jobs in the garden
Garden Maintenance ...
Maintenance Item Special requirements
Ventilate
Humidity
Open cold frames
Polytunnel Greenhouse
Paths indoor and outdoor
Ventilate
On warm days open up your cold frames to give the hardening-off seedlings air
Open up and allow the tunnel to cool down as much as possible Shade the glass
Water to cool the area , particularly inside polytunnels
Make sure crops that are susceptible to fungal attach have low humidity by increasing ventilation . Potatoes in particular .
Water |
Butts and tubs |
Store as much water as you can for use now and through the |
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rest of the year |
Rain water is much better to use than tap water , particularly because it ’ s untreated but still pure .
On the ground
Mulch
Hoe
Replace / renew the mulch around your plot to help suppress weeds and give a little extra feed as crops ripen
Hit weeds hard with a good hoeing
Harvesting
When it comes to taking fruit and veg from the garden , don ’ t wait until the produce is huge . It will be past its best . Small is best ! Each plant has an optimum size , and pick it when this is reached . This is particularly true for plants such as cucumbers . The longer you wait for them the less tasty they will be . Moreover , if you pick them regularly the plant will be encouraged to set more fruit .
You should be enjoying lots of new potatoes . Don ’ t be tempted to compost the vines , but collect them together and burn them , spreading the cooled ashes around the garden . This way you reduce the possibility of disease next season . ( By the way , the same goes for tomatoes .)
Think about seed saving
If you let the odd lettuce go to seed ( I know it ’ s hard but let the very best in the bunch set seed ) then you can collect them for next year . Keep the seed for a day or so between a couple of sheets of kitchen paper and then transfer to a well-labelled envelope and keep dry .
Do the same for tomatoes ; neither of these plants particularly interbreed , so they should come true . You shouldn ’ t try to keep seed set from F1 hybrids , which certainly will not be true , if they ’ re viable at all .
You can keep all kinds of seed , and indeed that was the only real way that ordinary folk got seed for sowing year on year . It wasn ’ t until Victorian times when seed merchants were able to guarantee good quality seed , that the practice of seed saving fell out of favour .
Successional sowings
Salad crops that take only six weeks to grow will give you at least two more harvests this year . As you take lettuce , spring onions , radish , beets , get some more in the ground every couple of weeks to replace them . You can have growing salad right through to late October if the weather is mild .
Winter cabbages ready for planting out ...
July is a great time for a good chat on the plot !