June is usually the month of long sunny days, barbeques and sitting back and enjoying all the colour in the garden with a cold glass of your favourite tipple. The garden however doesn’t stop growing so it is important to keep a good” job schedule” going just leave them until the cooler mornings and evenings.
Now is a good time to fill up bare patches in your flower borders and add more colour with some new flowering shrubs and perennial garden plants. Just make sure to prepare the soil with lots of moisture retaining compost or soil improver and water your new purchases regularly for the first summer. There are many beautiful summer flowering plants to choose from such as Agapanthus, Correopsis, Campanula, Gaura and Penstemon .
Lots of growth should be happening in the greenhouse this month. Cucumbers can be planted now that it's warmed up. Sow a later batch to extend the cropping season until late August. Grow Cucumber 'Hanah' and 'Socraties' for reliably heavy crops. Pinch off the flowers until the plants have grown 9 sets of leaves along the stem and then allow them to crop. This encourages strong healthy stems to carry large crops of fruit.
Chilles and Peppers are best grown in pots. Try a bull horns Italian Sweet Pepper variety called Rossii. These can be grown outside in a sheltered sunny place.
Start feeding your tomatoes after the first truss of fruit has set. Feed weekly with an organic comfrey feed or Westlands Tomato Food which is high in potash
In the soft fruit beds strawberries will need feeding whilst keeping an eye on gooseberries for Sawfly attacks. The larva will devour most of the leaves in a matter of days so spray with a pesticide.
Blackcurrants will be growing fast too. Keep them well watered all summer and feed with Blood, Fish and Bone or Bonemeal fertilizer. Also watch out for unsightly blotches on the leaves caused by the Blister Aphid and if it occurs spray with SB Invigorator. This is safe to use on edibles while still killing aphids, red spider mite, mealy bugs and scale insects.
After your strawberries have fruited cut back all the growth to 2.5cm from the ground and remove all the leaves before composting or burning them
Keep newly planted fruit trees watered at this time of year and to further prevent water loss mulch with a soil improver or your own homemade compost.
Plums, Peaches, Apricots, and Apples often set too much fruit. During this month a natural 'June Drop' of some of the young fruits will occur but you may still need to hand thin out some more after this.
Don't be afraid to trim back mint, marjoram and other quick growing herbs while growing new ones. They will reward you with neat cushions of fresh shoots in no time. Thyme, Chives, Marjoram and many other herbs are attractive to bees so leave one or two stems to flower and trim back later.
It's a very busy month for vegetable growing. There's still time to sow the seeds of French Beans, Runner Beans, Carrots, Cabbage, Cauliflower, Turnips and Swedes while tropical veg such as Tomatoes, Courgettes, French Beans and Runner Beans can now be planted outside. At the same time fill your greenhouses with Water and Honeydew Melons, Tomatoes, Chillies and Aubergines.
Onions and other previously planted crops will need regular weeding now and should be fed with a high nitrogen feed or chicken manure pellets to increase their leaf growth.
When all these jobs are done enjoy a sunny and happy June in the garden!
