- 3 weeks ago
It's the season of peak harvests, meaning also beds coming empty, with opportunities to re-sow and re-plant.
July is the peak month for growth, because days are still long and it's normally warmer than June. Seize every moment to keep up with growth so that autumn will be more enjoyable, and your garden will then be full of food.
Coming ready to harvest now or soon is a veritable cornucopia of vegetables. From melons, cucumber, tomatoes, and aubergine, to carrots, beetroot, salads of many kinds, onions, early potatoes, and more.
Sow any of Florence fennel, kohlrabi, chicory, lettuce, endive, carrots, broccoli for spring, salad onions, and collards.
Then in late July, Chinese cabbage and winter radish.
August is a top time to sow spinach, salad rocket, mizuna, pak choi and turnips.
Use mesh covers on new sowings and plantings for protection against insects, rabbits and more.
The advice on watering is just my perspective. I know that there are many other ways to water. My main aim is to make sure all water goes to plant roots and is not wasted on weeds or empty spaces.
See my July video of last year for more on watering, https://youtu.be/_iNsxi8nVx4.
See also my Essential Knowledge pack https://charlesdowding.co.uk/products/essential-knowledge-foundations-for-success?
Up to 14th July, the dig / no dig trial beds have given harvests of 30.54kg and 35.67kg respectively.
Filmed at Homeacres no dig garden by Nicola Smith, on 13th July 2026.
You can join this channel by paying a monthly fee, to support our work with helping gardeners grow better, and to receive monthly videos made only for members:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB1J6siDdmhwah7q0O2WJBg/join
00:00 Introduction - second early potatoes and squash
01:03 Asparagus
01:43 New plantings - beetroot under cover
02:05 Carrots, poor seed quality
02:32 Lettuce, watering
03:13 Beetroot - watering, and cover against rabbits
03:36 Flea beetle damage
04:13 New pantings of radicchio and endive, second planting lettuce
00:44 Carrots re-sown after being eaten by rabbit - watering
05:51 Weather - dry and hot
06:09 Runner beans, not setting through lack of moisture - timing of watering
06:51 The finished pyramid!
07:22 Bindweed removal
08:35 Celeriac
09:11 Compost - chopping stems, proportion of green/brown, watering
10:17 8-month-old compost
10:51 Onions at different stages of maturity
11:35 Tomatoes
11:48 More flea beetle damage - brassica seedlings
12:19 Swede and kale under Thermacrop
12:48 Maincrop potato, Desiree - watering
13:08 Leeks - late sowing, multisown
13:38 Tomatoes in the polytunnel - watering, overhead line
14:10 Oxheart beef tomatoes
14:52 Melons - no need to support, how to know when ripe, different ways of growing
16:12 Aubergines - removing sideshoots, bacterial rot and red spider mite predator
07:17 Cucumbers, watering needs
17:54 Dahlias
18:08 Squash, and celtuce
19:01 Propagation in the greenhouse - beetroot and brassica seedlings
19:41 Own-design module t
July is the peak month for growth, because days are still long and it's normally warmer than June. Seize every moment to keep up with growth so that autumn will be more enjoyable, and your garden will then be full of food.
Coming ready to harvest now or soon is a veritable cornucopia of vegetables. From melons, cucumber, tomatoes, and aubergine, to carrots, beetroot, salads of many kinds, onions, early potatoes, and more.
Sow any of Florence fennel, kohlrabi, chicory, lettuce, endive, carrots, broccoli for spring, salad onions, and collards.
Then in late July, Chinese cabbage and winter radish.
August is a top time to sow spinach, salad rocket, mizuna, pak choi and turnips.
Use mesh covers on new sowings and plantings for protection against insects, rabbits and more.
The advice on watering is just my perspective. I know that there are many other ways to water. My main aim is to make sure all water goes to plant roots and is not wasted on weeds or empty spaces.
See my July video of last year for more on watering, https://youtu.be/_iNsxi8nVx4.
See also my Essential Knowledge pack https://charlesdowding.co.uk/products/essential-knowledge-foundations-for-success?
Up to 14th July, the dig / no dig trial beds have given harvests of 30.54kg and 35.67kg respectively.
