In June, berries are a sure sign that you’re gardening. Typically harvested in June, strawberries, oso berries, and currants are ripe and ready for harvesting. The first flush of raspberries can appear at any moment, and the first bushes of blueberries will begin to produce blueberry fruit at any moment. Now that the irises, peonies, and tulips have finished blooming, summer is officially here. Please sow all ungerminated seeds while we tend to the plants in the ground.
Cutting down trees
If you want a second bloom from your lilacs this fall, you might think about cutting them back as soon as they finish blooming. You should harvest at least one-third of the plant’s stems annually to promote fresh growth. Here we have a list of all the shrubs and trees that will be blooming in early summer: azaleas, forsythias, Japanese kerrias, weigelas, deutzias, mock oranges, St. John’s wort, viburnums, and red or yellow dogwoods.
After planting your tomatoes in the ground, you can also prune them. Depending on the type of trellis system you’ve installed, you may need to prune to remove suckers. An intensive pruning schedule is required, as are tall trellises, if you want your indeterminate tomato plants to develop only a single strong “leader” stem. Remember to use clean shears and wait until the morning dew has dried before touching your tomatoes; then, you can cut away any sick areas of the plant. Avoid inadvertently spreading fungal or viral diseases by spraying Lysol or another disinfectant in between plants.
After strawberries finish fruiting, cut them back and cover them with mulch. This will encourage them to stop developing runners and instead concentrate on root development for the following year.
Thinner fruit
Fruit drop occurs naturally when trees shed fruit that they are unable to process; by now, your peach, apple, stone fruit (peaches, nectarines, etc.), and even fig trees should have set berries. You must choose quantity or quality while the fruit is on the tree. The tree will be able to produce larger, more flavorful fruit if it thins the fruit on each branch. At this stage, you can shield the fruit from unwanted pests by wrapping it in gauze sacks.
Each seed is planted
Remember to feed your raised bed veggies in addition to watering them. You can treat your plants with fish fertilizer as often as once a week, but if you haven’t fertilized your veggies since planting, June is the month to do so. Apply a vegetable-specific fertilizer at least once or twice a month. This typically takes the form of a balanced 4-4-4 fertilizer. Cal-Mag or Rot Stop, when applied to tomato plants, will increase their calcium levels, which in turn reduces the likelihood of blossom rot on future tomatoes. Now that you’ve harvested the asparagus, use a nitrogen-rich fertilizer for next year’s crop.
Fertilize your lawn in June with a product that contains little nitrogen. You should treat your roses with a phosphorus-based fertilizer after they have bloomed for the first time, which should be around now. Prior to July 4th, apply a summer fertilizer to all of your plants, including trees and shrubs. Since different plants require different types of fertilizer, a trip to the garden center can be necessary in order to get the correct ones. A more acidic fertilizer is required, for example, by azaleas and blueberries.
Pests
Insects, rats, and other pests that prey on plants go into overdrive in June. Aphids, bagworms, beetles, borers, and every kind of slug are all pests that can harm tomatoes. Now is the time to physically remove pests from your plant, not just spray them. Even if you spray the area with water, the aphids will return unless you treat it with soapy water or have a trap plant, such as nasturtiums, nearby. If you haven’t already planted nasturtiums, do so immediately. The nasturtium will attract more aphids, and they will end up eating the plant. Avoid removing the aphid-afflicted nasturtiums. Slugs still require manual extraction, even with treatments like Sluggo. To catch slugs every day, leave shallow containers of yeasty bread or beer nearby. There are a lot of pests that want to eat your plants, so it’s a good idea to stroll around your garden every day to see what might be eating your plants.
Infected plants
Watering plants at their roots, as opposed to watering them from above, which causes water to splash down the ground and then spray back up onto plants, is an effective method of preventing viruses and fungi, which can severely impact gardens. Cut off infected plants as soon as you see them, throw them away (not in the compost), and wash your hands and gardening tools well before going on to the next plant. This will help prevent the spread of diseases like blight and mosaic virus. Using a diluted vinegar spray, you may eradicate powdery mildew from your plants. If you apply copper foliar sprays to your stone fruit trees as soon as you notice symptoms of diseases like leaf curl, you can cure them. To a large extent, fungicides can help avoid rose diseases like black spots. Since fungicides and copper sprays are primarily preventative measures rather than reactive ones, you should exercise extreme caution when applying them. Taking a photo and then asking the staff at the garden center will help you understand your garden better.
Veggie Growing
Plant all summer vegetable seeds by the end of June. It is important to plant your tomatoes, eggplants, peppers, and tomatillos. Even if the weather isn’t ideal for planting just yet, you should think about using argibon or other mitigation strategies and plant nonetheless. You may stay toasty with the agribon tent and then take it down when the weather warms up enough.
You should grow sweet potatoes, cucumbers, edamame, eggplants, melons, okra, and summer squash this month. Direct seeding remains an option if done early enough, but you should plant by mid-June.
Next, sow radishes, then lettuce, then carrots, then scallions, and finally, beets. At least once a week, thin out the seedlings.
You can still start or sow summer annual flowers from seed, such as zinnias, cosmos, sunflowers, salvia, and celosia. If you plant them in waves, you can expect a succession of blooms later in the season. Before planting these flowers, be sure to check the seed labels for a variety of heights.
You should deadhead your spring blooms now that they are fading. Keep in mind that tulips need the leaves to mulch for next year’s growth, so only remove the heads, not the bottoms. Trimming iris stems to ground level in a chevron pattern promotes healthy growth the following year. You can encourage more development by deadheading sweet peas and snapdragons, but because some blooms, such as stock, have only one stem, you should prune them to the ground once they bloom.
We recommend strolling around the garden at least once in June, even for a short while. Get as much produce as you can; keep track of things that need fixing, like pests or trimming; and document everything in a garden notebook with photos and notes. Most importantly, you planted the garden so you could enjoy it.
