Maggie Baldwin from Thetford Garden and Allotment Club shares her latest gardening advice for July, as well as top tips from pro gardener Bob Flowerdew.
The weather has been very changeable but hopefully this July will be warm and sunny. The nights are short and the days are long – summer is here! It is a busy month, but do find time to just sit in the garden and enjoy the fruits of your labour.
I attended a talk at Thetford Garden Centre given by Bob Flowerdew. He lives locally and was an early exponent of organic gardening. He said that it was regarded as almost a mystery at first and referred to as ‘muck and magic’! How times have changed, when now the majority of gardeners are reluctant to use chemicals in their gardens. It was a very interesting talk covering nest boxes, use of peat and companion planting. He has a website – bobflowerdew.com – which contains lots of useful gardening information.
The vegetable plot should be in full swing by now and harvesting a daily task. Don’t forget to make successional sowings of radishes and cut-and-come-again lettuce so there will always be something to go with the tomatoes. Carrots and beetroot can also still be sown for a later crop.
Fruit trees may require the fruit to be thinned. Some fruit is lost naturally in the ‘June drop’, but if there is still a heavy crop it is best to thin the fruit down to a couple of fruit per cluster for pears and one per cluster for apples, in order that the fruit grows to a decent size. Plum and cherry trees can be pruned now, as any pruning cuts will heal quickly and the risk of infection from silver leaf fungus is reduced.
Keep dead heading flowers both in the border and in pots and hanging baskets. To keep the baskets and pots blooming longer, give them a liquid feed high in potassium (tomato feed is ideal) once a week. If you sowed biennials such as wallflowers or foxgloves in the spring, they’re probably ready for transplanting now into individual pots, ready to be planted in their flowering positions in autumn.
Happy Gardening!
Maggie Baldwin
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