Filmed at Homeacres no dig garden by Nicola Smith, on 13th July 2026.
You can join this channel by paying a monthly fee, to support our work with helping gardeners grow better, and to receive monthly videos made only for members:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB1J6siDdmhwah7q0O2WJBg/join
00:00 Introduction - second early potatoes and squash
01:03 Asparagus
01:43 New plantings - beetroot under cover
02:05 Carrots, poor seed quality
02:32 Lettuce, watering
03:13 Beetroot - watering, and cover against rabbits
03:36 Flea beetle damage
04:13 New pantings of radicchio and endive, second planting lettuce
00:44 Carrots re-sown after being eaten by rabbit - watering
05:51 Weather - dry and hot
06:09 Runner beans, not setting through lack of moisture - timing of watering
06:51 The finished pyramid!
07:22 Bindweed removal
08:35 Celeriac
09:11 Compost - chopping stems, proportion of green/brown, watering
10:17 8-month-old compost
10:51 Onions at different stages of maturity
11:35 Tomatoes
11:48 More flea beetle damage - brassica seedlings
12:19 Swede and kale under Thermacrop
12:48 Maincrop potato, Desiree - watering
13:08 Leeks - late sowing, multisown
13:38 Tomatoes in the polytunnel - watering, overhead line
14:10 Oxheart beef tomatoes
14:52 Melons - no need to support, how to know when ripe, different ways of growing
16:12 Aubergines - removing sideshoots, bacterial rot and red spider mite predator
07:17 Cucumbers, watering needs
17:54 Dahlias
18:08 Squash, and celtuce
19:01 Propagation in the greenhouse - beetroot and brassica seedlings
19:41 Own-design module t
Category
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00Ah, come and look at this amazing. This is the season of second early potato harvest and these are Charlotte
00:08from my own
00:10home safe seed which as you can see are doing really nicely and
00:16Yeah, all that for one plant. So we're going to put these in sacks now in paper sacks
00:22even leave them out in the Sun for a day to get really dry and
00:25And then they will store for a long time. In fact, we have the last Charlotte potatoes
00:3110 months later, even though they're second earlier they do they do store well, but if you've got main crop,
00:36don't worry
00:37They're not quite ready yet. And behind me you see we're having fantastic squash growth in the warmth that we've
00:44had
00:44And those squash have not been watered. No dig really helps to conserve moisture
00:51Having said that there's a lot of plants here that I am watering
00:54So I'll be giving you some tips through this tour. This is the july tour the season of peak harvest
01:00and also many things
01:01You can still sow
01:03Since we were last here
01:05We did a tour in june and the asparagus was being picked and
01:09That's how much growth it makes in less than a month since since I stopped picking them
01:15And this is
01:18a
01:18Weed guess what it's asparagus
01:21So one of the most difficult weeds for commercial growers is of asparagus is asparagus because they can't spray the
01:27herbicide
01:28It's not a problem here. Obviously. This is organic. So we're just pulling out
01:32The asparagus seedlings as they come so if you get too many asparagus growing close together, you end up with
01:37a lot of little spears
01:38You just want a few the fewer plants for big ones
01:43We are doing a lot of new planting so under this
01:48Cover our beetroot for example
01:51And they went in
01:53About two weeks ago
01:55And I put a cover on for two reasons
01:57One is to in this case keep rabbits off because we've got a few rabbits here
02:02And another one is actually the covers do conserve moisture
02:05Here in this bed of carrots that was sown five weeks ago. The issue was not moisture. It was some
02:11seed quality
02:12And there's a patch of lovely green at the fire and that was a different seed compared to these and
02:18If you get something like this of poor germination
02:21Well, i'm just going to hoe these off and and replant with
02:25A different vegetable. It's getting a bit late to sow carrots now. It is possible actually just asap
02:32This is a beautiful bed of lettuce. We planted on a weekend course here actually uh, 21st of june solstice
02:39and
02:40All the group just joined in I was dipping holes. They were popping in the plug plants
02:45And I plant really small so it's very quick
02:49And then everyone helped water
02:52And we put the cover on only took the cover off this morning actually
02:56And we're starting to pick these lettuce now and they're very abundant
03:00But I have been watering so a bed like that
03:04Of lettuce and also new plantings that we'll see in a minute
03:08We're giving them a lot of water because they are mostly water
03:12Even these beetroot
03:14Had a little bit. I don't water beetroot a lot
03:19Enough to keep them going really. I mean it's I don't know when this
03:23Long spell of dry weather is going to end
03:25And this has a bird netting on
