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Green Onions
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Park House
Green Onions
July is often one of the hottest months of the year and a great time to sit out and enjoy the fruits of your labour. Keep plants looking good by regularly deadheading and you’ll enjoy a longer display of blooms. Make sure you keep new plants well watered (using grey water where possible), hoe off weeds (which thrive in the sunshine) and give everything a good mulching. Also remember to record your successes and failures to remind you later in the year what was planted where, what needs to be removed and what needs bulking up.
It looks as though this year could be a bumper year in the orchards along the Dart. Last year gave a poor showing after a cold spring but this year’s mild winter and warmest spring for a decade and lots of sunshine should lead to a good crop of top fruit.
But of course there is work to be done first! This month, protect heavily laden fruit tree and bush branches against snapping under the weight by using a stake or prop to keep them upright. If you have to tie the young branches up, make a small strop from material and use jute string. If necessary prune cherries and plums straight after harvest.
On the allotment keep harvesting regularly to keep thing such as sugar snap peas and broad beans producing more flowers. With things like beetroot and radish, thin out the rows giving more room to the remaining crop. If you are thinning carrots remember to do this in the cool of the evening when the carrot fly is less active. Always water after thinning root crops.
Thin shallots by twisting and pulling individual bulbs. I used to supply Joyce Molyneux at the Carved Angel with these sweet little onions. Also main crop onions could be thinned and used green in the same way.
Jobs for July
Vegetables
- Sow spring cabbage, turnips, oriental vegetables, chicory, fennel, and autumn/winter salads. You probably found these bolted if sown to early. Carrots can still be sown.
- Last chance to sow French beans and runner beans (sheltered spots.)
- Plant out leeks and brassicas for a winter supply, should be available from good garden centres..
- Ensure all vegetables get a regular, consistent supply of water. This will aid healthy development, and help to avoid diseases, disorders and bolting. Water either in the early morning or in the cool of the evening but never in the heat of the day.
- Continue to hoe off weeds in dry weather. Done in wet weather, the weeds are liable to re-root.
- Don’t forget to stop cordon tomatoes by removing the main shoot. Look for the leaf that’s above the fourth truss (set of developing fruit) and cut it off here. This should ensure that all the fruits ripen by the end of the season. Bush tomatoes can be left to their own devices.
- Climbing beans may also need stopping, to maximise cropping on existing side shoots. Stop them when they reach the tops of their supports.
- Beans need sufficient watering to help the seedpods set. A good mulch of compost over three or four sheets of newspaper will help conserve water. (Broadsheet or tabloid!)
- Check climbing vegetables are securely tied to supports.
Fruit
- Continue training fan-trained trees.
- If necessary prune cherries straight after harvest.
- Complete summer pruning of gooseberries and red/white currants.
- Remove the lower side shoots of indoor melons up to a height of 30cm (12in).
First Published By The Dart July 2014
