The 7 Seeds You MUST Start in July

Summer is when most gardeners stop sowing, but that’s a mistake if we don’t want our gardens to run out of steam before autumn! There are seven crops you need to plant before it’s too late to make sure you continue to harvest for months to come. These plants are fast and productive, and some actually grow better right now than in spring, including the first one on my list…

Bulb Fennel (aka Florence Fennel)

…Bulb or Florence fennel, one of the most elegant vegetables you’ll ever grow! That crisp, swollen bulb – which is in fact swollen leaf stalks – boasts flamboyantly feathery fronds. It’s simply stunning, both in the garden, where it would look every bit as at home within the ornamental flower border, and on the plate, whether shaved raw into salads, roasted into a delicious caramelized unctuousness, or paired with fish in a way that just feels like it’s meant to be! And its slightly sweet edge makes it popular in teas too.

Midsummer is in fact the best time to sow it. Spring sowings almost always bolt before the bulbs have a chance to form – they respond to lengthening days by sending up flowers instead, rendering the bulb unusable. But sow now, and the plants bulk up beautifully as they head on into the cooler, moister days of autumn.

Fennel absolutely loathes root disturbance, which can cause it to bolt before the bulb can form, so either sow one seed per plug into plug trays, which will keep the rootball fully intact at planting time, or sow direct into well-prepared soil in drills half an inch (1cm) deep.

Sowing into plugs has the benefit of enabling you to get your fennel started when your growing area is still occupied by other crops, so you can have seedlings ready to plant as soon as space becomes available. Space them about a foot (30cm) between plants both ways.

Whether you sow direct or begin in plug trays, consistent moisture is everything, because a fennel plant that dries out will quickly bolt. Mulch around the base to help retain moisture – I just use grass clippings. Then as the bulbs swell, you can earth them up slightly by banking the soil up around the base of the bulbs to blanch and sweeten the base.

A fascinating fact about fennel is that it contains a compound called anethole – the same thing that gives licorice its aniseedy flavor – and it’s estimated to be around 13 times sweeter than sugar. No wonder roasted fennel tastes so incredible!

The Bitter Brigade: Chicory, Endive and Radicchio

But perhaps you prefer something a little more bitter. Well now it’s time for an underrated band of really rather fantastic salad leaves that I call the ‘bitter brigade’ - chicory, endive and radicchio. Bold-tasting, perhaps, but exceptionally cheery in looks and character, and the perfect counterparts to the usual mild lettuce. If you’ve never grown them before, once you’ve tried them in a mixed salad you’ll wonder why you never did, I promise! When summer lettuce is struggling under the hot sun and bolting, these three sail through completely unfazed.

I love to grow a cutting or leaf chicory variety which gives continuous harvests of crisp leaves from summer right through to the end of autumn. Many varieties are remarkably frost-tolerant, which makes it a great season-extender. Endives come in frisée types, with their beautifully intricate, curly leaves, and escarole types, which have broader, flatter leaves. Both have that pleasingly bitter note that makes a mixed salad sing. But for me, it’s radicchio that’s the jewel of this tempting trio. Those deep crimson and white heads are genuinely stunning, and sowing now gives well-developed plants for autumn and winter.

All three are started off the same way. Scatter seeds thinly across the surface of a small pot or seed tray of fresh potting mix, cover with a light layer – no more than, say, a quarter inch (0.5cm) – water, and keep them somewhere bright and reasonably warm. Germination is usually quick at this time of year, within a week or so.

When the seedlings are big enough to handle it’s time to carefully transfer them into individual plugs or pots, supporting the seedlings by their leaves and gently backfilling with potting mix around the roots.

Grow them on into sturdy little plants before planting into their final positions about 9-10in (up to 25cm) apart for endive, and around a foot (30cm) apart for chicory and radicchio. Keep well-watered through hot spells and you’re onto a winner.

If you want to turn down the bitterness just a touch while also improving texture, you can blanch the heads shortly before harvest. Simply loosely tie the outer leaves over the heart for a week or two to exclude the light and you’ll get a paler, milder, tenderly delicious centre. Or you can just cover the whole plant with an upturned plant pot for a week or so, making sure to cover the drainage hole too to exclude all light.

Winter Radish

Let’s talk about a crop that is easy, fast, and satisfying, and yet often overlooked in favour of its smaller summer cousin: winter radish. If your only experience of radishes is those small red salad types – and there’s nothing wrong with that – then winter radishes are about to blow your mind!

We’re talking big, bold roots, such as ‘Black Spanish Round’ with its jet-black skin and sharp, peppery white flesh; magnificent daikon or mooli types with their long, elegant roots reaching a foot or more; and beautiful Chinese and Korean varieties in all sorts of shapes and colours. Roasted, pickled, grated into slaws, stirred into soups – winter radish is a revelation, and something I’m keen to grow more of this year.

