What to do in your garden in July

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Summer is definitely here now, and our gardens are bursting with life. If you’ve been growing vegetables and fruit then you’ll start to harvest the first of your crops this month.

You will also have to work hard again this month to keep on top of weeds and keep a watchful eye out for slugs, snails and other pests that will feast on your growing plants and veg of you give them half a chance.

Take a look at our July tips to help you make the most of your garden this month.

General

  • Restrict the size of your woody trees by pruning
  • Tackle bindweed before it takes over – by either digging it our, smothering it with a membrane, weedkiller or hoeing
  • Pick off dead flowers to keep plants blooming
  • Help sweet peas to climb by tying leading shoots to supports
  • Cut fresh herbs to store for winter
  • Keep on top of pests

Fruit and Vegetables

  • Check your courgette plants daily and pick young courgettes before they get too big
  • Check your broad beans – if you can feel them inside the pods they are ready to pick
  • Sow and harvest salad crops – sow beetroot, chard, mizuna, pak choi, radicchio, rocket, spinach every few weeks.
  • Give tomatoes extra support as their trusses grow heavier and pinch out new growth
  • Remove fruits from congested clusters of apples to encourage larger fruit growth
  • Protect soft fruit from birds by covering with netting
  • Early potato varieties will be ready now so check on their size and if they are ready – enjoy!
  • Bury blackberry stem tips and they will form new plants
  • Plant out leeks
  • Wrap celery stems in newspaper, then pile soil round them to exclude light

Flowers

  • Deadhead roses and they will continue to flower for longer
  • Collect ripe Foxglove seeds to sow straight away
  • Cut down faded delphinium and lupin flower spikes
  • Pick off faded rhododendron and azalea flower heads

Shrubs and trees

  • Trim topiary to shape with shears
  • Apples, plums and cherries – for better fruit production cut back new growth with secateurs to a couple of leaves from the base
  • Bush fruits – Remove old, fruited stems of blackcurrants and gooseberries, and cut back soft growth on redcurrants to 3 – 4 leaves
  • Wisteria – to encourage flowering and to stop rampant growth remove straggly new growth to 1 – 2 leaves from base
  • Cut out old stems and prune back to strong new growth once rambling roses have flowered.

Greenhouse

  • Stand pots on capillary matting or gravel try system to reduce the amount of watering needed
  • Keep tomato compost wet, pay special attention to those being grown in bags
  • Open doors and vents early on hot or sunny days (we wish !)
  • Pinch off tomato side shoots
  • Sow calceolaria primulus, cineraria and cyclamen
  • Thin out congested bunches of grapes
  • Move plants to bigger pots if their roots have grown out to the edges of their old ones.

Lawns

  • Remove lawn weeds – lever them out, use compost to fill the hole, sprinkle with grass seed then cover in compost before watering
  • Cut regularly
  • Feed lawns to encourage strong growth

Pests

  • Watch out for fat, caterpillar like cutworm – either dig over the soil to let the birds at them or use a biological control
  • Slugs and snails can be a real problem in this wet weather. Try beer traps to control them.
  • Check for larvae on leaves and remove by picking them off or spraying with insecticide.

Need more advice? Post a question on our Facebook page or pop into the garden centre and talk to a member of our experienced garden team.