July growing guide
🔆 High 16.4° | 🌙 Low 8.1° | 🌧️ 7.4 rainy days
With the cold weather, it’s a great time to assess your garden and start planning for spring.
Introduce a crop rotation system in your garden so you don’t replant anything in the same position as last season. This reduces the chance of pest and disease problems building up and allows the soil an opportunity to replenish. Different vegetables prefer different soil conditions, so we like to plant nitrogen-hungry leafy greens after a crop of nitrogen fixers such as peas or beans. For more on crop rotation ideas, check out Sustainable Gardening Australia’s excellent site. On high-risk frost nights, protect young, vulnerable plants by placing hessian or bed sheets (supported by garden stakes) over the plant. Remove it early in the morning once the sun pops up. Pot plants can be brought under cover if needed.
Veggies
Sow a winter green manure crop such as lupin, vetch, field peas and oats in empty beds to add valuable organic matter. Cut it back and dig it into the soil when it grows to about 20cm to add valuable nitrogen and organic matter.
July is the ideal time to plant members of the onion family, including chives, spring onion and garlic chives. They will appreciate the gentle start to their lives in this cool weather.
Sow winter herbs such as borage, calendula, celery, chervil, lovage and rosemary. You can also plant mint, thyme, winter savoury, tarragon and parsley. I prefer to plant mint in pots to contain their roots, as they can take over a garden if you don’t control them.
Soak broad bean seed overnight in water with a pinch of Epsom salt to give them a great start. Sow them in blocks of about 20 plants and provide support with a simple pen made of stakes and string. Watch the link attached for simple directions.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7IcD85KEcRI
What to plant in the veggie patch
Artichoke, asparagus, beetroot, broad beans, carrot, Asian vegetables, kohl rabi, lettuce, onion, parsnip, peas, potato, silverbeet.
Fruit
It’s still a great time to plant deciduous fruit trees and vines such as apples, pears, stone fruits and passionfruit. There are dwarf varieties for small spaces, and many will love life in a lovely big pot.
Spray deciduous fruit trees, vines and shrubs with lime sulphur to combat multiple pests and diseases. Apply on a calm day so the spray doesn’t drift. Protect turf under trees by covering it with a sheet.
Plant certified disease-resistant strawberries, raspberries and blueberry varieties.
Now’s perfect to transplant any plants that may have been set down in the wrong spot. All deciduous trees, shrubs and vines are best moved while dormant.
Natives
Increase the amount of wildlife visitors to your garden by adding a water source, such as a frog pond or birdbath. For birds, install a perch up high so they can survey your garden and ensure it is safe to visit. For smaller insects such as bees and lizards, have a range of rocks or sticks at different levels so they can access the water safely.
Add colour with winter-flowering native shrubs such as Epacris, Correa and Crowea.
Kangaroo Paws are producing lots of new growth at the moment, which will lead to next season’s flowers. Fertilise them with a couple of handfuls of well-rotted cow manure to ensure they’re hopping along nicely.
Flowers
Remove spent flower heads from bulbs and flowering annuals so they don’t go to seed and the latter will continue to flower. The flower heads can be dried and turned into potpourri bags.
Water and liquid fertilise your annuals to encourage further flowering.
Brighten up the coming spring garden by planting seedlings of snapdragons and marigolds.
Improving your soil
Prepare your garden for spring planting by digging in plenty of organic matter, including top-notch compost and well-rotted manure. Blood and bone is high in nitrogen, so it’s a big boost for leafy plants. If you want more flowers, add a handful of potash to the soil.
Make sure your worm farms are in cool, shaded positions as the weather warms up. Keep them damp but not wet and throw over a handful of dolomite to keep them sweet. You can’t buy a product as beneficial as worm castings for the garden, so use it for seed raising and potting mixes, or drop a pea-sized chuck next to your favourite plants as a helpful treat.
Soil improvers
Add a thin layer of well-rotted manure and compost throughout your garden beds now but hold off adding any fertilisers until the risk of frosts has passed. You don’t want any nice new growth being damaged.
Drain worm farms regularly to prevent them becoming saturated in wet weather or leave their taps open to drip freely onto hungry plants for a little ‘slow food’. Our worm friends’ appetites will slow down a little bit due to the cold, so cover them with a hessian sack if you’re concerned and cut down their food.
Pest watch
Cold, damp conditions can cause strawberries to go soft and rot on the plant. Place straw mulch under the plants to keep fruit off the ground and improve air flow.
Mangoes and rambutans are starting to flower. If plants are in the open, a 60cm-high piece of hard plastic wrapped around the trunk can sometimes stop possums from climbing up and stealing the fruit.
After a few good rains, gardens can be overrun by snails and slugs. Spray around garden beds with a mixture of 1 part strong espresso coffee to 5 parts water. Or even better, ask your local café for their spent coffee grounds and spread them around your beds. The snails will absorb the caffeine when they crawl over grounds and die. It’s also a great, natural way to use a waste product that would normally just be thrown away.
If cabbage white butterfly are a problem, deter them by simply placing white eggshell halves throughout your brassica patch. They see them as another butterfly and move on.