Midsummer can be a second spring

Here are a few of the crops you can sow in summer and harvest in late summer and beyond.

Salads

Providing we are not having a heat wave and you keep your crop well watered then salads will thrive in a British summer.Grow some cut and come again seeds,sow little and often and use a wide range of varieties.

Along with lettuces, endives and chicories all good choices for late sowing.Chicory comes in an array of varieties including the slightly sweeter sugar loaf types which re-flush after cutting.Red leaved chicories like Rouge de Trevise or speckled Variegato del Castelfranco that had a splash of colour.

All chicories are slightly less bitter when harvested as seedlings and some become sweeter after cooler weather.You can also sow Florence fennel Florence-Finocchio Fennel and Bronze-Smokey Fennel now for a yield of fat crunchy heads.

Bean and Pea pods

A July showing of dwarf french beans Montpellier French Snap Bean Bush should ensure you are picking beans right into autumn.French beans are self pollinating so you are safe from failed setting.

If you do not mind taking a risk then a sowing of early maturing dwarf peas could also be fruitful.But they will need a cool damp summer and when it works means a welcome harvest.

Vegtable Roots

Now is a perfect time to get in a final crop of carrots Babette Carrot, Danvers 126 Carrot and Healthmaster Carrot.By sowing late you will escape the worst of carrot fly damage.

Beetroot can also be sown right through to the end of July.A couple of sowings will mean a steady succession of baby beetroot Detroit Dark Red Beet, Gourmet Blend Beet and Early Wonder Beets.

Strangely winter radishes Crimson Giant Radish, Cherry Belle Radish and White Icicle Radish are still unfarmilliar to many people, but they are wounderful for cooking in casseroles, stews and soups.Sow them now (July) to ensure a useful winter crop.

Oriental Greens

Most oriental greens dislike growing early in the year thriving instead when sown from midsummer onwards.Mizuna,Mibuna and Pak Choi the names may sound foreign but they are increasingly making there way into many gardens.

These along with Chinese cabbage, mustard greens and the flowering shoots of chinese broccoli.Yield tasty nutritious greens from late summer onwards.

For all your other garden needs visit MyGardenCenterOnline