Garden Share Collective: July

Mid-winter feels like spring this year. Wellington has been glorious -- cold but not freezing, sunny, not windy, just enough rain to keep the garden green and gorgeous. We're over the slump of the shortest day, the seed catalog has arrived, and it feels like summer is just around the corner. I've been kicking up my heels, planting and plotting, pruning and pottering. Not everyday like in summer, but when I look up from my kitchen table desk and see the sun in the courtyard, flooding the shed with lovely light and warming the bulbs and seedlings, I just can't help slipping on my gumboots and gloves, and getting amongst it!
This is my July post for the Garden Share Collective -- a wonderful online community sharing the garden love.
July harvest
It's all about flowers and herbs this month.

I wish you could smell this Daphne. When you stick your nose into the bush and sniff hard, it's like being in Fiji or Hawaii... a tropical mix of pineapple + orange + lime. Totally gorgeous, and not what I expect from a winter flower. But nature knows when we're craving a trip to the tropics, and gives us a good whiff of it. I pruned this bush back a few months ago, and it's flowered monstrously in response. I also read that it likes to be fed tea leaves, so I'm making the trip downstairs a couple of times a day to empty the tea pot. Seems to be paying off.

The jasmine is all glorious and heady at the moment too. I purposely put the Daphne out the front, well away from this jasmine hedge, because their smells are totally different, and I sensed they wouldn't mingle well. The jasmine is sweet, dense, and smokey almost. It's not the kind of flower I want to stick my nose into. But I do love catching a lazy whiff as I hang out the washing.

The rosemary is thick and sticky with oil. It also sticks out into the path out the front so I brush against it every time I pass. The smell is takes me to a place I've never been, but can imagine. Somewhere in Europe where lambs are cooked whole over hot coals, and potatoes are roasted with lemons, rosemary and salt. I MUST go to Greece one day soon.
Here's a wonderful, moreish snack using fresh rosemary.
Rosemary almonds
Mix:

• 200 gm raw almonds
• 1tbs olive oil
• 2tbs finely chopped fresh rosemary
• 1tsp sea salt

Bake on baking paper at 200C for 7 - 8 minutes.
Cool, and munch contentedly.
Thanks to my friend Helen for the inspiration.

July planting

The seeds I planted in May have been looking like they're totally over the tiny pots and seed raising mix, so I've put most of them out in the raised bed at the top of the garden. This bed gets the most winter sun, so they should be happy up there.

This bed already has self-sewn lettuce and fennel in it, but I just planted around them. It's now a radicchio, beet, fennel, lettuce and green onion bed. Exciting. 

If you're not sure whether seedlings are ready to be planted out, you can tip them gently out of the pot and have a look at their roots... if the roots are filling the pot, like these onion roots, it's time to get them into the ground.


That's all the planting for July. I'm not going to plant any more seeds this winter because I'm totally out of space. I'll wait a couple of months, then get stuck into planting tomatoes, cukes, eggplants, and all those summer veges.  
July Chores
There really isn't that much work to do in the garden at the moment. I just keep an eye on the proceedings, and intervene when the plants look like they need something.

A good example of plants needing attention is the sweet peas. They're planted in a pot, they were about 6 inches tall, and every time it rained or the wind blew, they would flop over. Why? Because they are climbers and not designed to hold their own weight on their stems. It's important to give climbers something to climb on -- the minute they sense a piece of wire or string or anything rigid with their tendrils, they'll loop around it and get climbing. So while this wire mesh looks a bit ugly at the back door, it will soon be covered with happy climbing sweet peas.

I'm also keeping an eye on the daffy bulbs. They haven't needed any intervention, but I did take them into the shed one day last week when we got a quick freak dump of hail. They are bursting quite gleefully out of their shells and looking very excited about spring. No flowers yet, but they're coming!

I spotted this hyacinth this morning on my photography patrol. It was one I rescued from a shop a year or two ago, looking very forelorn. It's quite happy in the garden though, and will be the next scent sensation on the front path.
If you need encouragement about keeping on top of your slug and snail population, have a look at this:

The top photo was my poor pack choi after it was stripped during the May snail infestation. I was going to pull it out, but decided to see if the old "cut and come again" theory worked for a plant that had been stripped by snails. And it does. Same plant. Amazing eh? This is why I love gardening. There's always some magic going on out there.

Of course I'd get nothing done in the garden without my trusty assistant. Lucy's deeply interested in salad greens at the moment.
Happy gardening everyone. If you've got any questions, leave a comment and I'll get back to you.