Ahh, June. School is out, graduations attended, wedding gifts purchased, and vacations planned. Most Southern gardeners have their vegetable garden planted, summer annuals in the ground and already blooming, containers set with thrillers, fillers, and spillers, the lawn fertilized, and their mowing routine down. Think you can relax? Well, not for long.
With vacations on the calendar and camps in session, it’s easy to accidentally let your guard down on a few important gardening tasks. The biggest thing gardeners forget to do in June? Get a jump on weed control in flower beds, lawns, and vegetable gardens.
If you forget this important task, weeds can choke out all of your hard work by stealing nutrients and water from all types of plants. Let’s take a look at how to keep weeds under control and what you should be doing in June to get your lawn and garden ready for the coming summer.
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Weed ControlVegetable Garden and Flower Beds
It’s impossible to keep vegetable gardens and flower beds 100 percent weed-free, but it is possible to keep them from taking over. Early summer removal helps prevent the weeds from going to seed and multiplying. Manual removal by digging them up with a garden knife or hoe is a good way to make sure you get the roots without disturbing your desirable plants. Once you get most of the weeds removed, add plenty of organic mulch to block the sunlight that they need to grow.
Cardboard Control
To help control weeds in a vegetable garden, break down cardboard boxes and put them between the rows of plants. The cardboard creates a barrier to block sunlight, will break down eventually, and can be covered with mulch if you don’t like the look.
Lawns
Lawn weeds are easier to control in early summer before populations spread through roots or seeds. Whether you remove the weeds by hand or with chemical controls, maintaining a dense, healthy lawn turf is essential. Weeds love to invade bare spots. As temperatures rise, set the lawn mower blades higher to keep the grass just a little longer for a healthier lawn.
Prune Spring Blooming Shrubs
If you haven’t already, be sure to trim your flowering shrubs, such as forsythia, azalea, mock orange, and rhododendrons, after blooms have disappeared. Try your best to get it done before the end of June. If you wait any longer, you’ll be cutting off next spring’s blooms.
Get Summer Pests Under Control
As temperatures rise in June, so does the pest population. Now is the time to get ahead of the swarms by controlling bagworms, aphids, whiteflies, stinkbugs, and Japanese beetles. With regular inspection in the garden, hand-plucking larger insects from plants, and insecticidal soaps, you can greatly reduce their effects in the garden.
Set a Fertilization Schedule
June kicks off the prime growth season for most plants. This is when they need the most nutrients to produce new foliage, fruits, and flowers. Whether you use compost or a commercial NPK-balanced fertilizer, make a note in your gardening journal to feed your plants throughout the summer. This is especially important for container-grown plants. Because containers require such frequent watering, many nutrients are flushed out from the soil, so fertilize regularly.
Establish Watering Schedule
The heat is coming, and that means plants will need more water to survive. Check irrigation systems for leaks and add drip hoses to beds. Soaker hoses and drip irrigation systems make the most efficient use of water. Water deeply early in the day and avoid overhead watering to allow foliage to dry before nightfall to minimize fungal diseases. Get a rain gauge and supplement irrigation as spring rains slow over the summer months.
Support, Deadhead, and Harvest
Many plants have reached a growth stage where they need proper support for the rest of the summer. Stake or provide support for vegetables like tomatoes and peppers. Add trellises or netting for your vining plants to climb. Get into a routine of deadheading fading flowers regularly to keep the garden tidy and encourage more blooms from flowers like dahlias, marigolds, coneflowers, and roses.
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In the vegetable garden, keep an eye on production and harvest early vegetables regularly to encourage them to keep producing well until fall. This is especially true with peas and green beans, green and hot peppers, cucumbers, squash, eggplants, and tomatoes. Consider planting seeds for a second harvest of okra, squash, and cucumbers that mature quickly.
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