July is the month when all the hard work in the vegetable garden bares fruit. A lot of time will be spent harvesting fruit and vegetables.

Sow directly into the ground:

Kale, spinach beet, Chinese greens, cabbages, winter lettuce & winter radish.

Harvest:

Soft fruit, such as raspberries, strawberries, gooseberries, currants, tay berries.

French & runner beans, peas, potatoes, cabbages, spinach, beetroot, courgettes.

Salad leaves, lettuces, radish & tomatoes. Read More »

Farming Friends & TopVeg have collaborated to create a How To Grow Summer Radish growing card.

The card may be downloaded, printed off and pinned to the potting shed wall as a useful reference on how to grow summer radish.

We hope that children, as well as established vegetable gardeners, will find this useful, as they can grow summer radish in pots or in their own space in the vegetable garden.

Click on this link to download the grow card for summer radish

Thank you Sara at Farming Friends for designing this grow card.

Three days after 9 cm of rain, the lawn is still flooded.

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The amateur growers’ Summer Fruit & Vegetable Competition at the RHS Hampton Court Flower Show is on the final weekend of the show, 7 -8 July 2007. This first ever Summer Fruit and Vegetable Show is open to anyone who grows fruit or vegetables in gardens or allotments. Read More »

Tomato plants require daily attention during the summer, in order to produce a succession of ripe juicy fruit to be eaten raw or cooked by the family.

Supporting Tomatoes
Bush types require no supports.
The main stem of cordon types needs supporting to stop it falling over. Canes or strings can be used.

If canes are used as support, the main stem should be tied loosely to the cane as it grows. So there will be a string holding the stem to the cane every 30cm or so. Soft string should be used, so that it does not cut into the stem. Read More »

Lettuce grown in the garden can be available for cutting from April to December, with the help of cloches.

Germination time: 6 - 12 days

Time between sowing and cutting: Read More »

The early broad beans which were sown in November are ready to harvest.

The pods have swollen and the beans inside are properly formed, but still really small and sweet.

It is always a balance between yield and sweet tenderness. Read More »

Farming Friends & TopVeg have collaborated to create a How To Grow Garlic growing card.

How To Grow Garlic - Growing Card

Click on the link below to view the growing card and download the file.

How to Grow Garlic Card

Vegetable growers, teachers, children and anyone interested in growing garlic are welcome to print off this growing card for their own use. The printed copies may be laminated and used as a reference growing card in thegarden or a teaching resource in the classroom.

If you have any other growing cards that you would like Farming Friends & TopVeg to create then please leave a comment and we will be happy to create it for you.

An e-book, Famine in the West, has just been published which forecasts a worldwide famine by 2025, when our cheap energy runs out. The author, John Gossop predicts that the energy crisis will come sooner than the experts expect. This, together with competition for land to produce food, will trigger famine within 12 -15 years, even in the UK.

This easy-to-read book is essential reading for everyone. The book shows not only how serious things could get, but also how we could use innovation and the abundant energy we receive each day from the sun to feed the 8 billion people of 2025.

The e-book costs £2.49, and can be purchased from peakfood

Gardeners are noticing that some leaves on vegetables are turning yellow.

There are several reasons for the yellowing of leaves:

• senescence - the natural process of deterioration which follows the period of development of a plant.
• shading - as the plant grows, the leaf canopy expands, thus reducing the light available to the lower leaves, which then turn yellow.
• water logging - causes yellowing and wilting - the plant will not be happy.
• nutritional problems - usually a deficiency.� The essential element for green leaf production is nitrogen.� Lack of nitrogen is the most common cause of yellowing.� This is easily rectified by an application of a nitrogenous plant food or fertiliser.� Deficiency of certain trace elements also causes yellowing of leaves, for example manganese.