03:29Which that's a very useful against rabbits and deer if you have that problem
03:33It's enough I find to keep them out
03:36Obviously mesh wood as well and this mesh is supposedly against insects
03:41But actually sorry you can see
03:44I'll pull it back a bit just so you can see what's going on there with
03:48Flea beetles truly shocking
03:50They are so so strong this year so many of them
03:55And all of that is flea beetle damage
03:58So it's not killing the plants
04:00But it's going to compromise their growth a lot and
04:04We need it to stop soon flea beetles normally
04:07Do much less damage from about the middle of august
04:11So we'll see and then these new plantings so this is radicchio end eve also some lettuce
04:19second planting
04:21We're watering them every day actually
04:24And for about the first week because of the intense sunlight and
04:29Dryness of the soil and because this oil is so dry
04:33Like here this bed was broccoli
04:39And I took it out
04:41Two and a half weeks ago
04:44And on that same day, I sowed carrots and I draw drills in the soil like that
04:50You can see this nice mulch of compost on the soil
04:53So you still see the broccoli roots there
04:56And I watered the drills and then dropped the carrot seed in there
05:01And then I didn't do anything any more watering for a week and left it and then the carrots did
05:06start to come up
05:06And I was really pleased about that
05:08So I watered them a bit more
05:10And I forgot about the rabbit and there's a little rabbit here. I'm quite surprised we haven't seen him this
05:15morning actually
05:16He lives in the squash and hopping out and saying good morning
05:22I forgot about the you just grazed all those carrots off
05:25So they all gone and so i've re-sewn so again water
05:29I water after sowing this time and mesh cover on against the
05:35rabbit and
05:37Every three days or so i'm putting more water on those lines
05:40So for getting plants going watering is you need it and it's quite an issue. We just have a hose
05:46I don't have an irrigation system here. It's a little bit
05:50Tight this year. This is the driest year i've pretty much ever experienced actually
05:55Well certainly this time of year so intense
05:59The heat levels have been here quite high we've been up to 36 and a half degrees one day
06:0790s fahrenheit
06:09These runner beans is is an interesting one for water because
06:13You can see how they're not setting all of these potential beans are not
06:19And every zone there's one this
06:22Little truss has one bean on
06:25And that is related to water. It's not misting the flowers or anything
06:29So I haven't been watering these until five days ago and I realized i'm just gonna have to
06:34To get some beans
06:36But it's a good time start you know once your plants start to flower
06:42They don't need water so much before but when when you get into the fruiting stage
06:46That's the time to give water
06:51And lo and behold pyramid
06:54Uh, it's it's finally finished. It's only just finished
06:58Under a week ago
07:00And it's got these beautiful doors that are sliding on
07:05copper
07:07Sorry brass wheels underneath
07:09So the whole structure is made without any metal or
07:15Any anything like that
07:18It's all copper and wooden dowels
07:21Sam is doing some bindweed
07:25Removal here, so
07:28This is classic look at this
07:30All of that's good to compost by the way, but that's how much he's removed this morning
07:36You can see it all coming up there because this this clearly was a lot of bindweed here and it's
07:41only four months since
07:43We put the cardboard down so the cardboard is now decomposed under the compost and the bindweed able to push
07:49through
07:50But from my experience of doing this over
07:53Many decades if you keep on the bindweed at this stage
07:58Uh using a trowel like you can see there or hori hori
08:01To get out as much of the root as possible
08:04You don't get out the parent root that's still there
08:08And
08:09It gets more tired as you go and within two years
08:13It's gone because this whole patch here
08:16This was solid bindweed
08:19in the first year and
08:21Still in the second year but getting less and suddenly in september 2022
08:27It just stopped and the roots had run out of energy
08:32So it's still a little bit. It's mostly around the edge
08:35And like these celeriac we've we've needed to remove a bit of bindweed
08:39They're looking good. I'm happy with what i'm seeing though. We've watered them a little but
08:44You don't need to water celeriac massively at this time
08:51I reckon it's best to start towards the end of august when it's really starting to swell if it hasn't
08:56rained by then
08:58so
09:00Watering is such a big factor, but it is really helped by no dig. No dig doesn't mean you don't
09:05need to water
09:06But it really reduces the amount you need to water and the compost helps with that
09:11Compost is not peculiar to no digger and you know if you if you're digging you still need to use
