Jul 06, 2025

The July 2025 list our readers built

July lists are always a little chaotic, and this one was no exception. Our readers spent the month cooking, watering, fixing a ceiling, and buying a Pokemon figure taller than most toddlers.

The pantry run

Two food items anchored the month. Wholesome Sweeteners organic molasses went mostly to people making barbecue sauce and baked beans from scratch, which is a very July thing to do. Molasses is one of those ingredients a household buys once a year and then needs three times in a fortnight.

Right alongside it, Bush's mild red chili beans turned up in bulk. A few readers were making chili in July, which we respect, but most were building the kind of large cold bean salad that survives an afternoon on a picnic table.

The garden

LASCO one gallon per hour flag drip emitters were the practical purchase of the month. Drip irrigation is the single best answer to the July problem of a garden that needs water every day while you are trying to leave town for a week. Flag emitters are the kind you can open and clear when they clog, which is why experienced gardeners prefer them.

The house

Satco nine watt LED direct wire recessed downlights made the list from readers replacing old recessed cans. Direct wire retrofits skip the screw-in socket entirely, which gives a better result, and also means the job is genuinely electrical work. Several readers said plainly that they bought the fixtures and hired someone to install them, which is the right instinct when you are not sure.

The fun three

Collectibles had an unusually strong month. The eighteen inch Funko Pop Pikachu was the headline, bought by adults for children and by adults for themselves in roughly equal measure. Its more obscure sibling, the Funko Pop BoJack Horseman figure, went to a narrower but extremely committed audience.

And the Inside Out Anger figure rounded things out, mostly for younger kids who had just watched the films again over the summer.

What we take from July

Summer lists tend to split cleanly between maintenance and delight, with very little in between. The molasses and the drip emitters are about keeping something going. The figures are about a shelf in a kid's bedroom. Both halves matter, and a month with only one of them usually means somebody had a hard few weeks.

If you are planning a garden for next summer, the emitters are the item to think about now. Everything else here will still be around. Irrigation parts get picked over in the middle of a dry spell, every single year.