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July isn't too late to grow an amazing garden! In this video, you'll discover **5 crops you can still plant in July** for a productive fall harvest using time-tested, old-fashioned gardening methods. These traditional techniques have helped gardeners grow healthy food for generations without relying on expensive products or complicated systems.
Whether you're growing in raised beds, a backyard garden, or containers, these crops can provide fresh harvests before the first frost if planted at the right time.
In this video you'll learn:
🌱 The 5 best crops to plant in July
🌿 Why these vegetables thrive in late summer
🥕 Traditional planting tips for bigger fall harvests
🍂 How to extend your growing season naturally
🌾 Simple old-fashioned gardening methods that still work today
If you enjoy practical gardening advice, heirloom growing methods, and self-sufficiency tips, be sure to **Like**, **Subscribe**, and turn on notifications so you never miss a new video!
#Gardening #JulyGardening #FallHarvest #VegetableGarden #GrowYourOwnFood #Homesteading #KitchenGarden #GardeningTips #SelfSuf
July isn't too late to grow an amazing garden! In this video, you'll discover **5 crops you can still plant in July** for a productive fall harvest using time-tested, old-fashioned gardening methods. These traditional techniques have helped gardeners grow healthy food for generations without relying on expensive products or complicated systems.
Whether you're growing in raised beds, a backyard garden, or containers, these crops can provide fresh harvests before the first frost if planted at the right time.
In this video you'll learn:
🌱 The 5 best crops to plant in July
🌿 Why these vegetables thrive in late summer
🥕 Traditional planting tips for bigger fall harvests
🍂 How to extend your growing season naturally
🌾 Simple old-fashioned gardening methods that still work today
If you enjoy practical gardening advice, heirloom growing methods, and self-sufficiency tips, be sure to **Like**, **Subscribe**, and turn on notifications so you never miss a new video!
#Gardening #JulyGardening #FallHarvest #VegetableGarden #GrowYourOwnFood #Homesteading #KitchenGarden #GardeningTips #SelfSuf
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00It is hot out here. I will not pretend otherwise. We are in the thick of it now. The longest
00:06days,
00:07the hardest sun, the kind of heat that makes a man want to sit in the shade of the porch
00:11and leave the garden to fend for itself. And I will tell you plainly, a great many gardens do
00:18just quit in the middle of the summer. The spring crops are spent, the heat beats down what is left,
00:24the bugs come on thick, and the whole thing looks tired and finished by the end of July.
00:30But here is the thing the old people knew that most folks have forgotten. July is not the end
00:36of the garden. July is when you plant the second half of it. What you put in the ground right
00:42now,
00:43in the worst of the heat, is what decides whether your garden gives out on you in August,
00:48or whether it feeds your family clear on into the fall and the first cold. The work you do now,
00:55sweating in this sun, is the difference between an empty bed come October and a table full of food
01:01when the frost is on the pumpkins. My name is Elias Yoder, and I farm a piece of ground here
01:07in
01:08Lancaster County in Pennsylvania that my family has worked since 1838. And one of the first things my
01:15grandfather taught me about a garden was that a wise gardener is always thinking one season ahead.
01:22When you are eating from the spring planting, you are already putting in the fall one. The garden
01:28never stops. It only turns. So today I am going to walk you through five things you want to get
01:35in the
01:36ground this month, in July, so that you keep eating long after the lazy gardens have given up and gone
01:42to
01:43weeds. I remember my grandmother out in the garden on a July evening, after the heat of the day had
01:49finally let go its grip, working down a row on her knees in the cool of the dusk, putting in
01:56seed while
01:57the rest of the world thought the garden season was as good as over. I was a boy and I
02:02did not
02:03understand it. I asked her why she was planting when everything was already grown. And she looked up
02:09at me and she said, Child, this is not for now. This is for November. She was not planting for
02:17the table
02:17that week. She was planting for the table three months on, when the killing cold had taken every
02:24other garden in the valley and ours was still green under the frost cloth. That is the whole secret,
02:31and it is no secret at all. It is only thinking ahead and being willing to do a little work
02:37in the heat
02:38for a reward that comes long after. Before I go any further, I will say this once and then leave
02:46it be.
02:46I gathered the whole of it, all of these old ways of keeping a garden going through the year,
02:53into a book. You can find it at EliasYoder.com. The book is the long version. If you want it,
03:00it is there. I will not mention it again. The first thing to plant, and the easiest,
03:07is the string bean. Now July is a hard month to start most things straight out in the garden
03:13on account of the heat and the sun and the bugs, but the string bean does not care about any
03:19of that
03:19near as much as the rest. And that is exactly why it is such a good thing to sow right
03:25now.