It’s best to sow winter radishes direct where they will grow. Start by raking the soil level, and sprinkling and raking in a general purpose organic fertilizer such as blood, fish and bone to give it a boost ready for this second crop of the season. Make drills about a quarter inch (1cm) deep, spaced a foot (30cm) apart.

The absolute cherry on the cake about sowing at this time of year, and on into the second half of summer for that matter, is that we’ll largely sidestep flea beetles – those tiny, bothersome beetles that pepper spring-sown brassica crops with tiny holes. Their numbers have dropped right off by midsummer, which means our radishes should get away unscathed. Nice!

Winter radishes are much chunkier than summer radishes, so once the seedlings come up thin them to around 6-8in (15-20cm) apart. They will need to be watered steadily throughout the remainder of summer, because inconsistent moisture causes cracked, woody roots. All being well, you’ll be pulling magnificent specimens from early autumn onwards, and they store brilliantly in the ground until you need them too.

Parsley

Parsley: endlessly useful, and yet most gardeners sow it once in spring and forget about it. I like to grow it from those supermarket pots of parsley you get. I just divide up clusters of seedlings from the pot, set them into their own pots to grow on, and then plant them out a few weeks later.

But a midsummer sowing is absolutely worth doing too. These plants will keep cropping right through autumn and into winter, and because parsley is a biennial, they’ll often come back in spring too before flowering in a blaze of beneficial bug-attracting glory. Two seasons from one sowing isn’t bad!

Grow flatleaf parsley for bolder, more complex flavors, or a curly leaf variety for a milder, hardier option through winter. Better still, grow both!

Parsley has a reputation for slow, erratic germination, but two simple tricks can help enormously. First, soak your seeds in lukewarm water for 24 hours before sowing to soften the seed coat. Second, keep things warm – germination is most reliable at around 65-70°F (18-21°C), which your potting mix should be at naturally right now.

Sow two seeds per plug at around a quarter inch (0.5cm) deep. Tuck them in with a light sprinkle of potting mix on top, and water gently. Then it’s just a matter of being patient. Parsley can take three to four weeks to germinate so please, don’t give up! Thin to one seedling per plug once they do come up.

You can also direct sow into shallow drills at the same depth, setting rows a foot (30cm) apart and then thinning to 6in (15cm) apart.

Once established, harvest whole leaves by cutting the outer stems right at the base. This should keep plants producing for months.

Carrots

Nothing beats homegrown carrots for outstanding taste: sweet, earthy, just delicious, and honestly so much better than store-bought roots! They’re one of the great rewards of growing your own, in my humble opinion. But the sowing window is closing fast, so we need to step to it!

If sowing a main crop variety, don't wait too long or there might not be enough time for it to reach maturity. You have a little more leeway if you’ve opted for a faster-maturing salad variety.

Sow carrots direct to avoid any root disturbance or else they’ll respond by growing in all sorts of wonderfully creative and occasionally hilarious shapes – which maybe doesn’t matter to be fair! They will taste the same and might give you a laugh too.

Rake the soil down to a fine, crumbly texture, picking out stones as you go. Raised beds or containers work brilliantly if your soil is particularly heavy or stony. Mark out shallow drills about half an inch (1cm) deep, spacing rows around 8in (20cm) apart.

If the soil is dry, water into the drills before sowing to give the seeds moisture right where they need it. Sow as thinly as you can – this needs a steady hand! Germination takes 10 to 20 days, and it’s essential to keep the soil consistently moist throughout this time. Once the seedlings are up, thin them in stages to around an inch (3cm) apart. The thinnings are delicious thrown into salads.

At this time of year there’s often a risk of very hot, dry weather, which can inhibit germination. But I have a workaround! Laying a plank of wood along the drill after sowing. This will dramatically improve germination by shading the soil, keeping it a bit cooler, and helping to retain that all-important moisture. Just be sure to check daily after a few days, and lift it the very moment you spot the first seedlings pushing through.

Watch out for slugs on those tender young seedlings, and if carrot fly have been a nuisance in the past, protect your carrots with row cover or garden fleece to keep them off. Keep them free of slugs and carrot flies and you’ll be rewarded with a gorgeous autumn harvest of sweet roots. You can move them into storage or, in milder climates, simply leave them where they are to lift as and when they’re needed.

If you’d like to know the exact best sowing dates for where you are – because of course precise timings will vary with your climate – do check out our Garden Planner. It uses data from your nearest weather station to calculate personalized sowing and planting windows for every crop, and you can try it for free. Happy sowing!