09:16compost organic matter
09:18Uh, this is how we make it
09:20so
09:21This is dry. Actually. That's some
09:24Old weeds and stems that adam chopped up with the lawnmower. You can see the lawnmower does a great job
09:29of making the woody bits smaller
09:31You don't want any bits of wood longer than that really
09:35Well wood that's a sort of woody stem
09:37So it's a mixture of green and brown
09:40I do roughly three quarters green one quarter brown, but it's that's not written in stone. It could be half
09:46and half green and brown
09:49If you put more brown it just grows a bit more slowly
09:52Here we have three leaves of brown so that they're just a little layer on top there to keep in
09:57the moisture as well as the plastic
09:59And this heap actually finished only two weeks ago
10:03And so you can see it's looking pretty nice and that is plenty moist enough
10:08and
10:09That's without watering but I am now actually just watering my heaps a little bit which I don't normally do
10:15I'm just thinking I need to water that one
10:17And here we have compost that
10:19is eight months old now and
10:22Adam turned it from the heap on the right into there
10:26And you can see how beautiful it is
10:29It's feeling really light in my hand as well. That's a very good sign. It's like humus
10:34And we will we'll use that in the autumn or the compost if it's as good as that
10:39You can also serve it out and put it in for potting mix of plants seedlings love it
10:51Here the onions are
10:53different stages of maturity, so that's long red florence near us which are
10:59Still green starting to go down. So we'll probably pull them towards the end of this week
11:03whereas the
11:05The classic round red onions up there are still growing basically so I haven't water them
11:10But i'm just waiting for them to drop and you can see how these as much earlier. That's rose to
11:16roscoff. It's a
11:17Yellow onion. Well, it's pink. Actually. It's got a beautiful pink skin very beautiful onion
11:22And the water here is what adam has just put on from washing salad this morning
11:27So we've been selling salad and we use the washing water
11:31Uh, wherever it's needed really which is most places now
11:34And these tomatoes are coming on nicely quite unusual for the uk in my experience to have
11:40In the middle of july tomatoes or anything like this and even sun gold
11:45Uh ripening already. It's always the first one. Oh, yeah this ah
11:50More flea beetles. I just thought i'd show you this to
11:53Reassure you because I know that many of you have got flea beetle damage on brassica seedlings
11:59This is just about okay
12:02Um
12:03What you don't want is too many of the new leaves like there to be
12:07Hit like that
12:08And I thought these covers would do a better job
12:11Uh
12:12They did last year this year is somehow that's worse again
12:17and
12:19Up there i've got a thermocrop cover
12:23Which I found last year worked really well
12:26Uh, it's it's a slightly denser mesh
12:29But the sweden kale under there are looking pretty pretty hammered actually
12:34My my main
12:36Tip and what i'm doing is is raise your brassica plants to be larger
12:41So i'm potting them on
12:43To seven centimeter pots we can see that in a minute
12:46I just mentioned the desiree sorry the um
12:48So that's desiree main crop potato and you can see how that's still pretty green
12:54It would be more green if we'd watered them we haven't actually watered these but
12:57If you got main crop potato
12:59It would benefit to water them if you can do that if you have enough
13:05And likewise here for new any new planting so
13:09This is leaks. It was a very late sowing of leaks. I'd never sown leek so late. I think it
13:14was like
13:14the 20th of may
13:17Musselboro and another one called blatter
13:20Uh, we'll see how they do because they're pretty small for july
13:24But these are not to harvest until next spring. So they've got plenty of time yet
13:30And they're multi-sown like I do for a lot of things
13:38Beautiful tomatoes now, but they are struggling from the heat
13:42Tomatoes don't like it so hot as cucumbers and melons do
13:46But they're hanging in there. I'm watering them twice
13:49Every two days. So I watered
13:52Yesterday morning and I'll water again tomorrow morning with the overhead line. You can water tomatoes overhead. That's totally fine
13:59Because there's no risk of blight at the moment and
14:03It actually helps the plants to hydrate a bit. You know, they're so
14:07Struggling to find moisture really
14:10The beef tomatoes have
14:12Gone a bit crazy the ox out here you can see very very beautiful fruits
14:17But this this variety called Sonnenherz it has
14:20Long intervals between trusses and so you end up
14:24With this really tall plant which is already reaching the top
14:29So then I drop it down a bit
14:31But then that means the fruit before they've ripened it are on the ground and so you have to work
14:36out how to
14:37How to handle that?
