Early June Garden

The June garden is pure abundance. It's too late to start most summer veggies now in my valley, and too early to start fall crops, so my focus is on garden care - watering, weeding, mulching - and on HARVEST.

Agenda:
1. June harvest
2. June planting

3. June tasks

1. June harvest:

I'm harvesting leeks, beets, spinach, bok choy, peas, rhubarb, raspberries, parsley, and other herbs. I use the cut-and-come-again method of prolonging the harvest for greens, including bok choy, but my bok choy has all begun to bolt in the warmer days of June, so its time to take it all up.

I have too much bok choy to use now, so I decided to experiment with freezing it. The instructions I found say:

1. Keep it dry so it doesn't get mushy: Do not wash under water before freezing it. Instead, take a moist towel and gently wash it down removing the dirt on it, and then pat dry.
2. Cut it into pieces, both leaves and stems. (I left mine whole, but cut the stems from the leaves.)
3. Place in freezer bags, 2 cups of chopped bok choy into a quart sized bag. 
4. Suck the air out: Lay freezer bag down flat and use a straw to suck the air out of each bag. Seal the bag. Place bok choy in the freezer.

2. June planting:

The only summer food plants left to plant are beans and cucumbers:

Cucumbers (Cucumis sativus) probably originated in India at least 3000 years ago, and are usually classified as either pickling or slicing varieties, but many varieties can be used as both.

Excellent cucumber companion plants include: Legumes; root vegetables, including onions; radishes (help repel cucumber beetles, as do marigolds and nasturtiums), sunflowers (can be natural trellises for climbing cucumber vines, plus sunflowers are pollinator superheroes, and can increase cucumber yields, dill (many enthusiasts swear by dill for improving the flavor of cucumbers), and garlic (can promote cucumber growth and decrease the chances of plants developing fusarium wilt by affecting the soil microbiome structure.

Do not plant cucumbers near to potatoes, sage, mint, melons or fennel.

• Plant cucumbers in hills, four plants to a hill, with hills 4-6 feet apart. They can be grown on a trellis.
• Don’t break up pot bound roots. Ever so gently place them in the soil and water them in well with lukewarm water. These plants have many delicate root hairs and rarely recover from root disturbance. 
• This family is oh so delicate. They need rich soil that is then fertilized when the plants are still young and upright. They want morning sun, plenty of heat, but protection from the intense afternoon sun. 
• Cucumbers require lots of water, but are very susceptible to root rot when young; water in the morning. 
• They are attractive to pests, and susceptible to powdery mildew.
• Once vines have reached 4 feet, the size of the vine can be controlled and fruiting encouraged by pinching off the fuzzy growing tip. 
• Cucumbers should be harvested as soon as they reach the recommended size - the sweet taste of cucumbers occurs only when they have just ripened, and they will soon get bitter.

Green beans (Phaseolus vulgaris): The green bean originated in Central and South America and there's evidence that it has been cultivated in Mexico and Peru for millennia. I usually try to plant beans in late May, but early June is not too late. I'm planting bean seeds I saved from my giant pole beans of two summers ago. Since green bean seeds are thick-coated, I'll give them an overnight soak in room temperature water to fully hydrate before planting.

Beans are a good crop to follow heavy feeders like tomatoes because they fix nitrogen in the soil. Catnip repels flea beetles, so catnip is a good companion plant for green beans, and marigolds will repel the Mexican bean beetle and suppress nematodes in the soil from attacking the roots. Bean plants repel the Colorado potato beetle and potato plants repel bean beetles so these two make a wonderful pair. Cucumber, eggplant, carrots, cabbage, Brussel sprouts, kale, strawberries, swiss chard, tomatoes, lettuce, peas, cauliflower, parsley, spinach, and radishes all grow well with green beans

Beets will stunt the growth of pole beans and pole beans stunt the growth of beets. Onions, garlic, and other members of the allium family stunt the growth of beans and don’t allow them to add nitrogen to the soil.

Bean tips:

• Plant pole beans about a hand-span apart, and give them a pole or string to twine up. 
• Avoid watering with cold water. Instead use warmer water from a watering can that has been sitting in the sun. 
• Keep slugs under control; there is nothing more delectable to slugs than tender young bean shoots.

2. June tasks:

I'm using the Second Breakfast Garden monthly guides this year to update my checklists, because they are in zone 8b.

1. Slug and snail proaction: Keep checking for these until the weather turns dry and plants get big enough to survive.
2. Aphids: Wherever I see aphids, I can look also for little golden clutches of ladybugs eggs. (cabbage moth eggs look similar but maybe not in  a cutch?)



Bok Choy in flower

3. Cool season crops (greens, peas, beets, kale, etc.) might start to wither or bolt. Pull some, and leave one to flower for the pollinators.
4. Remember to prune the suckers (branches that grow out of the joint of other branches) on my indeterminant tomato.
5. Mulch strawberries: It keeps the soil cool and moist, and keeps the berries off the dirt.
6. Mulch and weed: In permaculture, weeds are considered an essential part of the ecosystem. I have stopped pulling weeds in some beds, and instead I tear them off at the ground and use them as mulch. This method leaves the soil untilled; tilling exposes new seeds, and you just get more weeds. But I still pull weeds that are close to my veggie plants.