What to Grow in Your PNW Garden in July

July in the Pacific Northwest feels like the universe finally paying you back for six months of grey skies and damp socks. Everything is going at once, the harvests are piling up, and somewhere in the back of your head you already know you should be thinking about fall. You won’t want to. Do it anyway.

This is your PNW garden in July. Let’s get into it.

What You Can Still Plant Right Now

July feels late, but it isn’t. Not here. You’ve got more planting runway than you think.

Succession beans. Direct sow another round of bush beans right now and you’ll have a harvest in late August before the rains come back. Beans germinate fast in warm soil, usually somewhere in the 60-70°F range, and we’re well past that in July. I do a new row every three weeks. Cheapest insurance policy in the garden.

Late summer squash. Didn’t get squash in during June? You can still sneak in a start or two. Get transplants in the ground now rather than direct sowing, because every day counts at this point. (More on why you’ll regret every squash plant you ever put in the ground in about three weeks. Stay tuned.)

Fall brassica starts. This is the one people always miss. Broccoli, cabbage, kale for fall harvest need to be started now. Not in August. Now. I start mine in old yogurt cups on the back porch and they’re in the ground by mid-July. Six weeks of lead time before the days start shortening hard.

Fall carrots. Direct sow carrots in July for fall and early winter harvest. Carrots want around 70-75°F soil to germinate well and July soil gives you that without trying. Keep the seed bed moist until they sprout. That’s the hard part, honestly. Everything after is pretty forgiving.

Cilantro and dill in shade. Both of these bolt the second they feel hot. Cilantro in direct July sun is basically a countdown timer. Tuck them somewhere that gets afternoon shade, maybe under a taller tomato plant or along the north side of a bed. The cooler soil slows the bolting signal the plant sends itself. A little shade buys you a few more weeks of usable leaves before it decides to flower and check out.

What to Harvest Hard (Like, Right Now)

This is the part where July tries to humble you.

Zucchini. Pick them small. I mean it. Zucchini left on the plant for even two extra days triggers the plant to dump resources into seed production instead of making new fruit. Ethylene gas is involved, which sounds like something from a chemistry class, but the practical result is just that you end up with a zucchini the size of a baseball bat that nobody wants to eat. Check every single day. I missed one behind a leaf last summer and paid the price. My daughters thought it was hilarious. I did not.

Peas. If your peas are still alive and producing, you are living on borrowed time in July. Pick everything. Peas convert sugar to starch fast once the pod matures, it’s literally just photosynthate moving around, and a pea you leave on the vine three extra days tastes completely different than one you picked at the right moment. Flat pods every other day. No mercy.

Garlic. If you grew garlic this year and haven’t pulled it yet, go look at your plants right now. When about half the leaves have yellowed and dried down, it’s time. Don’t wait until the whole plant is brown. The wrapper around the bulb starts to degrade and you lose curing quality. I waited too long my first year and lost half a bed to that mistake. Pull it, brush off the dirt, hang it somewhere with good airflow for a few weeks. Free garlic for months.

What to Start Planning For (Even Though It Feels Wrong)

I know. The sun is out. The tomatoes are finally doing something. Fall feels like somebody else’s problem. It isn’t.

The fall garden in the PNW lives or dies based on what you do in July and August. Fall brassica seeds need to be ordered or grabbed now if you haven’t already. Start a simple sketch on paper of where you’ll put your fall beds once summer crops come out. Even just knowing that a tomato plant is coming out in mid-August and that’s where your kale transplants go is enough.

The other thing to think about is soil. Summer heat and heavy cropping depletes a lot. Grab a bag of cheap compost from the garden center or start a new batch in your pile now so it’s ready to work in come September. And here’s the thing, soil microbes are most active in warm conditions, which means your compost breaks down faster in July heat than it ever will in October. Turnip the dial on that pile now. (Sorry. I couldn’t help it.)

July is the loud month. Harvests everywhere, plants demanding water every day, everything happening at once. But the gardeners who have great falls are the ones who plant through the noise in July instead of waiting until it quiets down. Which, around here, it won’t. Not until October. And by then it’s too late.

Get out there. Pick that zucchini. You know which one I’m talking about.

Photo by Runic Earth on Unsplash