July is the peak season for food harvesting, with salad leaves, peas, beans, potatoes, beetroots, carrots, artichokes, cucumbers, courgettes, and tomatoes all bearing fruit at once. Gardening expert Monty Don says this is the perfect time to start reaping garlic and shallots, which should be ready now with yellowing leaves and forming seed heads.
How to Harvest Garlic and Shallots
To harvest, always lift bulbs with a fork. Never pull them by hand, since yanking risks damaging the roots and, crucially, the root-plate, where the roots attach to the bulb. Once lifted, clean off any excess soil but make sure to NOT trim foliage or roots before drying, as tempting as that might be.
From then on, bulbs can be left to dry on the soil itself if conditions are warm and dry, laid out on a homemade rack of chicken wire stretched over posts, or dried in a greenhouse. Wait a few weeks, and once the bulbs are thoroughly dry, they can be topped, tailed and moved into storage.
Next Steps: Onions and More
Don says onions should be the next ones, following garlic and shallots, just a few weeks later. If you haven't got garlic growing in your garden yet, no problem - just wait until autumn for the perfect timing to plant it. Ideal growing conditions involve planting between October and December in well-drained, sunny soil, breaking bulbs into individual cloves and keeping the skin intact if possible. The cloves should be spaced 10-15 cm apart from each other, with the pointy part facing up, covered by roughly 2.5-3 cm of soil. Then, mulch it to retain moisture and keep weeds at bay.
For shallots, follow a slightly different timetable. The sets should be from late autumn to early spring, ideally in a sunny, well-draining spot. Plant the bulbs with the pointy end up, keeping the tips just visible above the soil, spaced 15-20 cm apart. Then you'll find each set has multiplied into a clump of five to ten shallots by the time of harvest.
Other July Crops
Apart from garlic and shallots, Monty Don also wants you to harvest other plants now for maximum quality. He wrote of the July crops on his website: "We harvest basil by the trug load and make pesto to eat fresh and to freeze, storing that lovely oily taste of summer for the dark winter evenings. The rhubarb and asparagus have their last picking at the beginning of the month." And "soft fruit is at its best with strawberries, summer raspberries, gooseberries, black and red currants - all ready for harvest."