03:25You do not have to fuss with starting it inside in a tray and moving it out. You put the
03:31seed straight
03:32in the ground where it is to grow, and it comes up and it grows, easy as anything. That is
03:39what we call
03:39direct sowing, and beans are made for it. The other good of the bean is that it is not much
03:46troubled by
03:46pests or by disease. If your tomatoes and your cucumbers and your squash are getting chewed to ribbons
03:53and covered in spots this time of year, and they often are, the beans go on untroubled beside them.
04:01In all my years I can hardly remember a disease taking my beans. I have never had to fuss over
04:08them
04:08the way I fuss over the tender crops. They just grow. There is a reason for it, and it is
04:15worth
04:15understanding. The bean makes its own feeding, in a manner of speaking, down in the roots, where it
04:21takes what it needs from the very air in the soil, so it is not so hungry and so fussy
04:27as the heavy
04:28feeders like your corn and your squash. And its leaf is tougher, and its whole nature is hardier,
04:34so the heat that stalls a tomato and the bugs that swarm a cucumber pass the bean by. When everything
04:42else in the July garden is struggling, the bean is the one crop you can count on to carry the
04:48load.
04:48And that alone is reason enough to keep a row of it going. Now there is one thing to know,
04:55and it depends on where you live. If you are up north or anywhere the summers are shorter and milder,
05:01you can just go out and sow your beans right now and not think twice about it. They will be
05:07fine.
05:07But if you are down south or out west where the sun is a hammer and the heat does not
05:13let up,
05:13that hard sun can toughen the bean up, make the pods a little chewy, still good to eat,
05:20but not so tender. So if you garden in that fierce sun, sow your beans, but give them a bit
05:26of shade
05:27cloth over the top, a light cloth stretched on some hoops or a simple frame, to break the worst of
05:33the
05:33sun off the young plants. And I will tell you, if you are not sure whether you need it, put
05:39the shade
05:40cloth on anyway. You lose nothing. You can always pull it off later if you find they want more sun.
05:47Better to have it and not need it. The second thing, and you will be sorry if you skip it,
05:53is potatoes. Now I showed you not long ago how I plant my potatoes, the deep planting and the cut
06:00seed and all of it, so I will not go over the whole of that again here. What matters for
06:06right now,
06:07for a July planting is the timing, because a potato put in this month gives you a fall crop that
06:14will
06:14feed you right through the winter. There is not a better storage crop in all the garden. You grow
06:21them till the frost cuts the tops down, or till the vines die back on their own, and then you
06:26dig them
06:27and cure them and lay them by, and they will keep in a cool dark cellar or garage for months.
06:34My fall
06:35potatoes last me clear into the spring. Here is how you reckon the timing, and you reckon it off your
06:42own first frost wherever you are. If your first frost comes early, say the tail end of September,
06:49or the first part of October, then get your seed potatoes in the ground in early July. That gives
06:56them a couple weeks to break the surface, and then a good two months to grow and set decent potatoes
07:02underneath before the cold. And if you are cutting it close, do not fret over a light frost,
07:09because it only kills the tops. The potatoes themselves are safe down in the dark ground.
07:16If you see the plants pushing up and a hard frost is coming, just mound a little more soil or
07:22mulch over
07:23them to keep them protected. But if your first frost holds off till late October or into November,
07:31the way it often does here in my part of the country, where I reckon on the middle of October
07:35and sometimes later, then you are better off waiting and planting in the back half of July.
07:42The reason is that a potato does not care for it being too hot, and if you plant into the
07:48worst of the
07:48August heat, the plant sulks. So I set my seed potatoes out first, on a counter or a shelf,
07:56in indirect light, not in the sun, and I let them sit there a week or two till the eyes
08:02wake up and
08:03put out good short stout sprouts. Then I plant them at the end of the month, and they come up
08:09in the
08:10cooler part of the season and grow on happy through September and October. Now if you need seed to plant,
08:17you have three plain ways to get it. One, you can buy proper seed potatoes, which are grown for planting
08:24and will sprout quick and true. Two, you can go to the store and buy organic potatoes, because those have
08:32not been sprayed with the chemical that stops sprouting, so you can set them out to green up and sprout,
08:38or even plant them straight away. And three, go look in the back of your own pantry, because near everyone
08:46has a forgotten potato back there that has already gone to sprouting, and that one you can plant
08:52directly. The one thing you cannot do is grab an ordinary store potato that is not sprouted, because
08:59most of those have been treated to keep them from sprouting on the shelf, and one of those planted may
09:05just sit and rot in the ground before it ever comes up. But if an ordinary potato has already sprouted
09:12on its
09:12own in your pantry, then the treatment has worn off and it is safe to plant. So there is no
09:18excuse.