14:39It's not the easiest variety
14:41A really good one that's much more compact is orange wellington
14:45Which is it's an f1 though so you can't save the seed but these are home safe seed that does
14:50work
14:51And the melons have really loved the heat as you can see they've been prolific
15:00There are some really nice varieties here that's this is malaga
15:04I mean just look how it's made these four
15:07Huge melons on one plant and you don't need to support melons, you know
15:13This is one of many bits of false information that are right there
15:16You can see how they they're really tough stalks and they hang the only time they're wrist dropping off is
15:21when they're ripe
15:23So actually it doesn't really matter by them, but if it did happen you just pick it up, but you
15:27you you can tell when they're ripe
15:29By looking at them, you'll see a bit of cracking around the stalk a bit of going yellow there as
15:35well
15:36But before that even you'll get the most wonderful aroma
15:40Of melon so, you know, there'll be a morning probably in about two weeks actually not for a while
15:45I'll come in here and I'll smell it before
15:47They've actually ripen then I'll look for the right melon
15:51And we have different varieties here. This is ogan for example. That's slightly smaller
15:56I'll be you hopefully get a few more fruit on a plant
15:59And you can grow them on the ground. So
16:01That's one that's just planted to
16:04Crawl on the ground
16:05You don't have to grow them up strings. It's very efficient up strings though
16:09and
16:10Yeah, it's just nice with plants how there's so many ways of doing it and same with aubergine. So
16:15Here I
16:15allowed two stems to grow from the one main one
16:21By selecting a side shoot that was strong and that becomes another main stem and
16:25You do need to then keep removing the side shoots like there's one
16:29You know, it's not obvious you look at that but there's the side shoot
16:33And that's the main leader
16:35So I keep doing that and that keeps two main stems
16:40It's just quite quite productive. They're starting to crop. They're not brilliant. These aubergines though
16:45And they've they've had a bit of disease on their leaves
16:48And I think this is called a when you're a when you're it's a bacterial
16:54rot
16:55Possibly from wetting the leaves too much
16:58Which I've been doing because I know that aubergines like moisture and that discourages the red spider mite
17:04But having said that I had
17:07Used a red spider mite predator phytosilus
17:10And that's been really effective this year. Well, the melons are much greener for it
17:15And cucumbers too
17:17Red spider can be quite devastating
17:20And these cucumbers are
17:23Having a bit of a pause at the moment. They crop very prolifically in that
17:27Just getting going again
17:30And these I do water a lot more even than the tomatoes
17:33So especially in the middle of the day if it's a really hot day
17:37Like most days i'm just holding a hose for
17:41But only about a quarter of a minute just to wet the leaves and take the stress off the plants
17:46in the middle of the day
17:54The flowers have been amazing and
17:57Dahlia is just coming into their own this
18:00One gorgeous day there up there the crimson one which I grew from seed six years ago, and it's still
18:06going
18:08And here's an interesting
18:10Combination which I hadn't tried before I don't know how this is going to work out, but
18:14We have squash
18:16Went in a bit late actually because this bed was broccoli through the winter and spring
18:21And celtus I was given the seed at chelsea by lucy. She grows veg
18:27To try I I grew it
18:2943 years ago for and and didn't like it then so I haven't grown it since but i'm giving it
18:35another go
18:35So what they do is that they're slightly bitter leaves you you you can eat these leaves
18:40of of celtus but
18:43Generally one doesn't know but it may make a stem and that's the bit you eat. It's like a
18:49Delicacy
18:51So we'll see
18:53They were sown only two months ago, so they're very fast growing
19:00In the greenhouse is where I do all my propagation and this is a chance to
19:09Explain what you can so now there are so many things you can still so in the middle of july
19:13It's just possible to sow beetroot
19:17If you do if you you know, you don't need big cells and you can just
19:22Pop out plug plants like that
19:25These need planting they should have gone in
19:27I was hoping for rain. It's not going to happen. So I will need to water a lot and
19:33Cabbages brassica seedlings I raise in trays like that and then prick out but you couldn't you could serve them
