June Garden To Do
Well folks, much to our absolute joy, the weather recently has been warm and sunny! Your plants might already be in or you could be still working through your garden having gotten a late start. Either way June is a beautiful month in the garden. Flowers and plants have awoken from their slumber and are ready to show their stuff. Blooms and leaves have just unfurled and not yet been exposed to harsh elements or insects. There are some specific tasks you should be undertaking in the month of June to ensure a healthy garden all summer long.
Pest control
If you have ever lost a plant ravaged by insects you probably already have a pest control strategy. Or if you are of the lucky few that has been mostly pest free your vigilance may be a little lax. Just because it hasn’t happened yet doesn’t mean it won’t. Keep an eye out for aphids, Japanese Beetles, earwigs, and spider mites. With new pesticide bans, botanical insecticides and methods like spraying a light mixture of dish soap and water on the plants are very popular pest control methods. There’s also hand picking – assuming this doesn’t gross you out. If you believe you have a pest problem a great resource is http://www.garden.org/pestlibrary/ which will help you identify the invader and recommended an attack plan. Just remember there are good bugs too!
Weed
The key to keeping weeds down is to pick weeds before they flower and go to seed. Once the seeds are free garden anarchy ensues as the weed has sent out troops to the rest of your bed. Keep an eye out for weeds when they first come up so they don’t even get the chance to develop a solid root system and start stealing nutrients from the plants you actually want!
Mulch-o-rama
Ridgeview Garden Centre sells a wide variety of mulches in an array of colours. Not just for aesthetic mulch has major garden benefits. A layer of quality mulch will lock in moisture during the warmer summer months. It will also help keep the weeds down.
Plant warm weather veggies
Veggies are either warm weather or cold weather as it relates to the climate conditions they need to grow. Now is the time to plant the warm weather vegetables such as Beans, Cucumbers, Edamame, Eggplant, Peppers, Pumpkins, Squash, Tomato, Watermelon and Zucchini
Trimmed and Tied
Ensure to keep tying in stems of climbing and rambling plants, and prune early-summer flowering shrubs. This will provide new stems for next years flowers.