10 Crops you can plant in July

happy july you may think that it's too late to plant summer crops but it is not whether life got in the way and you just got too busy so you procrastinated and didn't get your crops in the ground or maybe you have already harvested many of your spring crops and you're left with open garden space and you're not sure what you can get in before the winter comes well i'm here to tell you that there are lots of options for summer crops even that you can plant in july one more thing most of these all of us can plant we still have time but there are some special climate considerations especially if you live in a cooler climate we're going to talk about that briefly at the end my go-to favorite for mid-summer planting is bush beans most of the varieties that you grow will harvest in just a couple of months and so you have plenty of time most of the time to get a quick crop of these in the ground not only that unlike pole beans they will produce all of their beans at once this makes them a prime candidate for not only fresh eating but also preserving like canning and freezing and if you have a container like a green stock planter that you maybe already harvested your cool season crops are they bolted putting bush beans in a planter this time of year is a great idea these are jade bush beans they're my new favorite and they produced a great crop for me when i planted them in july last year whether you never got around to planting squash and zucchini or they're starting to look a little worse for wear because of squash bugs or maybe they got killed by squash vine borers you can plant a second or even third planting during the course of the season mini squash and zucchini varieties the summer varieties will harvest in a couple of months so you have plenty of time to get a great harvest they'll grow quickly and they'll be ready to harvest by the time fall begins no matter where you live cucumbers are a great option for a later planting they sprout quickly they grow well in the heat and the best part is a lot of times you can start harvesting and maybe making pickles right before the end of the season they're a fast-growing crop and they're a great way to use a trellis that you have that's empty or you can also plant a bush type cucumber for grow bags in other ways cucumbers are a great option to plant in july many gardeners will be glad to hear that in july you could still plant tomatoes just be very careful when you're transplanting them because it gets really hot and sometimes they can wilt in the heat transplant them in the evening if possible one option is cherry tomatoes like the sun gold you can get lots of harvest before the end of your season begins and so this is a great way to get a bumper crop of tomatoes that you didn't expect and if you're like me and your tomatoes have already had issues with disease at the beginning of the year having a second crop is a great option for you another great option for a mid-season planting is a patch of corn the corn seed will germinate quickly in the warm soil just make sure and keep the whole patch watered especially during dry periods if you have a larger space in your garden corn is better suited for that if you grow all in a raised bed like i am here you are risking not having adequate pollination which means the corn ears are not going to fill out as well but this is more of a test in my garden like i said if you have more space that you have nothing to do with plant a big old patch of corn and be ready to harvest a great harvest right before the winter another great option for planting in july is okra if you live in a hot season area where your summers get really hot okra will germinate fast and it will grow and start producing in as little as two months just make sure to get them in the ground as soon as you can and choose a short season variety if you have the option to get the most of your harvest if you haven't already you can still plant peppers peppers love the heat and if you can find a transplant at your garden center you can still get a great harvest bell peppers would still work great for many parts of the country but you can also do some other type of peppers like cayenne or jalapenos it's a little bit too late probably to start them from seed in most areas so grab those transplants and get a great pepper harvest this year if you live in the south or you live in a warm season area consider an extra planting of black eyed peas or purple whole peas these cow peas love the heat they'll grow fast and you'll be able to get a harvest of either fresh eating or for freezing or canning right before the winter if you live in the southern part of the country where you don't start getting frosts and freezes till about november or so you could probably get in a sweet potato planting sweet potatoes love the heat and they're going to grow really fast when you plant them and if you have an extra trellis space that maybe you harvested something from the spring that you don't know what to do with sweet potatoes will climb it well and it'll be a great crop that will withstand the heat of the summer again if you live in a southern climate you may want to consider a fall crop of potatoes this is one of those things that i'm trying really for the first time this year so i can't quite tell you 100 sure that it's going to work but from my conversations with jim from wood prairie family farms he knows of people in different parts of the south who save some of their harvest from the spring maybe the egg size potatoes in their harvest and they put those in the refrigerator for a month or two to simulate dormancy like a winter and then they bring them back out and then green sprout them and then plant them for a fall harvest this is something i'm going to try to do this year because i really want to get my potatoes more in the winter time and i found that sometimes i can't get them to store that long with my spring crop and so this is something you might want to consider as well especially if you know you have a little bit of extra time before those hard freezes set in here's a bonus crop for you basil basil seeds sprout very well in the warm soil and they'll grow very fast your biggest challenge is going to be trying to pick them before they start developing these little flower stalks because they'll start doing that really fast in the summer but if you want some extra basil either to eat fresh or also to preserve i love basil pesto then plant yourself another planting of basil and you'll be glad you did all of the crops that i've mentioned today are summer crops which means that they will need to be harvested before your first frost occurs in the fall the main thing that you need to do then is to find out when that average first frost date is you can look that up on google and then count the number of days you have between now and that average first fall frost from there you can look at the days to maturity on a seed packet and make sure you have enough time between the day that you're watching this and the day of your average first frost also add in a little bit of time for harvest for example for bush beans you might be harvesting for two to three weeks so add that to your calculation one benefit to planting these summer crops now is that with warm soil when you're planting the seeds in the soil they're going to germinate quickly way faster than they did in your spring plantings but you also have to keep in mind that with day length reducing you're also going to find that these crops are going to grow a little bit slower and the closer we get to that fall time actually significantly slower so you might want to add a couple of weeks of buffer time into that equation just to make sure that you have enough time to compensate for that lack of daylight one exception that you might find to that is that peppers i have found actually start ripening and producing a lot faster in the late part of the summer because they're trying to be able to get their seed so bell peppers will ripen from green to red quicker in the late summer in early fall than they do in the early spring so that's definitely something you can take advantage of you'll also notice that i didn't mention any cool season crops or any fall crops that's because for many of us it is just too hot for us to plant those crops yet but if you live in the northern part of the country or you live in an area where you don't tend to get over 85 degrees for very long in the middle of the summer you can probably continue to succession plant many of your cool season crops that you planted in the spring but for those of us in the south i'm in arkansas it's just too hot for us to plant those cool season crops yet we'll be planting those probably in august and september although i will be starting my cabbage and broccoli seeds indoors this month as well i think july is a fabulous time to plant many of these crops especially these quick season crops that maybe we didn't get around to planting or we have some extra garden space but there are a few things that you need to consider such as insect pressure and things like that i talk about each of these considerations along with a more expanded conversation on each of these crops in episode number 251 of the beginner's garden podcast we'll link that below check that out you'll get to learn more details and more nuances on all of these crops and some tips for you to be successful especially as you're planting at this time of the year i hope you've enjoyed this video and make sure and like and subscribe for more videos like this to give you some other opportunities to grow even more food in your garden you

Channel: Beginner's Garden - Journey with Jill

Views: 284,995

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Id: XwslmI3iyqw

Length: 9min 25sec (565 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 06 2022