June 2022 Gardening Advice

submitted by Jennifer Fairfield, Garden Mill and Manchester Community & School Gardens

When I’m working on a newsletter, I like to look back at what I wrote in prior years to make sure that I am not forgetting to tell you something this time. It also happens to be a great way for me to remember what was going on those years — especially when it comes to the weather, since I usually make some sort of comment on it in the newsletters each month.

As I was looking back this time, it occurred to me that the month of May is always a crazy month for weather in Michigan, which is funny, because I seem to forget that every year. Take this year for example: I was thinking that it was a particularly slow and rainy month, and that I was very late in getting my vegetable garden going. Looking back, it appears that this year is no different from almost every other year! There have been only a handful of years, in the 10 that I have owned The Garden Mill, that I have actually gotten my garden planted by Memorial Day, usually because the weather has been too crazy! So the fact that I got it mostly done this weekend is pretty amazing. That doesn’t mean I am caught up on everything else in my yard, of course!

Speaking of how long I have owned The Garden Mill, June 29 is the 10-year anniversary of my purchasing the store! I have no idea where the last 10 years have gone, but it has been a pretty fun ride (let’s just forget 2020, shall we?). I want to thank all of our customers for your support throughout! It has been great getting to know so many of you and talking gardening with everyone. If you happen to be in town on the 29, please stop by — there will be cake!

If you’re still trying to catch up on everything that needs to be done in your yard and gardens, here are some tips for what to do this month:

Vegetable Garden:

• If you weren’t as fortunate as I was this weekend to be able to plant your tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, cucumbers, squash, melons — you know, all the things we love to grow in our gardens! — get to that task as soon as you can. Waiting too much longer will mean you may not be harvesting anything until the season is almost done.
• Pole beans should also be planted ASAP. Bush beans can be planted until about the third week of June, and I highly recommend planting some each week up to then. That way, you will be harvesting over a longer period, rather than all at once. You can also plant successions of beets, carrots, dill, parsley, and cilantro through the end of July to ensure a prolonged harvesting season.
• If you’d like to have a fall harvest of cabbage and broccoli, plant seeds directly into the garden around the end of June or early July, or start them indoors at that time and transplant the seedlings into your garden by late August. They’ll be ready to eat by late September or early October. To protect these cool weather–loving plants from the heat of late summer, try planting them in a shady part of your garden or in the shade of other plants.
• If you are planting tomatoes, be sure to give indeterminate varieties some sort of support — and consider doing so for determinate ones as well. Put your stakes or cages in at the time of planting, so that you don’t risk damaging the plants’ roots later. Not sure whether yours are determinate or indeterminate (or maybe even what the heck I’m talking about!)? First, let’s get the terminology out of the way. Determinate tomatoes are those that generally grow to 3 or 4 feet tall and produce all of their fruits at once (or within a short period). These are great if you are canning and want to have a lot of tomatoes to can all at once. Indeterminate tomatoes can grow to 6 feet or taller and produce throughout the season — all the way up until we get a hard frost. Supporting both types of tomatoes is helpful, because it makes picking the fruit easier, and because it helps to reduce the likelihood of disease. Giving indeterminate tomatoes support is an absolute must, if you want to get the best results for all your hard work — you get more fruit, and the fruit generally gets larger than it would if the plant is left on the ground. As a general rule, most cherry-type and heirloom tomatoes are indeterminate. How do you know what type you have? If you have grown your own from seed, the seed pack should tell you. If you’ve bought plants and can’t ask the grower, look up the seed variety online. Any seed company selling that seed variety should have that information on their site.
• Once you have gotten your tomatoes, squash, cucumber, and bean seedlings in the ground (or as soon as they start to grow, if you planted any as seeds), it’s important to begin a program of spraying your plants with fungicide. All of these plants are susceptible to many types of diseases, and the only way to deal with these issues is through prevention. Once the diseases set in, you can sometimes slow them down a little, but you can’t cure them. So, start spraying early, and keep doing it. Follow directions on the fungicide’s packaging to determine how much and how often, but count on doing it generally once per week, unless we get a heavy rain — then re-treat. Diseases are one of the biggest reasons people don’t get as much from their gardens as they hope. Treating with fungicide early and often throughout the season will make a big difference in how much you get to harvest.
• Keep an eye out for pests in your garden. Pests are another reason for lower yields. If you have broccoli, cabbage, kale, or brussels sprouts, those lovely little white “butterflies“ you see hanging around your garden are eyeing your plants to lay their eggs on. Those eggs will hatch into little green caterpillars that can totally consume your crop, if you’re not careful. There are two ways to treat those caterpillars effectively — pick them off and squish them, or spray them with B.t., an organic product specifically meant to kill caterpillars. Other pests that can be particularly destructive to your plants that you should be on the lookout for include cucumber beetles, squash vine borers, Mexican bean beetles, flea beetles, tomato hornworms, squash bugs, and slugs. There are others, but these tend to be the ones I hear most customers say they are dealing with (and the ones I am often fighting in my own garden). Know what pest you are dealing with before you decide on a product to use. Some products work on certain pests and not others. If you’re not sure what the culprit is, there are lots of apps available for smartphones that allow you to upload a picture for identification. Once you know what you have, you can decide what to use to rid your garden of them.
• Weeding is an important part of keeping your plants healthy and producing, even if it’s not everyone’s favorite chore. Weeds compete for water and nutrients, and they can also be disease carriers. Doing a little weeding every time you’re in the garden can make it seem a little less tedious, and getting weeds before they get too big is so much easier than waiting until they have put down deep roots.
• Keep an eye on the weather. We’ve been getting some pretty good rain lately, but that could easily change quickly, so if we’re not getting at least an inch of rain each week, especially when the temps are in the 80s and higher, you need to supplement with watering. Be careful about how you water, though. Watering from overhead can contribute to disease in many plants in your veggie garden. The best way to water your vegetables (presuming your garden is too large to do targeted hand watering) is to use soaker hoses. Soaker hoses put the water where it’s needed — right at the roots — and help reduce the likelihood of diseases.

