The FTS Almanac – July Jobs and Foraging

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.

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

• Paddocks:
  • Remove clippings from fields with a Chain Harrow on its most aggressive setting- the William Hackett Drag Harrow and Framed Harrow are ideal whether you have a tractor or not.
  • Cut the grass or more scrubby areas with high blades using a Winton Topper Mower or the Wessex ATV Topper Mower or an FTS or Winton Flail Mower for mulched cuttings.
• Lawns:
  • Rake vigorously.
  • Mow at least once a week, perhaps with the Winton or Agrint Finishing Mower.
  • Aerate poorly drained lawns with a hollow tined fork.
  • Feed poor growing areas.
• General: repair and paint greenhouses. Carry any construction work such as paving, wall building and concreting.

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.