June 6, 2024
June is such a pleasant month. The spring rush is over and it’s time to enjoy summer in the garden. Eating outdoors, harvesting homegrown vegetables, cooking on the grill, playing in the grass, and back yard picnics are all on the menu!
Here are a few hints to keep your garden looking great:
Blooms:
- White flowers show up beautifully during the evening hours, so consider adding some whites to your garden for nighttime enjoyment.
- Trim back – If you know that a plant tends to flop, now is a great time to cut plants back. You’ll reduce the height temporarily and create a fuller-looking grouping. Some of the plants in our Pollinator Garden were cut back by half this week. This will also cause the plant to bloom a little later than it would have normally. Now is the time to cut back perennial chrysanthemums.
- Edit your garden – if something is taking over your garden bed, pull some of it out and relocate it or share it with friends.
- Deadhead your flowers – Keep your garden blooming by deadheading spent flowers. This goes for annuals, most perennials, and roses. Even the bloom-time of some shrubs can be extended by deadheading.
- Flowers and veggies are heavy – add supports to these plants now before they get floppy.
- The flower color of Big Leaf Hydrangeas (Hydrangea mac.) is affected by soil pH. Add Soil Acidifier for blue flowers and Garden Lime for pinker flowers.
- Call in the butterflies! Create a full-of-life garden – plant pollinator plants, especially natives!
Vegetables & Fruit:
- Continue to plant – So you’ve planted your tomatoes, peppers, and eggplant – but you can continue to plant vegetables like okra, sweet potatoes, beans, squash, cucumbers, and melons.
- Install cages for tomatoes and peppers now before they get too big. Construct supports for beans and cucumbers prior to planting.
- Air movement is important in the vegetable garden to prevent diseases like early and late blight. Don’t overcrowd your plants.
- Mulch to keep your maintenance easy and your garden weed-free. Wheat straw is a great mulch for vegetable gardens, but regular mulch can also be used.
- It’s probably time to side dress your vegetables with a slow-release fertilizer like Plant-tone, Bio-tone or Garden-tone.
- Harvest your veggies regularly and at their peak quality. If they are past their prime, harvest them anyway to keep the plant producing lots of yummy produce.
- Prune fruit trees – The Summer Solstice is an alternate time to prune fruit trees. Fruit trees that are pruned in June will produce less water sprouts than those pruned in late winter.
- Check the graft of your fruit trees and trim off any suckers from below the graft.
- Thin fruit – you don’t want any fruit touching, space fruit about 4” apart so it has plenty of air movement and larger individual fruits will be produced. For apples, wait until after the “June drop” to thin.
- Fruit trees and grapes may require regular applications of fungicides.
- Scout for insects daily. Safer Soap is the softest insecticide to use. Hand-picking bugs off the plants is also an option – drop them into soapy water. Avoid broad spectrum insecticides and target only the problem pest.
Water:
- For the first year, water newly planted trees and shrubs at least weekly and water deeply each time. Shallow watering produces shallow roots which are not drought resistant.
- Water perennials and annuals regularly too, especially during dry spells.
- Hanging backets may need to be watered every day, and possibly twice a day in very hot weather.
- Vegetables require 1” of water per week. Use a rain gauge to determine how much rain has fallen and water accordingly.
- Lawns require 1” of water per week.
At the Garden Center:
- Tomato cages and special flower supports are available and super helpful!
- Fertilizers like Plant-ton, Bio-tone, and Garden-tone are available in multiple sizes, along with amendments like Garden Lime and Soil Acidifier.
- Summer vegetables are still available and we have a great selection of herbs!
- Safer Soap and organic and conventional pesticides are available. Need advice? Consult a staff member.
- Watering cans and watering wands (a staff super-favorite!) are a big help.
- Check out our selection of pruners and flower snips.
- Gardening gloves make your job easier and keep your fingernails cleaner.
We hope you revel in your outdoor time – not only is it beautiful and calming, but it is good for the mind, body, and soul. Soak up summertime!
