June in the garden. By Monica Alvarez ( Garden Designer & Lecturer)
Bedding Plants:
This is the time to prepare the ground for your summer bedding plants. The best mulch to add is well rotted Horse Manure (so rotted that you can take a handful of it without leaving any smell on your hands). You can sow wild flowers directly into the soil if you are not too pushed with the typical annual bedding plants.
Vegetables:
This is the month to sow carrots thinly into the soil. If you do this every two weeks from now, you will have a good harvest all summer! This is also the time to plant out all your herbs. Basil will now withstand the weather at night because it is not as cold anymore (or so we hope!, it’s been a very looooooooong winter!)
Fruit Trees:
You can train the fruit trees on the espalier to make harvesting easy. Any branch that grows in the wrong direction must be removed, specially if they are “leaf” producing branches. You will know the flower producing branches because the buds are chubby. Leaf buds are more pointy and thin.
Green House:
Any seedlings big enough to transplant can be pricked off now. It is important to begin with the “hardening off” process. Leave the newly potted seedlings out for the day and bring them in at night for the next two weeks or so. Later on, they can stand out of door at night time for another week before they are planted out onto the ground.
Garden Maintenance:
Hoeing with the “oscilliating” hoe (this can be found in Fruit Hill Farm) and I recommend it to any good gardener who loves having a healthy back!!!. If you hoe for 5 minutes every week, weeding should be kept nice and easy for the rest of the summer. Clip hedges with the shears. Again, if you do this weekly, it should only take 5 minutes.
Lawn:
Time to scarify your lawn. Hire a scarifyier machine and you will have this done in one evening. This encourages grass healthy growth because it removes any dead grass and moss that accumulated during the year. After this, hollow coring (making holes in the soil to increase air pockets) will really improve the drainage of your lawn. Of course, mowing can now be done more frequently, but don’t lower the blades too much yet!
Celebrate: After the month, if you have done all this, Have yourself a wonderful BBQ and celebrate the beautiful garden! Let’s Grow Green Fingers!
