How to start a kitchen garden: what to do in July | House & Garden

12.07.2024 - 23:39 / houseandgarden.co.uk / Clare Foster

What I love about my vegetable garden at this time of year is that it is almost as full of flowers as it is with fruit and veg. Alongside the rows of beans, kale and lettuce, beds are edged with marigolds or zinnias, and there are obelisks of sweet peas at either end of a bed (or sometimes in the middle). I also let a hollyhock or two seed around, as well as opium poppies, toadflax, ammi and verbena. Growing flowers alongside vegetables – or companion planting, as it is known – is something I’ve always done. There is no particular science to it, but the flowers attract more pollinators, which will in turn help the pollination of your crops. They can also lure the less beneficial aphids and other pests away from the vegetables and fruit; blackfly, for example, will colonise Ammi majus, lessening the chances of an infestation on your broad beans. And, more than anything else, letting flowers creep around the edges of your vegetable plot makes it look so much more attractive.

After the summer solstice has passed, you can sow Florence fennel, which tends to bolt if you sow it too early. I also like to sow another batch of chard at this stage, which I will plant out in early autumn to take me through the winter, as well as winter salad leaves such as mizuna and lamb’s lettuce.

The main task at this time of year is to keep up with harvesting, because if you don’t pick regularly, a plant will stop producing and go to seed. This also applies to sweet peas, which will soon dwindle unless you pick the blooms two or three times a week. If it is very dry, watering is really important. I capture as much rainwater as I can in water butts and use that before I start using the hose.