June is the start of summer vacation, when America’s kids come to the garden to play, to romp, to enjoy life! June can be a very rewarding month for all of us, with strawberries ripening and cherries red, ripe, and plump. It can also stress us gardeners out, as it is the “last” good month before the heat of July and August.
These Tips for June will help take the stress out of our lives, and bring us more joy.
Annuals
- As your garden is now fully-leafed out, check for holes in the landscape and add in annuals for season-long color
- Apply Fertilome Rose and Flower Food every 3rd week to annuals
In the Vegetable Garden
- Remember to turn your compost
- Try succession plantings of beans, greens, and corn to continue harvest
- Your tomatoes will do best caged, so the vines stay off the ground
- Wrap the stems of your seedling squash, pumpkins, and gourd with tin foil to prevent squash vine borer damage
- Pick your vegetables as they ripen to prevent loss and rot
- Pull weeds and toss them into the compost pile along with grass clippings, trimmings, manure, and leaves
- Mulch all vegetables with sawdust, grass clippings, chopped alfalfa, or chopped leaves to conserve water and prevent soil-splashed diseases
- Plant your sweet potatoes now https://hnr.k-state.edu/doc/hort-tips/vegetables/Sweet%20Potato.pdf
In the Orchard
- Place red sticky-ball traps in trees away from the orchard to catch apple-eating insects
- Harvest all of your ripe strawberries, despite their size
- Remove bird or insect damaged fruit and compost
Trees
- Pick off hatched bagworms as high as you can reach on the trees
- Spray bagworm-infested trees with Spinosad
- Start pruning your maples, walnuts, and birches now
In the Landscape
- Deadhead your daisies, beebalm, peonies, irises, and roses as needed
- Rejuvenate prune spring flowering shrubs (forsythia, lilac, mockorange, bridal wreath spirea) http://www.grimmsgardens.com/renewal-pruning/
- Shear and shape topiaries and hedges
- Prune to shape forsythia, viburnum, lilac, ninebark, weigela, boxwood, and juniper
In the Lawn
- Apply grub control to lawns infested with moles last season
- Continue mowing your lawn at 3 to 6 inches tall
Keep up the good work
Happy planting!
