Sunday, June 1, 2025

June 2025 Edible Garden Planner

Potted edibles and flowers in the June garden
Sunday, June 1, 2025

June is a productive time in the garden.  Cool season crops are peaking while summer vegetable crops are just starting to produce with herbs in full swing.  Everything is a lush green at the beginning of the month.  As your fruit producing veggies flower, they will need a boost of fertilizer.  As the rain slows down, consistent soil moisture is key.  There are many edibles that you can start this month, too.

What’s growing in the garden right now
The lettuce and spinach I planted in March and April as well as the sprouting broccoli and lettuce that overwintered are in stages of "bolting".  I need to start heat tolerant lettuce seeds in peat pots and resow about every 3 weeks for the summer lettuce harvesting.  I'll start all the seeds in pots so I can keep them in a cool spot or with a shade cover as lettuce doesn't like it hot!  Growing fabulous lettuce and greens

I also have heat loving greens going that are volunteers from last year's plants and some that I started in April indoors.  Red Malabar spinach is just coming up because it has been so cool this May from last year's seeds.  I will be thinning them so they don't take over like they did last year.  Purple orach, New Zealand spinach and Chinese Multi Colored Spinach amaranth also have a few volunteers.  I will thin them by moving to new pots.  They do great in a pot and are quite pretty together.  Red Malabar has pretty purple vines and flowers that just keep on growing.  New Zealand spinach is a pale green that really fills out a pot and the amaranth has pale green and purple leaves that grows upward.  All thrive in our hot summers.

Don't worry about insect damage to the leaves on the cabbage and broccoli as long as the heads are forming nicely.  A little insect damage will not affect the quality of the head produced.  If you are getting over run with worms, you can use an organic Bt spray that only affects worms and not bees or other pollinating insects.  Natural, organic pest strategies and how to make your own bug sprays   Broccoli and cauliflower growing tips  

I have sprouting broccoli volunteers in the garden and pots.  The early ones have gone to seed.  I have transplanted a couple to large pots with heat tolerant lettuce volunteers.  Sprouting broccoli is great for salad greens during the summer months, but cabbage worms do love them.  The leaves taste just like broccoli.  I have planted Woad in the pot with them as they are supposed to repel cabbage moths.   Sprouting broccoli- a year round fav  

Arugula, sorrels, plantain greens, chard and cultivated dandelions are all harvestable.  As it gets hotter, these greens become stronger.  Since they are perennials, they are the first up in the spring for fresh salads.  Harvest the new leaves in summer mornings for the mildest taste.  You can cut them back, too, to get fresh new leaves.  It doesn't hurt them at all.

This year I am also growing new varieties of mustard and other types of greens along with a winner from last year Hilton Chinese cabbage.  A listing of what I am growing is in this blog.   My 2025 Edible and Decorative Garden 

Dragon's Tail or Rat's Tail radish is fun to grow and the seed pods are tasty in salads.  I am growing Dragon's Tail radish again this year in the garden bed.  It has purple stems and the pods have a mild radish flavor.  I planted snow peas in pots in March.  I used the type that the vines don't get too long.  The pods, flowers and leaves are great in salads and stay sweet tasting into summer.  

The sage, chives, oregano, tarragon, dill, Egyptian walking onions and thyme are filling out nicely.  The flowers from herbs are edible, too.  They are fun to use in salads or as a garnish in cooked meals.  Very pretty to add in baked potatoes and grill.  We slice our potatoes, add some diced onion or chive flowers, butter, seasoning, wrap in foil and throw on the grill.  Yum.
Start a kitchen herb garden!

Another great thing about herbs is they are a good deterrent to deer.  Deer do not like strong smells so avoid fragrant herbs.  I plant them and marigolds all around the garden to keep the pesky critters away.  We now live out in the country and deer will even bed down in the yard.  What has worked to keep them out of the garden is a combination of herbs throughout the garden, a pod deer deterrent, WD40 on socks, and marigolds around the perimeter of the garden bed.  This year, I also put daffodils and thyme around every bed.   Both are supposed to repel voles.  
Flowering chives
Tomatoes have started flowering and we have lots of baby tomatoes so it won't be long before we will be able to eat fresh tomatoes!  We have baby tomatoes on the Cherokee Purple, Sweet 100 and Chocolate Pear plants so far.  The large Better Boy tomato we got from a greenhouse has already given us a ripe tomato.  

