Fruit is coming into season and farm animals are beginning to need less care. But there’s no time to smell the roses, though you may catch a whiff in passing! The continuing summer shows and fetes are a great opportunity to show off all your hard work, and we hope to see you at Farm Tech Supplies’ local shows.

The FTS Almanac – July

Plants

  • Hedges: give hawthorns their first trim. Continue clipping fast-growing hedges, such as privet.
  • Roses: deadhead hybrid tea and floribunda Apply fertiliser and continue to spray.
  • Perennials: cut back by half those that have finished blooming and water thoroughly.
  • Herbs: harvest just before they come into full bloom and dry in an airing cupboard. Cut lavender for drying.
  • Vegetables: in the south, sow swedes, hardy turnips and spinach beet. Continue to water shallow rooted crops in dry weather. Start to lift and store onions, and shallots when their tops yellow. Cut cucumbers as they swell. Sow winter radishes and thin to 6 inches apart.
  • Fruit: prune plum trees, restricted pears (early July) and apples (late July). Pinch out tips of fan-trained sweet cherry shoots. Propagate blackberries and loganberries by bending a stem to the ground and burying the tip, so it sets down roots. Pinch out the side shoots on tomatoes, except on bush varieties.

Lawn/Groundcare

Farm Animal Care

  • Sheep: shearing and dose vaccinations for worms and foot bathing for the lambs.
  • General: make hay and silage. Begin combining cereals. Baling and carting straw.

Foraging

  • Berries:
    • Bilberries: tasty when raw, but even better as jam or compote.
    • Wild strawberries: hard to find but the taste is worth the effort.
  • Fungi:
    • Chanterelle: peppery, slightly fruity.
  • Plants:
    • Fat Hen: similar taste to spinach, and should be treated the same way.
    • Meadowsweet: with cucumber-flavoured leaves and sweet-scented flowers, this plant can flavour wines, teas, cordials and sorbets.
    • Yarrow: young leaves can be used as a spinach substitute.
    • Wood sorrel: used sparingly, it gives a citrusy taste to salads.