishes,
then next to them you might as well grow a load of turnips.
Here we've got Snowball.
I'm just pulling this out.
You can see how beautiful this crop is.
So whether it's varieties like Golden turnips,
Snowball turnip, a Purple Top Milan,
they give you a wide variety of things to try out;
different flavors, different colors.
And the great thing about turnip as well
is that it stores really well in the ground
until January time.
And even though turnips,
if they get a bit woody because of the heat,
they don't really seem to reach
that really woody turnipy-stage
as much during the cooler weather.
So this is something to very much consider
and sow direct.
Now for any turnips
you don't happen to harvest during winter,
you can still leave the roots in, because come spring,
they'll send up a flourish of new growth
and you can actually eat turnip leaves.
You can lightly cook them or choose the younger ones,
the fresher ones, to add into salads for a very mild
and a very pleasant turnipy flavor.
You may be surprised to hear
that potatoes actually make this list.
But it's not your usual potato varieties
that if you plant in July
are just gonna get absolutely obliterated by blight.
It's actually blight-resistant varieties.
So my friend Adam Jones from Adam Yn Yr Ardd,
swears by growing Sarpo Miras for his Christmas crop.
And these are things which I'm currently growing
here in this container, that you can plant
(wheelbarrow bangs)
in containers in say, July and August.
And what ends up happening is you start getting
a load of spuds.
In autumn, you can cut the leaves off
and then it means you can store, say these containers,
in the garage or something.
And then when it comes to time
when you want to harvest them, all you do is go in,
tip out one of your containers,
and you've got fresh potatoes for your Christmas dinner.
This video isn't sponsored,
but I wanted to give a shout out to a seed company
I very much rate created by Fred and Ronja,
who are the creators of Vital Seeds.
And they've got a great offer at the moment.
If you are interested in a seed collection
called the Second Spring.
It includes a few things that I've mentioned,
and a load of other varieties
that you sow in July, August time,
to enjoy those harvests later on this year.
If it sounds like something you're interested in,
there'll be a link down below.
Now at this time of year,
there's actually a surprising amount of change
that's happening in the garden.
You might start having things
like your broad beans coming out, your onions, garlic.
For me today, it was harvesting the potatoes,
the not-so-new, new potatoes that was a great fun,
and I've now got this empty bed,
which I can fill up with particular things.
So as those gaps begin to emerge throughout July and August,
I really hope this video's gonna help you to plan ahead,
think ahead, to start sowing things in modules.
Or to start purchasing seeds that you need
to start filling those gaps and increasing the productivity
of your kitchen garden.
Thank you so much for watching.
If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask me
down below in the comments section,
and I look forward to seeing you again soon.