I started peppers and eggplant indoors and transplanted outside at the end of April.  Only the pepper plants have flowers and baby peppers on them so far.  The eggplant are still really small.  They should start growing next week with the warmer temperatures.  Tomatoes 101, everything you need to know to grow great tomatoes    Peppers are for every taste and garden

I started beans, squash, cucumbers and melons directly in the garden at the end of April.  Not all of the beans are up yet (winged and 1500 Year Old Cave), none of the melons, one type of cucumber has sprouted and another has not, and all of the squash plants have sprouted.  With the warmer temps this next week, it will be more to their liking.  If they don't sprout, I will resow.

When temperatures and humidity rise, it is time to treat the tomatoes, squash, beans and cucumbers with an organic fungicide.  We have hot humid summers here in the Midwest and fungus loves those conditions!  Keeping fungal growth down greatly improves the plants' health and harvest.  Natural fungicides I have used in the past are Copper fungicide and Serenade fungicide which need to be applied after each rain.  I always try to spray when it is cool so they plant does not get stressed.  

I went with Purple Yard Long pole beans, a winged bean and 1500 Year Old bean for fresh snap beans this year.  The Purple Yard Long are crazy productive and I just like growing a bean that was here 1500 years ago.  I am also growing the Lima bean Christmas Speckles.  I am growing an early winged bean again this year.  It was super productive and had really pretty blue flowers.  I prefer pole beans because you get so much from one plant and they produce over the entire summer.  I grow them on a trellis so they are easy to harvest.  The advantage of bush beans is that the harvest duration is short so you don't have to worry about picking fresh beans all summer. Everything you need to know to grow green (or yellow or purple) beans

I am growing a bush cucumber Bush Champion this year and Beit Alpha.   I started both outdoors at the end of April in the garden bed.  You can also direct seed this time of year.  Seeds should be up in 7 days.  Bush Champion is up but Beit Alpha is not.  May have to resow it next week.  For cucumbers, keep an eye out for cucumber beetles and caterpillars.  Just pluck them off and throw into a can of soapy water.  Everything you need to know to grow cucumbers, in pots or the garden bed

For squash, I am growing 2 kinds, Trombetta and a sweet, productive Butternut squash.  Trombetta can be used as a summer squash or left on the vine to ripen as a winter squash.  It was impervious to pest and disease in my garden.  I use the Trombetta mostly as a fresh zucchini and the butternut for pumpkin bread and pumpkin pie.  What to do with all that zucchini?!   Everything you need to know to grow squash

Overwintered carrots are flowering.  Egyptian walking onions Egyptian walking onions.  are filling out well.  I am harvesting the walking onion any time I need onions for cooking.  The green stalk is great as a fresh chive, too, for salads or potatoes.  I had some volunteer garlic come up.  I transplanted them over to a permanent bed.  They will be too small to harvest this year.  I'll leave them in the ground until next year.

I am getting strawberries and blueberries.  Both seem to be pest free in our garden.  You just have to get to the strawberries before the birds do!  Back yard strawberries
Ripe Alpine strawberries
 The wild blackberries are flowering and there are some berries forming.  

I am growing blackberries, raspberries, goji berry bushes, aronia bush and strawberries in the garden bed.  I have several blueberries in pots.  Fruit for small spaces and pots

Now is the time to provide shade for your lettuce and sow bolt resistant varieties like Summer Crisp Magenta, Green Towers, Butter King, Jericho Romaine, Simpson Elite leaf and Giant Blue Feather.  The Butter King and Red Sails stay sweet even after it has bolted.  You can move your lettuces if in pots to a shadier part of your patio or porch.  Shade cloths can be used for those in the garden.  You can also plant taller veggies on the south and west side of your lettuces so as they grow, they provide shade to the lettuces.  I move most of my greens around to the northeast, shady side of the house this time of the year to keep them sweet as long as possible.  Be sure to keep them moist as this helps prolong the harvest.
I always have to have lots of flowers interspersed in the garden for color, fragrance and to attract beneficial insects.  In addition to the perennial jasmine, daylilies, hollyhocks, gardenia, gladiolus, mums, irises, and lilies, I am growing Cardinal basil, petunias, sunflowers, morning glory, Pride of Madeira and wildflowers.

