In this solo tutorial, Nicole Johnsey Burke explains why July is often a challenging month for gardeners and introduces a three‑tier frost‑date classification (Group 1: last frost Jan‑Feb or none; Group 2: last frost Mar‑Apr; Group 3: last frost May‑Jun). She then provides a curated list of heat‑tolerant vegetables and companion flowers that can be sown in July for each group, aiming to keep soil covered, protect nutrients, and extend harvests into September, October, or even early winter. For Group 1 she recommends Armenian cucumbers, cosmos, yard‑long beans, basil, mizuna, and indoor‑started tomatoes. For Group 2 she suggests bush beans, zucchini, cucumbers, arugula, and zinnias, and mentions a free 10‑pack seed promotion that includes these varieties. For Group 3 she repeats cucumbers and arugula, adds pole beans, indoor‑started brassicas (cauliflower, broccoli, kale, cabbage), and marigolds. Throughout she stresses using plants as living mulch, filling garden blanks, and pairing vegetables with flowers. She also promotes 3‑month seasonal planners that provide checklists, habit trackers, and step‑by‑step gardening tasks. Viewers are invited to comment their frost group, and links to the seed offer and planners are provided in the description.
Chapters
July is the month that most gardeners quit, but if you take a few minutes this month and add some new plants to your garden, you could be harvesting from it well into September, October, even November. I've gardened in cold, hot, and mild climates, and today I'm going to give you a list of 5 things that you can add to your garden this month in July so that you can be harvesting well into the fall, even the early winter. But first, before we get into the list, you got to find out if you're a 1, a 2, or a 3. You're a 1 if your last frost date was in January or February, or you don't even have a last frost date. In other words, you never even have frost. You are a 2 if your last frost date was in March or April, and you're a 3 if your last frost date was in May or June. Figuring out your last frost date helps us predict what the temperatures are going to be like for you where you live in July. So go ahead and tell us right below in the comments which number you are so we know who we're growing with. So let's get into our number 1s. This July is actually your hardest month in the garden. Most other, the 2s, the 3s, July is the height of their garden season. For you, you're surviving, okay? You're just trying to make it through. These are the plants that are going to help you make it through. The goal here for you is to make it through July and August without losing your soil nutrients, protecting your soil, having your garden just hold on through these hottest parts of the year so that it can pick back up in September and October. So a great thing we want to think through for all three of our sections is just filling in the blanks. We don't want any blank spaces in our garden. I'm going to help you do that. For your hot season, I want you to these kind of cucumbers. These are Armenian cucumbers. If you're like my garden was when I lived in Houston, my normal cucumbers, they died. They died in July. It was way too hot. The tomatoes, they also hated, but these Armenian cucumbers, they actually like really, really hot weather, so they're a perfect seed you can put right at the base of your trellises and grow them for the next 2 to 3 months. Cosmos, beautiful flower, perfect to fill in. If you just want to survive through July and August, just fill your beds with flowers that grow from seed. Cosmos are one of the best. Next up are yardlong beans. So again, we're going with unique varieties that really don't mind the 90, 100-degree weather. Normal beans don't work for us in this really hot climate. Those are for the warm and the milder places. So yardlong beans, these are literally a yard long. You're going to be amazed. My kids loved picking these when we lived in Texas. Basil is the herb that keeps on giving. If you're in Group 1, This is your salad green, okay? For the next 2 months, you're just going to have basil salad. You can grow all kinds of basil. It grows from seed and will give you loads of harvest. And then finally, if you are wanting a little more mix in your greens, you can grow something like mizuna. This is a green that would be great underneath the shade of things like eggplant and okra, some of your really tall plants. Put this as your mulch. Everyone argues with me that we should put mulch in our gardens, but I'm telling you, use this. Use plants as your mulch. This will protect your soil, and you'll get salad out of it. And I almost forgot, You in group number 1, you get to grow tomatoes twice a year if you do this. Start your tomatoes indoors right now this month in July, plant them out in August, and you're going to have fall tomatoes. I'm a little jealous, but I'm going to try to hold it back. So plant your tomatoes indoors now. You'll be thanking me in the fall. Hang in there. You're going to survive this. September and October are just around the corner. Don't let your garden die while you wait for things to cool down. Plant these. Now let's move on to group number 2. If you're in group number 2, you've got to hang on through July too. Usually this is when our weather actually kind tips almost to becoming a hot season. We start to imitate a little bit of what's seen for the Group 1. Your temperatures are going to be in the high 90s, maybe peak at the hundreds, and you're going to feel like all hope is lost, but it's not. These are the things you're going to use to fill in the blank, keep your garden covered, and help you push through July and August. First up are bush beans. This is my favorite