N&C Midwest—June 2024

June has arrived!  Things are growing in the garden and well, everywhere!  Seedlings are up, and plants are blooming.  We have had rain here in Ohio, but my containers can still need a drink here and there.  

Today is projected to be a beautiful day, so plan to get outside and see what I still need to do.  I have 3 black raspberry bushes planted in gallon containers to buy me some time.  I had a bed built for them, my goal is to get them in there this weekend.  

What is going on where you are?

I plan to pull the radishes that are ready tonight, we got rain overnight so it will be too soggy to do much other than harvest and weed!

Pulled all the radishes, and had a few sugar snap peas as gardener’s snacks!  Also harvested the scapes, so will make some pesto this weekend.  Now once I amend, I will have room for my cukes and melons, and squash, which will go in this weekend.

It’s beautiful!  That Merlot, good wine, too! 

I had to water my new raspberries.  Will mulch tonight.  Gonna get warmer I hear.  I have never had aphids on basil, either!  Is it near something that gets aphids?

OhioGardener wrote:

Scorpio Rising wrote:I have never had aphids on basil, either!  Is it near something that gets aphids?

The basil is interplanted with tomatoes, and I couldn't find any aphids on the tomatoes. On the other end of the bed is Siberian Dwarf Kale, and it doesn't have any aphids either. Makes me wonder how or why the found the basil.

Very strange.

So, I got my last bed sited with help from my kid.  Amended, and planted with super hotties.  Cukes, melons, summer and winter squash all in!  No room for corn, which is a bummer.  I need to figure this out.

Everything needs to be mulched. I watered, but it needs mulched.  Gonna get hot! 

Also got my sunflowers in and cleaned up the back bed.  

Front bed still needs help—need to get on it early, because we are expecting a heat wave this weekend!  Weeding, mostly. 

Watched MI Gardener You Tube stuff this week, might need to sow some more bunching onions, other June stuff….

Mulched my black raspberry bushes, and squashes, cucumbers, and melons.  Thinned carrots, Swiss chard, and gold beets.  Watered the peppers.  Need to give some fertilizer to the front marigolds and remaining nasturtium.  

I guess I am ready for the heat wave.  We will see.  The squashes were wilty looking.

It was to get really hot last Tuesday so I picked the rest of the lettuce from the patio, and I noticed a few small tomatoes forming!  Beans are up as well.  

https://www.instagram.com/p/C8HakP-pSGi/

I made a mistake in planting my Dragon Tongue beans…they are under (and I mean UNDER) my tomato plants.  Not good.  

Will re-site them once this heat wave has passed.

Picked a bunch of sugar snap peas, and noticed a couple tomatoes on the vine!

I have been having a tough time getting out into the garden this month. I was battling an illness for the first week and a half of the month, then went out of town for a week and returned to HEAT, Ugh!

Some of my snap peas are still doing alright, but had to pull my blush peas and shelling peas. Honestly just trying to stay on top of weeding, trellising, pruning and fighting back pests at the moment. Earwigs are back in force and have destroying sunflowers, zinnias and swiss chard while I was gone. Kale has been removed because that has been destroyed. Just spotted some cucumber beetles on my cukes last night, so I will need to try and manage that today (later today as it's supposed to be 95 degrees here). 

But, everything else looks like it is doing alright. Pulled some beets and got them pickled. Harvested some potatoes for the first time ever which was amazing! Just enjoying what is doing well and looking forward to amending and getting some new things planted (i.e. more cucumbers, cilantro, bush beans) once the heat breaks.

Also, started some more heat tolerant lettuce varieties indoors as well as some additional kale.

Happy to getting back into the swing of things!

Thanks OG! I have been applying that and is does seem to be helping some. Gonna need to purchase more soon! LOL

Much needed rain moved through overnight.  Glad that happened!  Rain is so much better than water from the hose.  

Picked and ate a few sugar snap peas, one cherry tomato (Sungold) will be ready today!  Happy also to get a break from the sweltering heat for a day or two.