09:19Everyone can find a potato to put in the ground. The third thing to plant in July is basil. Now
09:27July is
09:28just the right time to start a second wave of it. If you planted basil back in the spring, it
09:34is very likely
09:35starting to bolt on you about now, which is to say, it is trying to flower and go to seed.
09:41And once it does
09:42that, the leaves turn bitter and the plant is near done. And if you never got around to planting basil
09:49at
09:49all, well, start your first wave right now and you will still get a fine crop. Basil is one of
09:56the easiest,
09:57least troublesome things you can grow, and it gives you your choice of how to start it. You can sow
10:03it
10:04straight in the ground, or you can start it in a tray and move it out, whichever suits you. I
10:10start
10:10mine in trays inside myself because we get hard driving rains here that will wash a fine little
10:17basil seed right out of the ground. But if your rains are gentler, sow it straight out and save yourself
10:24the trouble. The reason to start that second wave now is so you always have young, vigorous plants coming
10:32on behind the older ones. The heat of July starts beating up the spring basil, and even if you keep
10:38cutting it back, it is wise to have fresh, young plants growing alongside that are more willing to
10:44hold off on bolting. That is the old rule, and it is a good one. Always keep two crops of
10:51basil going,
10:52an older and a younger, and you hedge your bets and never go without. There are different kinds of basil
10:59to
10:59grow. There is your common sweet basil, the kind for the kitchen that most folks know, and you can
11:06find types of it bred to stand up better against the mildew that comes in damp weather, which is worth
11:11seeking out if your falls turn wet and your basil has died of it before. Grow a few kinds if
11:18you like
11:19variety, but whatever you grow, tend to your older plants while you are at it. Walk down the row and
11:26look for
11:26any that are sending up flower heads and pinch or cut those heads off back down to the next set
11:33of
11:33leaves. Those leaves below will take over and grow on, and cutting off the flowering that way will
11:40stretch the life of the plant a good while longer. The fourth thing, and folks are always surprised by
11:46this one, is romaine lettuce. Most people think of lettuce as a cold weather crop, and they are half right,
11:53but the truth is, your romaine does not want a frost on it. A hard frost or a freeze will
12:00damage the
12:01heads. What it wants is to come to size in the cool of the fall, when the days have gone
12:07mild, and the
12:08nights have gone cool, but the real cold has not yet come. And to make that happen, you have to
12:15start it now,
12:15while it is still warm, so it is ready to finish in that sweet, cool stretch of autumn. The way
12:22you
12:23manage it is by starting your seeds inside, where it is not so brutally hot, and then setting the young
12:29plants out into the garden once the weather has begun to turn. You are getting a jump on the season.
12:36Reckon it, again, off your own first frost. If your frost comes at the end of September or early October,
12:43start your romaine seeds inside in early July, because the little plants want four to six weeks
12:50to grow before they go out, and then set them into the garden along about the middle of August.
12:56That gives them six to eight weeks to grow into good big heads before the cold. And if an early
13:03frost
13:03threatens, throw a light cover over them, a frost blanket, or a length of garden fabric, and it will
13:10keep the frost off and the heads pristine. But if your frost holds off till late October or November,
13:17as mine tends to, then wait and start your romaine seeds toward the very end of July, and set the
13:24plants out in the beginning to middle of September, once the worst heat has finally broken. They will grow
13:30through the back half of September and into October, and give you a fine harvest before any hard cold.
13:37And if it is still hot when your young plants go out, start them under a bit of that shade
13:43cloth,
13:4440% shade or so, to take the edge off till the weather cools. It gives you a few weeks
13:50of protection
13:50in case the heat lingers or your timing runs a little ahead. I will tell you plainly, a fall romaine
13:58is a better thing than a spring one. The spring lettuce comes to size just as the weather is warming,
14:05and warm weather makes lettuce bitter and loose. But the fall romaine matures as the nights are turning
14:11cool, and that gives you a sweeter, crisper, more tender head every time. If you have never grown your
14:20lettuce on into the fall, do it this year. And I will say, with a heavy enough garden fabric over
14:27them to keep the hard frost and freeze off, romaine will take a surprising amount of cold and carry on
14:34well into the winter. But you must keep that killing frost off the leaves, because even a light frost forming
14:42right on an unprotected leaf, will do it harm. The fifth and last thing to plant in July is another
14:49wave of cucumbers and zucchini. Now these belong to the same family, and they all share the same nature,
14:57which is that they come up fast, they grow fast, they fruit fast, and then they die fast. And if
15:05you try
15:05to nurse one of these plants along all summer long, you will only be disappointed, because they are not
15:11made to last. A cucumber vine or a zucchini plant has maybe two or three months in it, and then,
15:20beaten
15:20down by the heat and the humidity and the bugs, it gives out, no matter how well you tend it.