19:38direct you know into small module cells
19:41These are the ones I designed you get them from container wise in the uk and actually all over the
19:45world. They're available
19:47So we'll prick those out and likewise celery
19:50And I had a problem with the celery. I was demonstrating on a course a week ago and
19:56Left this tray out on the table and then it didn't get any water the following day. And so I
20:01lost a lot of seedlings, but there's still
20:03Quite a few there. So those little seedlings they're ready to prick out
20:07But you so celery now just but don't delay on that
20:11You can also still so french beans these are sown in module trays, but you could it's very effective outside
20:17Just this takes the stress out of watering for 10 days or so before you pop them in
20:22It's easier to water things, you know in here
20:25A lot of brassicas you can still sow like broccoli for next spring purple and white sprouting
20:32also
20:34Navona for example or romanesco cauliflower really good
20:38And this is what I do if you want to get them a bit bigger before planting
20:42So a plant like that started in there and then it goes into a seven centimeter three inch pot roughly
20:48And that's homemade mix
20:50With no feeding so I don't feed any of these seedlings so you know all those beetroot amazing growth
20:56That's not not fed. It's getting a good mix and that goes back to the compost that I was saying,
21:01you know
21:01your own compost the
21:04Worms especially by the time worms have eaten a bit. It's just incredible how much goodness it has
21:09These are endive really good time. So endive
21:12uh, either the frizzy or this is broadleaf scowroll type
21:17Lettuce it's getting close to the last last call for sowing lettuce. This is maravilla de verona
21:24really nice variety and
21:26You know that is ready to go and you can see how nice developed root system they have
21:31And so you can do some serious propagation at this time of year
21:35um
21:36Even I so quite late it's a bit late now, but early july that was red cabbage, which I then
21:41pricked out into that
21:42tray and
21:44They'll go in the ground
21:46Well, will they?
21:47Normally in two weeks time that I'd plant them out as quite small seedlings, but I'm thinking we might need
21:52to be potting them on
21:53Because of the flea beetle
21:55damage
21:56So all of those things you can also sow fennel and kohlrabi at this time brilliant
22:02Time for both of those to get lovely harvests in the autumn that really helps to keep your beds full
22:08You know that we're getting gaps. It's water is the main
22:12Probably the main
22:13Limit on what you can do, but see what see what you can manage and if you can just keep
22:18plants
22:19Growing really surviving through this dry spell then come the autumn. Hopefully it rains you you get
22:24more abundant growth
22:26There's an amazing watermelon there and it's so small from so many leaves
22:33They're just starting to develop. There's two watermelon plants there
22:37And I just wanted to show you in here also the
22:40That's an ogen melon which grew on a string
22:43But all of these other ones are growing from the same plant like these leaders coming out
22:48And making fruits on the ground as well
22:51So, you know that's another option for melons to grow them up and grow them on the ground at the
22:55same time
22:56And they're just a bit more rapid here in the greenhouse warmth and
23:03And these I'm pretty confident will ripen first
23:07This is Malagro again
23:09And
23:10At this stage last year, I was starting to lose my leaves to red spider
23:14And they were all going yellow and eaten
23:17And this you can see how green they all are nice. I'm really happy about that and that's both helped
23:22with the
23:23Further development of melons. They they're a bit later actually as a result
23:28they'll have better flavor because
23:30You need melons to ripen when the leaves are still green
23:33And that's why late melons as we go towards the end of September
23:36They don't really work because you haven't got much green or photosynthesis happening at that time. So
23:41Make a note next year if you if you haven't got them this far on the these were sown
23:47March 27th. So it's
23:49Before the end of March to sow melons in heat and get them going really early
23:56Tomatoes I saw a little bit before that these were 10th of March. It's pretty much my sowing date for
24:01everything here
24:02and you can see how
24:05That's orange Wellington lovely fruits and it's it's not too tall a plant
24:11When do you or how much you de-leaf?
