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The June Garden

SchneiderPeeps - The June Garden

Our June garden is just amazing this year! I’m trying really hard to enjoy it as I know we only have about another month of harvesting. We’ve been harvesting tomatoes, green beans, squash, zucchini, onions, basil and cilantro.

We also harvested the buckwheat and are saving the seeds to replant. I’ll do a full post on this experiment a little bit later but I will say that the beds that had the buckwheat didn’t have many weeds at all.

SunflowerI planted these giant sunflowers as a sacrifice crop to help with the leaf footed bugs. I’ve not seen any leaf footed bugs on them but I’m enjoying them. I’m hoping to harvest some seeds for the chickens.

onions from seed

I will never buy onion sets again. These are onions I planted by seed in January (which is late for our area) and they are doing so very well. We’re pulling them as we need them to cook with.

lemon blossomsOur lemon tree dropped all of it’s fruit from when it bloomed early this spring. A few weeks ago we had several days of rain and when we go back from vacation the lemon tree was blooming again! I know that citrus can bloom year round, I’ve just never actually seen it. I hoping we have some lemons this year.

potato patchEvery day our potato patch gets just a little closer to being harvest. We’re waiting for the last of the plants to die off and then we’ll harvest. I’m going to plant buckwheat in this bed after we harvest the potatoes to get it ready to plant garlic this fall.

big view of gardenHere’s a bigger veiw of the garden. One day all these pathways will be filled with woodchips instead of grass. In the meantime, we’ll just mow.

buckwheat before harvestThis is the buckwheat before we harvested it. We cut it at the base and left the roots in the ground. Once we shake off the wheat we’ll use the stalks and leaves to mulch with.

catapillers on sunflower leafThese catapillers have been enjoying the sunflower leaves. Better them than any of our other edibles.

first cucumberI have cucumbers! I’m so happy that I decided to plant regular cucumbers and not just the lemon cucumbers.

mystery squashAnd these are the mystery squash/gourds. They were supposed to be lemon cucumbers – that’s what the packet said – but they’re not. Which is why I’m happy I also planted some regualar cucumbers. These are pretty, though. I’ve decided to let them grow and when the vine dies, I’ll harvest them. I’ll probably cook them like pumpkins.

tomatoesWe’re picking tomatoes every day. I don’t really have time to can right now so we’re cutting out the stem and putting them in the refrigerator. As usual, the Celebrity tomatoes are producing way more than any other variety.

bird detererThis is our attempt to deter birds from eating our tomatoes. After Christmas we bought these ornaments (the only kind of red ones we could find at the time) on clearance for a dollar for a pack of 12. We’ve had them on the cages, so hopefully any birds that want our tomatoes have already pecked at them and think our tomatoes are no good.

aphid warWe’ve never really had whiteflies until this year. They are multiplying so fast that our lady bugs just can’t keep up. So, I decided to give them a little help. Shaking the plants and vacuuming whiteflies is a great job for a 5 year old. If you have any other suggestions, I’m all ears!

ornamental gourdsThese are our ornamental gourds. I think the two pumpkins are going to be white pumpkins. I’m  hoping. As you can see we’re having a powdery mildew problem, too. I could have removed all those leaves before taking the photo but I’m keeping it real.

giant sunflowerWe started the post with the Russian Mammoth Sunflowers and we’ll end the post with the same.

So tell me, how is your June garden going? Feel free to leave links in the comments so we can all see what you’ve been up to.

The Gardening Notebook is the ultimate gardening tool. This printable notebook has over 120 pages of information and organization to help you have the garden you've always dreamed of.

Along with posting these updates, I’ve been making notes in my gardening notebook. You can get your’s by clicking here.

 

Thanks for sharing with your friends!

Millie

Wednesday 2nd of July 2014

Hi Angi! Your garden looks great. Thanks for sharing at Simple Lives Thursday.

Gretchen

Monday 30th of June 2014

Wow - you garden looks great and in such a different state as our garden right now!! We're still waiting to see our first gourds and squash!

Angi Schneider

Monday 30th of June 2014

That's one of the fun things about sharing online, isn't it. I love seeing your (and your mom's) nice and tidy garden with tame plants when mine is in it's jungle stage...

Sarah C.

Monday 23rd of June 2014

I have tried using baking soda and water sprayed on the plants to kill the powdery mildew. The leaves that already have the mildew still look bad after treatment but it helps stops the spread from surrounding leaves. You will have to search online for the exact measurements, but it was something like 1 or 2 tablespoons of the baking soda to a spray bottle worth of water.

Great garden! I hope to post photos of mine shortly too! Love the mystery plant!

Angi Schneider

Monday 23rd of June 2014

I've been spraying with baking soda but it's super humid here, I can't imagine how bad it would be if I didn't spray.

daisy

Saturday 21st of June 2014

I love the idea with the ornaments! Your garden looks fabulous! So exciting when things get to the point of harvest time. Your sunflowers are lovely. Enjoy it all!

Angi Schneider

Saturday 21st of June 2014

Thanks, Daisy. I think we've seen fewer birds in the garden this year than in previous years, but that could just be hopeful thinking ;-)

Anna @ Feminine Adventures

Thursday 19th of June 2014

Thank you for keeping it real! I loved all the pictures and the Christmas ornament idea is brilliant! I was late planting tomatoes and peppers because we had a really cool spring and the spring garden was going strong...hopefully they still have enough summer left to produce. : )

Angi Schneider

Thursday 19th of June 2014

I hope so, too! Although, we've ripened ours on a window sill before. I've heard that if you pull up the entire plant and hang it upside down in your garage or barn they will also ripen. We've had a cooler spring and sumemer so far, it's been good for us. Usually, we've already hit the 100 degree mark but we haven't yet this year. Thanks for visiting. I'm going to have to try out that Lime Soda you have posted....sounds yummy.