June in the Garden

READY TO HARVEST

Here is the list of all the jobs you should be doing in the garden this June:::

As some of my plants are now beginning to fruit I have started to feed them. I have bought some tomato feed and I will begin to feed all my vegetables, not just my tomato’s once a week. Wilkinson’s sold a different fruit and vegetable feed but it had exactly the same ingredients as the tomato feed just slightly different packaging. It was also more expensive so I will just use Tomato feed on all my plants.

I have had a problems with a few pests this year. An ants nest has found its way into my top vegetable bed. The ants were there last year and I tried lots of different natural remedies to get rid of them, baking soda and powdered sugar, vinegar but nothing worked. I am reluctant to put ant powder in my raised bed as I am not sure what chemicals they use in it. They don’t cause too much damage as they tend to eat the lower leaves of my mongetou plant. Although it does make my plants look ratty which is annoying. I don’t have any answers here so if anyone has any tips to get rid of ants let me know.

SLUGS!! Every gardeners nightmare. It has been so wet this month that I have had a real problem with slugs. They have devoured two pepper plants already and it looks like they are going to do it again. My pepper plants are hanging on by a thread!

I have decided to lay slug pellets this year. I haven’t laid them in the past because we have a dog and they are poisonous to them but the problem is only in my raised bed so if I just lay them in there Ralph won’t be able to get in. Fingers crossed it works.

Something has also eaten my first strawberry just as it was turning ripe. It was very upsetting. I’m not sure which pest it was but my guess is that it was probably the evil slugs!

Obviously you need to water your plants. Actually we haven’t needed to water hardly at all this month as we have had so much rain. You just need to keep on top of it. As a rule if if it rains I dont water and if we have a really hot day I make sure I do. Other than that I will water every 2 – 3 days.

Another repeat task from last month because again this is another job that you need to keep on top of. I find the best way to weed is to pull out any weeds as you find them. It’ll only take a minute and will eliminate the problem before it has a chance to take hold.

Even more vegetables will be ready to be picked in your garden this month. I always try to pick my vegetables as soon as they are ripe so they are at their best.

With things like mongetou when you only have a few pods ready at a time I pick them, wash them and then freeze them. I keep adding to the freezer bag until we have enough for a whole meal.

With Lettuce and kale I pick a bunch of leaves at the start of the week. I wash the leaves and dry them in my salad spinner. I then leave these in a bowl in the fridge to be used as and when throughout the week.

Both lettuce and spinach are prone to bolting, this means they run to seed. It happens when the weather is very changeable. The spinach I planted out in my bed has bolted already. You can still eat the leaves but they tend to taste bitter. The best thing to do is pull them out and plant something else in its place. Maybe try spinach again or more lettuce leaves?

That’s all the Garden tasks that need to be done this month. I filmed a June In the Garden video over on my YouTube channel. You can see how my garden is looking this month. Be sure to subscribe so that you don’t miss July’s list of jobs to do in the garden.