June in the Texas Garden

To my fellow Texas Gardeners . . .

It’s Summer! Are you getting triple digit heat where you are? There’s not much planting you can do this month, but there is still plenty to keep you in the garden. I like to get all of my garden work done by noon each day to beat the heat.

As always, don’t plant everything!

Plant what your family loves & you enjoy growing.

June Planting Guide:

• Transplants: Peppers, Sweet Potato Slips & Perennial Herbs. I purchase transplants for almost all of my herbs. It’s worth the investment to me since many of them are hard to grow from seed and come back each year.

  Direct Sow (plant seeds): Sunflower, Summer Squashes, Zinnias, Loofah, Melons, Okra, Black Eyed Peas and Corn. In addition to all of your summer fruits and vegetables.

June Gardening Tasks:

• Mulch garden beds & new flower pots.

• Prune back all perennial herbs.

• Add seasonal color to your flower pots.

• Check sprinklers & drip irrigation for needed repairs.

• Dead head flowering plants.

• Switch the lawn mower setting up to high. Keep the roots cool by leaving the grass longer & leave clippings on the lawn to naturally fertilize.

• Water deeply.

• Mow any unwanted wildflowers and/or weeds before they flower.

• Weed daily. What is a weed? Anything that’s not where you want it :)

• Deal with Pests:

  • Watch for aphids and spider mites, spray them off with a hard blast of water. Be sure to get the undersides of the leaves.

  • Ladybugs and green lacewings will be chomping down those aphids, so watch for them and their larvae and do a happy dance when you see them coming to your rescue!

  • Remove pests damaged leaves to the trash (not the compost pile).

  • Watch for tomato hornworms on tomatoes. Pull them off and feed them to chickens or release them elsewhere.

  • To fend off squash vine borers, keep row cover on and hand pollinate. Or take your chances with natural bee pollinators! Some other ways to deal with them organically, READ MORE

  • Walk the garden in early morning to pick off stink bugs from tomatoes. Check under the leaves for eggs.

  • Deal with grasshoppers while young. Here’s a good post with some all-natural ways to deal with them, READ HERE

    If you’d like to see a planting list for your specific area, the Almanac gives a comprehensive guide.

    Find it HERE.