Allotment advice and tips - July - Hottest month of the year, flowers are brightening the plots, more mulching and watering .....

Month by month guide:
Vegetables, Herbs and Fruit.

Vegetables Herbs and Fruit to put on the table this month:
Globe Artichoke
Broad Beans
Dwarf French Beans
Runner Beans
Beetroot
Carrots
Cucumber
Kohl Rabi
Lettuce
Marrow
Onion, Spring
Peas
Potatoes
Radish
Shallot
Spinach
Squash

Black Currant
Gooseberry
Raspberry
Red Currant
Strawberry

What to do in the allotment in July? Apart from harvesting the above.

General Tasks
Time for constructional tasks. Repair and treat sheds, greenhouses and compost heaps
Lay / repair paths.
Fix water butts for leaks.
Water generously to requirements.
Feed the birds.

Vegetables:
Complete Leek planting.
Sow Swedes.
Sow Turnips.
Complete planting winter brassicas.
Sow Spinach Beet.
Keep pinching out Tomato side shoots except bush varieties.
Straw bush tomatoes to keep fruit clean.
Late sowing of peas and beetroot.
Start to lift and store onions and shallots as their tops yellow.
You can flatten the growth and slightly lift to aid drying.
Shallots require bulb clusters seperating and loose skin removed
Sow winter radish

Herbs:
Further sowing of Chervil, Dill and Parsley
Harvest herbs before they bloom fully
Dry herbs in an airing cupboard
Cut Lavender for storage

Fruit:
Watch for pests and diseases.
Pick soft fruit.
Support heavy cropping branches of apples, pears and plums.
Complet thinning the above.
Check ties are not too tight
Train blackberries and loganberries.
Check weeds around trees and bushes.
Pick blackcurrants and prune.
Protect peaches.
Pick raspberries, cut down old canes and remove weak new shoots.
Tidy strawberry bed and discard plants that have given three crops.
Continue ummer prune vines.

More suggestions?

Some suggestions that have been sent in.

Composting: All you need to know

Manure: Some suggested uses

Wormeries: How to create a wormery.

If you have any advice on anything to do with allotments please contribute.