fill-in-the-blank seed. Take a pack and just put one seed any place that you see any kind of blank space, and you're going to get this nice bush that's going to have 20, 30, 40 beans on it. It's the best thing to protect your garden and to give you a harvest. Zucchini— if you've taken out, for me, my eggplant, which is completely pest-ridden, anytime you take out a big plant, broccoli, cauliflower, kale, any large plant that you remove from your garden because it couldn't handle July, put a zucchini seed in its place. You're going to get a harvest within 55 to 60 days. It'll more than cover the soil area and give you so much zucchini, you'll be like dropping it off at your neighbor's front door. And By the way, all 5 of these seeds, they're included in our free seed promotion. We give you 10 packs of seeds for free. All you pay is shipping and handling, and 5 of those 10 are in this list. So if you want to grab these free seeds, you can grab them. They work for anybody in 1, 2, or 3. I'll put a link right below this video. So next up is cucumber. These are just normal cucumbers, and these, again, your cucumbers that you planted in April or May, they're tired, okay? They're done. In July. So now we want to add these in to grow all the way through August, September. Yes, you can plant cucumber seeds twice within the summer when you're in a tube. Next up is arugula. This also is the perfect living mulch. Put it underneath any of your tall plants, sprinkle just a little bit of seeds. You do have to harvest it very early, but even here in this garden, we've got little baby arugula growing. They're going to have harvest in July and August because the seeds are here. Last but not least is zinnias. If you don't plant anything else, just plant some zinnia seeds. These only take 55 to 60 days to be in full bloom, full growth. That means you're going to have tons of flowers in September. I even did this when I lived in Chicago. I would throw some zinnia seeds out in July and have flowers well into the fall before the first frost. So plant all 5 of these, fill in the blanks, no bare soil for us in group number 2. Now let's move on. Now before we get to group number 3, I gotta tell you about my seasonal planners. I don't know if you're like me, but I go out to my garden, I'm just like, "What did I come out here to do again?" And the planners, they are the answer. So these They're set up in 3-month sections. Each planner walks you through what to do planting-wise, tending-wise, harvesting-wise. It brings you through 3 months because every season in the garden, it lasts about 3 months. There are lists of things to do, and then I literally give you the directions, like here's exactly how to do the thing. There's a checklist, there's a habit tracker. It's everything you need to make gardening a small part of your life. 5 minutes a day, check off the list. You're going to come out, your garden's going to look like this. It's going to be amazing. These planners are linked right below this video. We don't have all of them in stock, but hopefully you can find one or two seasons that you're in right now, so I'll link it right below. Now let's get into group number 3. You are now in the height of your summer. I remember my first summer gardening in Chicago. I could not believe how much the garden took off. I would say for you all, what I learned by growing in that area is we more than make up in quality what we lack in quantity. When I was in Houston, I could grow all year long, but it was always so-so. And when I grew in Chicago, I could only grow for, you know, a shorter span, especially things like tomatoes, things that are frost-free, but man, things are like multiplying, growing, scaling overnight because you have such long days. So relish it, enjoy it, and then we're also going to fill in the blanks for you as well. Now you're going to see some repeats from group number 2. You're also going to do cucumbers. This is a great month to put these cucumbers in. We want to be thinking frost-free things that we can get a harvest from by the end of September. So cucumbers are one of these. You're going to be able to get cucumbers by the end of August if you plant cucumbers right now. Arugula, also a perfect green to push you through this period of the summer, and it's going to be even better for you because it's a little bit cooler. Also beans. For you, you can do pole beans as well. If you've got bare spots on your trellises, if you've got some vining area, highly recommend doing some pole beans. In your area, you're going to have pole beans that are so beautiful at the end of August. Kind of imagine like fall coming in and you have all these beans just like flowing over all your trellises. You also want to be thinking about starting some things indoors. I know it feels a little too soon, but things like cauliflower, broccoli, kale, cabbages— July is actually the time to start these indoors so that you can move them out into the garden in August. I know it's crazy, but you've got to get these plants in your garden in August so that you can get a harvest in, say, October before it gets too cold. And then finally, marigolds— wonderful flower for you, especially in this area. Marigolds like the temps a little bit cooler, and it's going to be awesome for you in August and into September. And I personally just love marigolds as a fall flower., and you're going to have a ton of them if you put the seeds in right now. Not sure if you noticed, but flowers were a huge part of every single one of these lists. I never plant a vegetable without putting a flower right beside it. I made a whole video about my favorite flowers to include in my vegetable gardens, and you can watch that right here.