15:27So the
15:27answer is not to fight that. The answer is to work with it, the way the old market growers did,
15:34and that
15:34is called succession planting. You put in a fresh crop every four to six weeks, right through the
15:41season, so that you always have young plants coming into their prime, just as the older ones are
15:48quitting. I had cucumbers a few weeks back that were the picture of health, pumping out fruit like they
15:54would never stop, and now, a mere three or four weeks later, they are mostly spent and pulled. That
16:02is just the way of them. But because I have a fresh tray of young plants ready to go in
16:08the ground,
16:08I will never be without. As the old vines reach their end, the new ones are climbing and about to
16:16fruit,
16:16and the harvest never breaks. So put your new cucumbers and zucchini in now, and plan to put more in
16:24again
16:24in another month, and again after that. Set them where a spent crop has come out, a bed where the
16:31early
16:32potatoes were dug, or where a tired tomato has finished, so long as you are not planting the very
16:38same family right back on the same spot too tight, which spreads disease. Keep young plants always
16:45coming on, every four to six weeks, and you will pick cucumbers and squash right up until the frost
16:53finally ends it. Now let me say a plain word about the whole of this, because it is the real
16:59lesson
16:59underneath all five of these crops. You are not a slave to the weather. That is what I want you
17:07to
17:07carry away from this. Too many folks look at a hard summer or an early winter and just throw up
17:13their
17:13hands and let the season beat them. But a gardener has tools, simple ones, that let him bend the season
17:21to
17:22his will a little. When it is too hot, a length of shade cloth over some hoops cools things down
17:29enough
17:29to start your crops early. When the cold comes on, a length of garden fabric thrown over the beds
17:35keeps the frost off and lets you grow weeks, even months, later than you thought you could.
17:42Shade cloth buys you the early end. Fabric buys you the late end. Put the two together,
17:48and you have added a great long stretch to your growing year on both ends with nothing more than
17:55some cloth and a few hoops and the knowing of when to use them. And I will tell you who
18:01profits from
18:02you not knowing this, though it is not much of a villain, so do not expect one. There is simply
18:08no
18:08money in a man planting a second garden from seed he saved and covering it with a scrap of old
18:15cloth.
18:16Nobody gets rich off you eating out of your own yard clear into December. The whole trade is set up
18:23to
18:23sell you your vegetables in the store in the dead of winter, trucked in from far off, and there is
18:29no
18:30salesman anywhere with a reason to teach you to grow your own instead. It is not that anyone is hiding
18:37it
18:37from you. It is only that no one profits by teaching it, and so it quietly slips away, one generation
18:45forgetting a little more than the last. That is the whole of it, no scheme. The money just runs the
18:52other
18:52way. So there are your five. Sow your string beans, for they are tough and easy, and the bugs leave
19:00them
19:00be. Get your fall potatoes in, early or late by your own frost, for a storage crop to carry you
19:07through the winter. Start a second wave of basil so you never run short. Start your romaine now to
19:15finish sweet in the cool of the fall. And keep putting in cucumbers and zucchini every few weeks
19:22so the harvest never quits. Do that in the heat of July while the lazy gardens are giving up, and
19:30you
19:30will be eating from your ground long after they have gone to weeds. Tell me down in the comments what
19:37county you garden in and when your first frost usually comes, because that is the number that decides
19:44all your timing, and it is a good thing for your neighbors here to see how it varies from one
19:49place
19:50to the next. And tell me what you are planting this month for the fall. I am always glad to
19:56learn what
19:56does well in another man's ground. Next time out here, I want to show you how to build a proper
20:03compost
20:04pile the old way, layer upon layer through the season, so that by the time you are planting again,
20:11you have your own black crumbly gold to feed all these crops with, and never have to buy a bag
20:18of
20:18anything. That is the thing that makes all the rest of it work. But for now, remember this. The garden
20:26does not end in July. It only turns. Plant now in the worst of the heat, and you will eat
20:33in the best
20:34of the fall. The people who built this country with their hands knew that, and we are only just starting
20:41to remember it.
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