24:15So there's a leaf you can see it's starting to go a bit more yellow. I usually see that as
24:19a sign
24:20That I'll take it off and it's not doing so much for the plant anymore
24:25You know, I'm not manic about de-leafing
24:28I'll need to keep keep quite a few leaves on the plant, but
24:32It does help also when you de-leaf to see the trusses and a lot of these trusses particularly the
24:38beef tomatoes I shorten
24:40To not have too many otherwise you get loads at the bottom and not much
24:44Going up because the plants kind of run out of juice
24:49So tomatoes I find a lot of time is needed to grow great tomatoes
24:55Which I like doing but it's it's certainly a consideration
24:59in a market garden
25:01The celery have been incredible that's from a february sowing
25:07Roughly 20th february
25:09Victoria is very good variety
25:12And further up we have a later sowing
25:16It was first of april and planted in may
25:20And you can see there they've got a way to go yet. It's just going to be a nice relay.
25:26I'm hoping
25:29Well, this is the dig no dig trial beds
25:33And
25:35That's the dig bed has same amount of compost dug in
25:38As the compost that I put on top there same amount
25:42And so far this year we've had 31.3 kilos of harvest from that bed
25:48And 36 kilos from the no dig bed
25:51And that's pretty consistent every year we get about 10% 12% more
25:57Through the season from no dig
25:59You're not seeing a lot of difference that end because it's all new plantings here. We've got some more established
26:04plantings
26:05In fact, the onions we're going to pull today
26:08So this is the rose de roscoff
26:11multi-sown
26:13So all of that is from one little module cell
26:17Sown late february and you can look after a lot of onions that way. So, you know, one of those
26:22trays of 60
26:24Times four you've got over 200 onions in a small space to propagate. It's very efficient and using not much
26:30potting mix either
26:31And these went in the ground on the 9th of march
26:34So they were pretty small when they went in I mean truly small
26:38And yet it works, but what they do is I put a fleece over something like that
26:42And to cover them
26:45For the first six weeks or so
26:47And they're the the last of the first plantings which is harvesting like for example, we have peas there
26:53Where the kale is now?
26:55This was spinach either side of the celeriac
26:58And in fact the celeriac are showing quite a difference see between the no dig and the dig
27:04What I noticed in the afternoon is we water both these beds the same
27:09But the dig bed the leaves are wilting more
27:13It seems not able to get hold of so much moisture for the plants where the soil has been disturbed
27:18And I think it's from the mycelial and bacterial networks being broken
27:24By the digging process any kind of cultivation forking as well, you know, don't don't go into that either
27:30Broad forking is not no dig just leaving soil alone. You get these amazing
27:35results beautiful growth that's keogia beetroot and a flaming barrel
27:41Interplanted with spring onions actually that's another grow together combination. You can find them in my book
27:46And so you harvest the spring onions before the beetroot need quite all the space
27:53And to finish I can't resist showing you this beautiful corn
27:59Which has sprung up so fast
28:02Was sown 10th april planted 25th fleece over which protected it against frost of may the 11th
28:09And
28:10It's just kept growing. We haven't watered it until five days ago. So it had first watering then
28:16Again, I feel that you know really shows with no dig and how good the structure of the soil is
28:20And how plants can access the food and moisture they need very easily
28:25Um, we did just water it now because we as with the runner beans, you know as you get close
28:30to harvest
28:31It really makes sense to water
28:34And i'll finish with a question. What are you sowing now?
28:38And what is your favorite variety of what you're sowing?
28:42It'd be nice to share that a lot of people read the comments these videos, which is great and
28:46Um, i'll i'll chip in with a comment myself
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