20+ Crops to Sow in July for Self-Sufficiency (in 10 Minutes)

hello and a very warm welcome back to the Garden I am in the poly tunnel because I'm Sheltering from a rare spot of rain and today's video is about all of the crops there's over 20 crops that you can sow in July for self-sufficiency so July is a real turning point because you kind of start thinking about all of the ways that you can plug gaps because there's going to be a lot of harvesting over the next few weeks and empty gaps that you can then fill with other crops so I'd say treat most of the crops on this list as really good ways to to plug gaps and I've I very much have this attitude of plant things now and then think about how you maybe preserve them later on because just the idea of having living roots in the soil is really important as well they're going to be some key crops that are going to be harvested included for example onions and maybe you don't have anything ready yet to succession plant the onions so you can actually choose to raise in modules a bunch of these different crops ready right now so when you harvest the onions those can go straight in and if you're in the US and you want some really high quality module trees they're all available over on my shop hughesgarden.com all of the different container wise trays that I use and love because of the sheer amount of crops I'm just gonna run through them nice and quickly and just mainly highlight the key benefits that each crop provides especially for self-sufficiency so we'll start off with French dwarf beans these are great because they are low growing they have a single stem and it means you can plant them right on the edge of a bed and they can lean over kind of onto the pathway they're really good for plugging gaps and they just taste really nice in terms of preserving there's so many options to choose from now July is a cutoff point for a lot of brassicas but there's three kind of Main brassicas in particular that you can still sew in July so you've got your like autumn and winter cauliflowers you've got kale so many different varieties of kale but kale grows really well from July sowings and the other one of course is spring Cabbage Spring cabbage provides you with a load of really nice leaves over the hungry Gap and it also heads up in May and June providing you with a nice little head of cabbage to enjoy the cauliflowers will work outside if you're in zone eight but if you're in a slightly cooler Zone what you can do if you have a little low tunnel or hoop tunnel you can then transplant the cauliflowers and grow them on in there and still enjoy a really nice Harvest later in the year another crop is Pak Choy Pak Choy is a lot of fun pack Troy brings me joy it is a great one for plugging any kind of gaps it grows really fast there's so many ways that you can use and enjoy in the kitchen whether you're going to use it fresh or whether you're in a preserve it or create a kimchi for example sounds maybe an amazing kimchi out of Pak Choy it's really productive for a small space suitable for containers as well so Pak Choy is a great one to sew throughout the month of July in a similar realm of say the bigger brassicas and Pak Choy is also Chinese cabbage or napa cabbage it prefers cooler weather cooler climate so kind of the second half of July on would start sowing your napa cabbage seeds you've got quite a nice selection of root vegetables that are still going to be suitable for July sowings so one that comes to mind obviously are going to be turnips turnips grow really well if they're sewn in July especially because kind of August and then into September it starts to cool again beetroot is also another one they work really well if you either direct sow them or module sew them I have been enjoying a lot of beetroot recently especially golden beetroot where I just roast it whole or in halves kind of like nice and slow and it is just so much sweetness they make a big batch and then I can enjoy it the next few days just as a nice little snack to have with lunch or supper carrots are also suitable for July you just need to make sure that the soil stays moist when you sow them until the seedlings start to appear otherwise you'll get sporadic germination with carrots you want to choose either say more like forcing varieties varieties that mature faster or something like a small Paris Market carrots which create those nice little round carrots but yeah they're a lot of fun and a really good kind of essential crop to sew in July because you can harvest carrots unprotected up until around Christmas time they stand pretty well in the ground but you do need to be aware of carrot root fly either grow them in taller raised beds or make sure that you provide them with protective mesh netting if you're not growing a variety such as FlyAway fennel is another is it a root vegetable never totally sure I class it as a root vegetable funnel is such a stunning crop and July is a lovely month to sew it especially in the first half of July to then transplant it is quite a nice compact plant you can use the fronds but the bulb in particular is so so tasty roasted it is one of my I say it's one of my top five Delights of of crops to enjoy eating from the garden one that is ever so slightly more risky because of the risk of powdery mildew but if you're lucky it should be fine is peas so that can be managed to Garden peas sugar snap peas I'll probably do my last sewing of peas in the first week of July so try and do it sooner rather than later the peas will grow well outside but maybe there's also a little bit of space in your polytunnel that'll be a really nice place to transplant them or you can grow dwarf varieties of peas to grow outside under covers like low tunnels one crop that I really enjoy are spring onions and these are great I really like growing them directly so wherever there's maybe a little bit of a crop harvested and you can fit a little row even if it's two or three foot or like a meter of just spring onions that's a really nice thing to sew in July and enjoy their flavors over Autumn and into early winter continue succession sewing lattice in July you can start to think about winter varieties of lettuce if I was to grow winter varieties of lettuce usually I'd kind of start them off more August time but July is a perfectly good month for lettuce and of course thinking of fast growing crops a bit like lettuce you've got radish you can still sow your summer radish for a nice quick turnaround but July is also when you can start sowing winter radish so there's certain things like Daikin radish but I really love Spanish black radish that is absolutely delicious stands well in the ground grows nice and big with winter radish you want to space them wider than you do for summer radish just because they need a little bit more light when you when you actually this is an important point when you transplant things when the light is starting to go down again space them out a little bit more because every little bit of sunlight that they can enjoy is really important and when they're overcrowded less of their leaves have that direct sunlight so the efficiency of photosynthesis is reduced another really strong Contender for direct sowing in the month of July but also suitable in modules is charred say Swiss chard Perpetual spinach I've started harvesting Ford hook giant chards I'd throw that into the mix for July as well all of these things they grow really well and they will provide you with a lot of food over Autumn and with child and Perpetual spinach they're also suitable contenders for a lot of ways of preserving whether it's for say freezing but more importantly for fermentations I also forgot to mention spinach is another great one to sew directly in a shadier space more like kind of partial shade but the amount of leaves that you can get from a small section of direct sun spinach is quite unbelievable I've been self-sufficient in spinach now for about four months and there's no stopping it at the moment but the trick is to find that bit of partial shade there's also some annual herbs that you can still sow in the month of July outside or in modules and that's of course going to be dill and coriander these grow well either in a polytunnel or outside one of the tricks that I like to do for my last sewing is just let them run to seed at the end of the season and then remove the plants when they've all started dying back because they've they've spread then the seed all over the surface and then the following year you'll get lots of free Plants then you can transplant into different locations a more unusual vegetable in terms of looks and Aesthetics is kohlrabi but Kohlrabi is another great Contender for sewing in the month of July especially in modules to then transplant it's also a really nice crop for filling in gaps and the leaves are also edible so there's many different uses now there's a couple of options you might want to try in an undercover growing space right at the start of July you can try doing a succession crop of cucumbers they grow really quickly choose a faster grain variety or choose maybe like gherkin type varieties sow them in the first week of of July and then grow them up into bigger pots so when your initial batch of cucumbers start to go over you can then have the next batch ready to see you through into kind of mid-autumn time and finally with our absolute favorite of the series and I think it's going to turn into a bit of a running joke sarpo mirror blight resistant potatoes you can do those in July as well in pots that you can then bring inside to have fresh potatoes as a Harvest on Christmas day how about that if you're interested in crops where you don't have to worry about sowing them on a monthly basis because they just grow themselves by reseeding this video right here is one for you to watch

Channel: Huw Richards

Views: 125,055

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Id: fZx_25bspNI

Length: 10min 13sec (613 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 03 2023