#I also had some mushroom stems from the summer

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Cork City Libraries Sustainability Blog | Sow…Let’s Grow! Gardening in July

The garden in July and August is really the gardeners’ magnum opus. All the hard work throughout the year is finally (and literally!) coming to fruition. Just yesterday I ate my first home-grown strawberry of the year, and although a slug had technically piped me to the post, the berry was nevertheless still as sweet.

Aside from a variety of fruits and vegetables reaching maturity during these long summer days, there is plenty that can be planted now so that you can have fresh produce all year round. Here in the Hollyhill Seed Library we have several packets of carrot seeds, and if you plant them out now you will have a gorgeous crop of carrots come Autumn. Sow the seeds about 1cm deep in rows 15 – 30 cm long. Sow them as thinly as possible because you want to avoid having to pinch them out later, as this can attract carrot root fly and then all your hard work will be for nothing.

Another vegetable you can plant now for an autumn crop is the pea, which we also have in stock in the Hollyhill Seed Library. There is nothing nicer than the taste of freshly grown peas and if you grow nothing else this year, please invest the time and love into growing a couple of pea plants. Push the seed 3cm down into the soil, keep it well watered, and give it something tall to grow around – that’s all there is too it! If you plant them now you should be able to harvest the lovely little pea pods around September.

Chive seeds can also be harvested now, and I have actually managed to harvest some of my own this year and have very proudly donated them to the Seed Library. I noticed that it was growing new flowers even though the old flower heads were still on the plant so I decided something must be done. I snipped off the flowers taking a good bit of the stem with them, immediately put them upside down in an envelope and left them outside overnight so all the little insects can escape (make sure you check the weather forecast beforehand though – you do not want soggy seeds!). Most of the seeds should come out if you give the chives a good shake at this point and you can simply discard the flowers, but if you want to go the extra mile you can tie the stems together using a slip knot and keep them as dried ornamental flowers. Nothing has to go to waste!

Because everything is growing so rapidly at this time of year, it is important to remember to feed your plants with fertiliser or compost – especially if you are gardening in pots. If the very thought of which fertiliser to use or how to start a compost heap is making your head whirl, you are not alone.

Thankfully we have lots of books in stock that can help you along the way, including No-Waste Composting: Small Space Recycling, Indoors and Out by Michelle Balz, The Ecological Gardener: How to Create Beauty and Biodiversity from the Soil Up by Matt Rees-Warren, and How to Make and Use Compost: The Practical Guide for Homes, Schools and Communities by Nicky Scott. I started my compost heap from scratch just under a year ago and it is coming along nicely now. The first time I used it, it was a disaster – nothing grew! I had used it far too soon and it was still so acidic that it had killed the seeds. Disheartened, I left it for several more weeks and even invested in some worms that had been destined for the end of a fishing line. Around mid-June I decided to try again and used it to plant some salad leaves and basil. Lo and behold, not only did the seeds thrive this time round, so too did some mushrooms, which I see as a huge bonus!