Best time to harvest
The best time to harvest almost any vegetable is mornings or right after a rain; this is when they are the crunchiest, fullest and sweetest.  Harvest greens in the morning before you go to work and store with the stems in water for the day.

The best time to harvest aromatic herbs like rosemary, thyme and oregano is in the afternoon when the oils are most concentrated.  Harvest herbs like parsley, cilantro and dill in the cooler part of the day.

For more tips on preserving the extra, see Preservation garden

Watering & fertilizing tips
With the heat coming, it is time to start watering.  In general, garden plants like about 1" of water each week.  Pots require more.  Keep consistent moisture to your lettuces to keep taste sweet and your lettuce from bolting as long as possible.  When your lettuce does bolt, let it go to flower and seed.  The bees and beneficial insects enjoy the flowers and the seeds can easily be saved for fall and next spring planting or allowed to self sow.  

Fertilize all your fruit bearing veggies when the first flowers appear (right now we have flowers and small fruits on our peppers and tomatoes).  Provide only compost tea the rest of the season.  Too much nitrogen will cause your plants to grow lush foliage with no fruits.  Nitrogen stimulates green growth so is great for greens but should be used in moderation for fruiting plants.  I like to add Azomite or kelp to each plant once a year.  Both have a variety of trace minerals that can really boost a plant's health and harvest.  Kelp has hormones which stimulate growth.  I learned last year to not use kelp on my tropicals I have in pots because the kelp caused them to shoot up in height.

For more on summer garden care, Summer garden tips
Summer greens and herbs
Can I still plant a garden in June-Yes!
There are many vegetables and herbs that you can still plant right now.   Any of the summer vegetables love these temperatures and sun.  As a matter of fact, this is the best time to plant cucumbers and squash to avoid the vine borer.  Even if you have planted zucchini and tomatoes already, late June is a good time to plant a second crop.  If your seeds don't come up within a week, it is likely that they were either bad or they rotted.  Seeds can rot when the ground is really wet and chilly.  It is still a great time to start seeds.  You can also buy transplants to get a jump on the harvest.  

A list of all veggies that can be planted in June:
Arugula
Broccoli raab  
Brussels sprouts  Growing Brussel sprouts
Bulbing fennel  Growing fennel
Lettuce (heat tolerant varieties)  Everything you need to know about growing lettuce
Mediterranean herbs (basil, thyme, sage, oregano, rosemary, chives)  Start a kitchen herb garden!
Parsnips
Salsify
Sweet potatoes  Growing sweet potatoes

Savory, thyme, lettuce, onions with day lilies in the background
Here are a couple of garden ideas

If you have a picky eater, try the kid’s pizza/spaghetti garden.  If they grow it, they want to eat it!
Tomatoes-any you can’t eat, you can easily freeze for winter pizzas, salsa, or sauce
Basil, oregano, chives, garlic for seasoning
Onions-you can grow Egyptian walking onions in a pot or ground and they are perennials to boot
Kale, arugula, broccoli and peas for spring and fall pizza toppings (also easy to freeze for later)
Green peppers, eggplant, zucchini for summer pizzas (maybe some hot peppers for the adults)
For those that are real adventuresome, you can get mushroom kits to grow mushrooms.

Or if you want a culinary garden, here is an Italian/Sicilian garden that you can grow in as little as a 6’ x 6’ space:
Herbs (1 each)-thyme, rosemary, sage, oregano, and flat leaf parsley
3 basil plants (for pesto and seasoning)
2 tomatoes-1 Roma type for sauces and 1 slicer type for salads
2 sweet pepper plants
1 zucchini
1 eggplant
8 red onions (you can substitute Egyptian walking onions)
8 garlic plants
Arugula, spinach and lettuce scatter sown

For other garden themes and ideas:
Small space French kitchen garden

It is great fun, a time saver, nutritious and cost effective to grow your own food in your yard or patio!  
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