Flower Gardens:

• When deciding what flowers to add to your garden this year, consider ones that will attract beneficial insects. Some of our butterflies are in serious decline, as are honeybees and native bees, so planting things for them can help ensure their survival, as can being careful about using chemicals in your gardens. Planting a variety of flowers, herbs, and shrubs will attract a variety of beneficial insects, and will add lots of color and texture to your landscape at the same time. Some plants to consider for bees and butterflies:
  • Sage, sunflowers, borage, bee balm, goldenrod, asters, catmint, coreopsis, penstemon, turtlehead, and serviceberry are great for attracting bees, which are great for pollinating your garden.
  • To attract butterflies, plant joe-pye weed, butterfly milkweed (not to be confused with butterfly bush, which can be invasive, and really isn’t beneficial to butterflies), dill, parsley (adult butterflies will feed on the nectar of the flowers, but the plants themselves are what the Eastern black swallowtail larvae feed on), purple coneflowers, goldenrod, blazing star, spicebush, and eastern ninebark.
• While it’s getting a little late for planting many annual flower seeds, there are still some that can be planted now that will come up quickly and give you a good show throughout the summer. Some to consider are sweet alyssum, calendula, cornflowers, nigella, and nasturtiums. Putting a very light layer of mulch down over the planting area will help to keep the soil moist, which is needed for germination of the seeds. Just be careful not to put too heavy a layer of mulch down so as not to crush the tiny seedlings as they emerge. Alternatively, you can plant many flowering annual plants this month for an instant show of color.
• Water all of your flowers regularly, especially any in containers. Soil in containers dries out much more quickly than in the ground, even more so if the containers are in the sun and exposed to the wind. Also, don’t forget that plants in containers need to be fertilized on a regular basis, mostly because you will be flushing out what fertilizer is in the soil with all the water you are giving them. Just be careful not to fertilize more than is suggested on the label of the product you are using — chemical fertilizers can cause “burn” on your plants when over-applied. Fertilizer burn happens because most chemical fertilizers contain salts, which draw the moisture out of your plants. Slow-release and organic fertilizers can help to prevent fertilizer burn.
• Indoor plants can benefit from spending the summer outdoors, but be sure to place them in a spot where they will be protected from winds and where they will get some filtered sun throughout the day. Houseplants are not used to the direct sun and can be easily scorched if they are not given a little shade. They will also dry out more quickly outdoors than in, so be sure to increase your watering schedule. And don’t forget to fertilize them!

Birds:

• There have not been any changes to recommendations about feeding birds in light of the Avian flu. So, if you are continuing to feed birds, please be sure to clean your feeders regularly with a 10% bleach solution. Rinse thoroughly after cleaning, and let them dry thoroughly before refilling. For hummingbirds and orioles, clean out nectar feeders at least weekly — more often (every two or three days, at most) when it’s above 80°.
• The same basic advice goes for bird baths. Bird baths can be an important source of water for birds, as the heat of summer gets going and water sources tend to dry up. Keeping them cleaned out is extremely important. Dump water out every day (this also helps to cut down the mosquito population), give the bath a good scrubbing, and then rinse with a 10% bleach solution. Follow with a thorough rinsing before filling the bath up again. All of these things will help to keep our birds healthy.
• I’ve seen lots of parent birds flying to nests with mouths full of insects and worms for their babies lately. Pretty soon those babies will be fledging the nest, and may not quite have figured out the whole flying thing yet, so keep an eye out for babies in your yard as you are going about your chores. If you find a baby bird in your yard, whether or not you should do anything to help it depends on a number of things. Visit https://www.allaboutbirds.org/news/i-found-a-baby-bird-what-do-i-do/ to help you decide what to do.

For as little as $1 a month, you can keep Manchester-focused news coverage alive.

by Sara Swanson

Sara Swanson is an editor, writer and founder of the Manchester Mirror.