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Our Scottish Garden in July
July is the month where the garden feels truly abundant. The long Scottish summer days are filled with birdsong, buzzing bees and baskets of fresh harvests. Everywhere you look, there is something to pick, something flowering, or something preparing for the weeks ahead. The hard work of winter planning and spring planting is now paying dividends, and the garden has become a place of both productivity and peace.
Although July is one of our busiest months, it is also one of the most rewarding. Daily walks through the garden are no longer about checking whether something has grown, but deciding what to harvest first.
The Food Forest
The food forest is now thriving, with every layer working together exactly as we hoped when we first began creating it. The apple trees are heavily laden with fruit, each week bringing them closer to harvest. Pears and plums have yet to develop larger fruits, while the younger cherry trees have produced another modest crop, gradually becoming more productive each year.
The strawberries carpeting the forest floor are providing regular handfuls of sweet fruit while continuing their important role as a living mulch, protecting the soil and suppressing weeds. The yarrow planted around each fruit tree has established well, bringing delicate clusters of flowers that are alive with bees, hoverflies and other beneficial insects.
Wild garlic has now completely died back, making space for the next layer of growth, while comfrey has been cut several times already and returned to the soil as mulch around the fruit trees. Every time we harvest and return nutrients back to the ground, we’re reminded how self supporting these systems become over time.
Around the newer raised border along the fence line, the hollyhocks are beginning to tower above the beds, adding height, the flowering currant, witch hazel and forsythia continue establishing themselves, slowly transforming what was once an empty boundary into another productive edge within the food forest.
Every year this space feels less like individual planting beds and more like a functioning woodland ecosystem.
This dock has grown over 6ft tall in the hot sun then constant rain!!
The Raised Bed Garden
July is harvest season in the raised beds.
Fresh salads are picked almost daily, herbs are overflowing from every corner, peas continue producing, and the first potatoes have been carefully lifted from the soil. Beetroot, carrots, onions and brassicas are all developing well.
Succession sowing continues throughout the month. As one crop finishes, another takes its place. Empty spaces rarely stay empty for long, ensuring we’ll continue harvesting well into Autumn.
The reclaimed brick edging has now completely settled into the design of the garden. The flowering chives soften the hard edges beautifully while attracting pollinators and naturally helping deter pests. The edging also continues to make mowing around the beds much quicker, reducing maintenance and giving us more time to enjoy growing rather than constantly tidying.
July reminds us that good design often makes gardening easier as much as it makes it more beautiful.
Jerusalem Artichokes in this front bed, middle bed ready for pepper & tomatoes and back bed with mesh cover has purple sprouting broccoli, Brussel sprouts and chard.
The Kitchen Courtyard & Indoors
The kitchen courtyard has become our everyday pantry.
Fresh herbs are picked every time we cook. Basil, parsley, coriander, thyme, rosemary, mint and chives are all producing continuously, filling the courtyard with scent and colour.
Most of the seedlings have now left their trays and found homes throughout the garden, leaving the courtyard feeling calmer than earlier in the year. Instead, containers are overflowing with herbs and edible flowers, creating a space that is both productive and welcoming.
Microgreens are still grown indoors in small batches, providing quick harvests whenever needed, but during July the focus is firmly outdoors. Almost everything we need can now be gathered within a few steps of the kitchen door.
Plans continue for developing this area into a more sheltered growing space in the future, creating a protected microclimate that will extend the growing season and reduce the impact of the strong prevailing winds that sweep across the garden. Bed cleared out for pak choi and winter lettuce to start growing.
Edge of the groaning areas starting to blend in
and another new water feature at the front gate of the growing
area settling into the space well.
The Season’s Mood
July is the garden at its most generous.
The pace is still busy, but it feels different to Spring. Instead of rushing to sow and plant, we spend our time harvesting, maintaining and simply enjoying the space we’ve worked so hard to create.
There is something deeply satisfying about stepping outside and gathering food for the day’s meals. Every strawberry picked, every handful of herbs cut and every fresh vegetable lifted from the soil reminds us why we chose to grow our own.
The garden also feels full of life beyond the harvests. Bees move between flowers from dawn until dusk, butterflies drift across the borders, birds feed among the fruit trees and the gentle hum of Summer fills every corner.
July reminds us that a garden is never just about growing food. It’s about creating an ecosystem that supports wildlife, nourishes the soil and gives back far more than it takes. As we enjoy the abundance of midsummer, we also begin looking ahead, knowing that every harvest makes room for the next season’s sowings.
For now, though, we pause, breathe deeply and appreciate everything the Scottish summer has given us.
2024 MARCH TOUR: Mini Food Forest In A Raised Bed Path You Tube Video
Happy Gardening!
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Katrina & Clayton and family live in East Ayrshire and share their daily life in the garden on instagram. They practice permaculture principles in the garden, reducing & repurposing waste whenever they can. Katrina shows how home educating in nature has helped Clayton thrive.
Clayton Completed The 2 Grow and Learn Courses with the Royal Caledonian Horticultural Society. He is Autistic, Non Verbal & has been Home Educated since 2018. Katrina & Peter hold their PDC & PDC PRO Permaculture Design Course from Oregon State University.
They featured on BBC Beechgrove Gardens Ep23 2022 and returned in 2023 for an update, Katrina & Clayton are also columnists for ScotlandGrows Magazine, Guest Blog for Caledonian Horticulture as well as working with Gardeners’ World Magazine and many other brands.
They are also Author of the new Children’s Book Series: Clayton’s Garden Journey: Stories of Autism and Gardening. Topics on Growing, Harvesting, Sowing & Composting and 108 Page Weather and Seasons Weekly Gardening Record Book available on Amazon and Kindle.
Listen in on their Guest Podcasts to learn more about them.
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