Today's post is all about the perfect garden with perfect plants, July to-do's, and yellow leaves and what that means.
Our new show garden
Wonderful weather we're having. Sunshine, showers here and there, a few clouds. What more could you want?
Well, it has been pretty unpredictable. One minute it's full sun, the next torrential rain.
We humans worry about this way more than the plants themselves. They just keep on growing. Even when they're drooping from the heat or flattened by a downpour.
Does that bother them? Of course it does. Some species can handle it better than others though. And small seedlings are more vulnerable than full-grown plants.
That's life. And a nice topic for today.
A perfect garden and perfect plants?
When I started Planty Gardening, I saw how a lot of people were making growing vegetables way too complicated. I wanted to change that.
And we hit on something that works: the combination of our method, materials, seeds, and the app produces great results 95% of the time.
That's a way better success rate than a traditional vegetable garden. For beginners, it seems impossible.
One of our garden boxes on June 1, sown on May 1
But 100% perfect? Sorry, that's just not possible. In fact, I don't want that.
The garden boxes usually look their best in May and June, packed with fresh green plants. From July onward, this changes. The garden slowly looks less green.
It makes sense: you've already harvested a lot, new seedlings are still small, and leaves turn yellow here and there.
Yellow leaves are normal and sometimes even welcome. Just look at the potatoes. When their leaves turn yellow, that means they're ready to harvest.
Yellow leaves on your potato plants? Time to harvest 🙂
A lot of people think that you can't sow anything in summer. But nothing could be further from the truth.
Sure: it's too late to sow tomatoes, but it's been too late since mid-April. You can better skip radishes and head lettuces too. They don't do as well in July.
But other than that, there's a lot you can sow now:
That's the official list. Unofficially, I also sow bush beans, butter beans, sunflowers, and snow peas in early July. The first 2 often work out well, the 3rd less so. But to me, it's worth a try.
Tip for emptying your pea patch
You'll see it if you use the app: when you remove your snow peas from a patch, leave the roots behind in the soil mix.
Why? Because of the white clumps attached to the roots. They are full of nutrients and give a boost to your soil mix. They're great for the plants you sow there next.
On June 1, I sowed a big MM-Hero and added some pre-sown summer vegetables to it.
This is how it looks in the Planty Gardening app:
The June MM-Hero in the app
and this is how it looks now IRL:
The June MM-Hero today
Brand new sowing round July 1
This is our July box. I literally just sowed it, so there's nothing to see yet. That'll change soon enough.
The July garden box, freshly sown
Since everything is growing super fast this month, sometimes I have to skip ahead to the next level in the app. I'm already harvesting plenty of arugola, the square patch of radishes is half empty, and I can already see the first tomatoes.
The Planty Gardening website
So, that's it for today
Have a great summer. Let's hope for some nice weather: sunny but not too hot and some rain once in a while. That's probably on every vegetable gardener's wish list 😉
Not started yet?
Then I have some good news. Thanks to a lot of stocking issues, we now have plenty of MM-Heros and Starter Kits again. Even the MM-minis are finally in. They'll be sent to our warehouse tomorrow.
The MM-Originals aren't doing so well these days. At the moment, quality wood is hard to come by, or it is twice as expensive. As long as that remains the case, we've decided to postpone production.
We're also working with some new material: super durable bamboo. It's hard to come by really nice bamboo planks, but we've been able to get our hands on some. With a bit of luck, they'll be in the shop in a month.
Testing out some new materials
Already got your Planty Garden?
If so, I hope you enjoy all the beauty and bounty of your vegetable garden:
Photos from the Makkelijke Moestuin community
Next time I'll tell you more about pests. And how to deal with them.
Until then!
PS: Excited?
Share your Planty adventures on Facebook or Instagram and add the hashtag #plantygarden. Can’t wait to see what you’ve got 🙂
