As we enter June, my vegetable garden is going strong. I trusted the long range weather forecast and put my tomatoes in during the last week of April and they are growing well. Our last frost this year was on April 3, very early by any measure. With staggered plantings of summer crops, I am angling for a record harvest this year. I hope you have similarly positive prospects.
If you follow the planting schedule for Hardiness Zone 7a in Extension Publication 426-331, “Virginia’s Home Garden Vegetable Planting Guide,” you should be harvesting a nice crop of spring vegetables. June is planting time for beans, cucumbers, eggplant, melons, okra, peppers, pumpkins, winter and summer squash, sweet corn, sweet potato, and tomatoes.
To maximize production in your garden space, try intensive gardening techniques. Planting in raised or in-ground beds that are 3 or 4 feet wide, rather than single rows, allows denser plant spacing. Using trellises or other climbing structures for vining crops can be a great space saver. Be sure not to shade lower sun-loving crops with your trellises. On the other hand, shading lettuces and some greens during the hot weather can delay bolting, so manage shade strategically. Successive plantings of beans and corn can extend the harvest season. Finally, time your planting and harvests to open garden space in late August for planting fall crops. Extension publication Intensive Gardening Methods offers more information on these topics. The recent Garden Shed article Plant Partnerships in your Garden offers advice on planting a diversity of plants together for soil enhancement, pest control, and other benefits.
Water Management
Water is becoming an increasingly valued resource. We are all wise to work to minimize water waste and use it effectively:
- Now that the ground has warmed, apply organic mulches such as leaves, straw, and clean grass to conserve water while also suppressing weeds and enriching soil as it decomposes.
- Monitor soil moisture. As a general rule, vegetables require about an inch of water per week during the growing season. Soaker hoses or drip irrigation make the most efficient use of water during dry spells.
- The soil surface dries quickly in summer heat. Put your finger a couple of inches into the soil to determine whether it is truly dry. You should be able to feel moisture. Moist soil also tends to be darker and stick together better than if it is dried out.
- Water in the mornings and avoid splashing water and soil on plants to minimize the risks of mildew and soil-borne disease transmission. For the same reason, remove lower leaves on your tomato plants to prevent inadvertent soil contact.
- If you are concerned with water usage and want to know how much water you need for your garden, you can estimate it with some simple math. It takes .623 gallons of water to provide one inch of water to one square foot of garden. For example, if you have a 4×8 foot raised bed (32 sq ft), you will need .623 gallons/sq ft x 32 sq ft of garden space or about 20 gallons to apply an inch of water to the bed. If you are lucky, rain will provide some or all of that. A rain gauge is handy for measuring rainfall.
Other suggestions for garden management this month:
Remember to rotate crop locations. Planting the same item in the same space in consecutive years invites the proliferation of pests and diseases. A 3-year rotation cycle is commonly recommended.
In backyard gardens, it is better to plant corn in blocks than rows. Corn is wind pollinated and bunching plants together results in more complete pollination.
Cool mornings are the optimum time to pick vegetables for best texture and taste.
Stop harvesting Asparagus when spears become thin, usually around mid June.
Growing lettuce under a shade screening material will slow bolting and extend the harvest season. Also, try planting bolt-resistant varieties such as Muir, Sierra, and Nevada.
Continue to mound soil up around potato vines to prevent the tubers from being exposed to the sun and turning green. You can also add a layer of straw or leaf mulch to help control weeds.
By June, our cole crops (cabbage, broccoli, kale, collards etc) will be invaded by a variety of cabbage worms, including loopers, imported cabbage moth worms, and the dreaded cross-striped cabbage worm. They are tough to control but can be managed. Holes chewed in leaves and dark excrement piles on leaves are the signs of attack. If hand picking, look for yellow eggs on the undersides of leaves as a start. Pull the caterpillars off leaves regularly; they do fast damage when uncontrolled. They can also be managed with row covers or with the organic pesticide Bacillus Thuringiensis (Bt), available at garden centers. For more details review OMG What’s Eating the Broccoli from the June 2018 issue of The Garden Shed and 2021 Pest Management Guide: Home Grounds & Animals/VCE.
It’s always good to have some compost cooking. If you’ve saved some leaves and/or yard trimmings from last fall, combine them with grass clippings and kitchen fruit/vegetable cuttings to generate compost that you can apply to your beds prior to winter. If you are short of “brown” inputs, torn up chemical-free papers including paper towels, napkins, pizza boxes, and corrugated boxes are good replacements. I find that roughly equal volumes of grass clippings and mulched leaves is about right to achieve a hot compost batch.
If your compost doesn’t get hot, add more grass and kitchen scraps. If it is slimy or gives off an ammonia smell, add leaves, wood chips, sawdust (not pressure treated) or another carbon source. Keep the pile moist but not dripping and turn it every week or so to keep it aerated. A second heap can take regular additions of materials as they become available throughout the summer. It decomposes more slowly and less uniformly than the hot pile, but still produces a beautiful product in the end. It’s worth the effort! For more detailed guidance, look at the article Backyard Composting with Practical Tips from the Pros in the January 2018 issue of The Garden Shed.
People often ask if it is okay to include citrus peelings in compost. The answer is that if you are “vermicomposting” — where the decomposition is done primarily by special “red wiggler” earthworms — don’t include them. But if you are composting outdoors and the initial decomposition is done by bacteria and fungi before the worms move in, it is fine to add them.
Herbs planted in average soil need no fertilizer. Too much fertilizer may reduce flavor and pungency.
The best time to harvest most herbs is just before flowering, when the leaves contain the maximum essential oils. Cut herbs early on a sunny day.
To control earworms on corn plants: apply several drops of mineral oil to the corn silk
Thin overloaded fruit trees; this will result in larger and better fruit at harvest time.
Renovate the strawberry patch after harvest. Mow the rows or cut back bed plants, thin out excess plants, and apply mulch for weed control.
For more tips on a variety of gardening topics, check out the Monthly Gardening Tips for June, listed on the PiedmontMasterGardeners website under Gardening Resources/Monthly Tips/June.
Sources:
Virginia’s Home Garden Vegetable Planting Guide: Recommended Planting Dates & Amounts to Plant, VA.Coop.Ext.
“Strawberries in the Home Garden,” NC State Extension, NC State.edu
PiedmontMasterGardeners.org, Gardening Resources, Monthly Gardening Tips/June/Edible Garden
“Vertical Gardening Using Trellises, Stakes and Cages,” VA.Coop.Ext. Pub.HORT-189
