Growing by the Moon in July

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It is tempting to think that you don’t need to keep sowing crops in July but to keep the vegetables coming, you need to keep sowing. Sow some more carrot seed at the beginning of the month to use young in salads and with lighter summer food. Along with salad leaves, summer radishes and summer turnips these need to be sown every two weeks.

Remember that new potatoes do not keep as well as the main crop ones so harvest smaller quantities as you need them.

Whilst on the subject of potatoes it is good to use a nettle decoction to prevent disease and stimulate growth. Cut up the fresh plant into small pieces and soak in water; 1 kg of nettles to 15 litres of water (remove any seed heads); and leave to steep for a week use a wooden or plastic bucket but not metal. Stir to encourage to ferment, then filter out the plant pulp and add the pulp to your compost. Use the resulting liquid diluted 1:10 – 20 as a spray. Good days to do this in July are 14am, 16am and 20pm.

This month you should be sowing, hoeing and weeding the land at the following times:

Roots: 8 – 10, 16 – 19 and 26 – 27. Beetroot, carrots, baby turnip and radish can all be sown in the open ground.

Fruits: 6 – 7, 14 – 15, 23 and 25. French beans, runner beans and peas can be sown in the open ground.

Leaves: 3 – 5, 12 (after 9am), 21 – 22 and 30 – 31. Spring cabbage, leaf beet, kohl rabi, lettuce and salad greens, parsley, spinach and Swiss chard can be sown in the open ground. You can also transplant your Savoy cabbage, and kale seedlings.

Flowers: 1 – 2 19 (afternoon) – 20 and 28 – 29. Plant out broccoli, cauliflower and Calabrese seedlings.

When can I harvest my crops?

I had a long discussion with the author on harvesting, my concern being that if you could only harvest on certain days how were you meant to keep the produce. As I now understand it the harvesting days are important if you are harvesting for storing/freezing, if you want enough veg. for your dinner then it is fine to harvest this as needed.

Harvest roots for storing on 10, 12 and 14 – 16 July when the Moon is descending, the best days to harvest are 10 and 14 – 16 July.

Harvest all other fruit and vegetables for storing/freezing on 1 – 9, 22 (pm) – 23 and 25 – 31 July when the Moon is ascending, the best harvesting days are 6 – 9, 23 and 25 – 27.

Of course when you are growing by the moon you get a few days ‘off’ each month. No work or harvesting should be done in the garden on 11 descending node, 13 perigee and 24 ascending node.

• 3 Jul, 2010
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