Gardener's June To-Do List

by the editors at Rodale's Organic Life

Here's your June gardening guide for North America's USDA Plant Hardiness Zones: 3-10. If you don't know what zone you live in, check the map here to find out. We've left off zones 1-2 (far-north Alaska) and zones 11-13 (small section of the Florida Keys, the Pacific coast between L.A. and Mexico, and Hawaii) since zones 3-10 cover 99 percent or more of the gardeners in the U.S.

• Harden off, and then set out transplants of melons, tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, eggplant, and squash.
• For a continuous crop of lettuce, radishes, and spinach, sow more seeds midmonth.
• Fertilize and water any potted vegetables regularly.
• Enjoy asparagus right in the garden--even uncooked, it's delicious.
• Plant tender fuchsias, begonias, dahlias, and asters.

• Early in the month, finish setting out transplants of vegetables and flowers.
• Plant seeds of warm-weather crops, such as melons and squash.
• Sow more lettuce so you can keep harvesting leaves, even after the first crop goes to seed.
• Near month's end, plant cilantro to put in the salsa you'll make later.
• Stake or cage tomatoes and other veggies and flowers that tend to sprawl.
• Plant asters and pansies for fall bloom.
• Spray Bacillis thuringiensis(BT) on brassicas as soon as you spot cabbage moths.
• Mulch beds as soon as the soil warms up.

• Stake dahlias and gladiolas when you plant them to keep from damaging their roots later in the season.
• Pinch back foliage ends of mums, a ½ inch every 2 weeks.
• Fertilize roses now: To supply potassium, whiz banana peels in a blender, then plop the stuff beneath the mulch around your roses.
• Harvest daily from asparagus plants in patches at least 3 years old.
• For autumn harvest, plant bush beans, Brussels sprouts, and late cabbage.
• Spray tomato plants with compost tea (made by steeping an old pillowcase filled with compost in a bucket of water) to prevent diseases.

• Place supports for lanky perennials.
• Pinch back chrysanthemums to keep them bushy--a ½ inch from the growing tips, every 2 weeks until the middle of next month.
• Prune spring-flowering shrubs after they've finished blooming.
• Cage tomatoes, peppers, and eggplant.
• Replace finished lettuce with okra or a late crop of summer squash.
• Plant a few more runs of corn, beans, and cucumbers.
• Plant sweet potato slips early in the month.
• Inventory seeds for the fall garden.

• Plant pole, lima, and bush beans; winter squash; and luffa gourds.
• Start seeds for fall crops of eggplants, peppers, and tomatoes to set out in July.
• Cut and dry thyme, oregano, and mint.
• Replace bolted lettuce with corn, malabar spinach (Basella alba), winged beans (Psophocarpus tertragonolobus), and southern peas.
• Trap slugs with containers of fresh beer.
• Mulch to reduce weeds and watering later.

• Plant mums, balsam, cockscomb, wax begonias, salvia, dusty miller, blanket flower (Gaillardia ), geraniums, marigolds, verbena, and vinca (Catharanthus roseus).
• Plant bulbs or tubers of irises, cannas, water lilies, dahlias, and daylilies.
• Replenish mulches around plants to keep weeds down and conserve moisture.
• Plant a cover crop in vacant beds.
• Plant mustard and turnips for harvesting tender baby leaves.
• Work compost into beds, then plant fall crops of peppers and eggplant.
• Direct-seed collards and tomatoes for fall harvest.
• Continue planting cantaloupes, corn, cucumbers, okra, peanuts, southern peas, summer squash, sweet potatoes, and bush beans.
• Thin fruit trees early in the month; mulch root area with a thin layer of compost, topped with 3 inches of organic mulch.

• Look for slow-moving bugs in the cool of the morning; hand-pick them, then dust below the plants with Diatomaceous earth (a white powder made from the fossilized remains of diatoms, one-celled algae that have a skeleton made of silicon). Be sure to use a dust mask so you don't inhale the dust.
• Last chance to plant sweet potato slips and peanuts this season.
• Continue planting sweet corn in small blocks, every 2 weeks for continuous harvest through fall.
• Start more zinnias, marigolds, and sunflowers to replenish tired flowers in late summer.
• Water plants in the morning so they don't become susceptible to fungus and insect infestation.
• Plant more heat-tolerant veggies: Replace spinach with Swiss chard and potatoes with taro (Colocasia esculenta).

• Feed fast-growing bananas and summer-flowering perennials, such as hibiscus and ixora, with compost to prepare them for upcoming bloom.
• Clean up debris beneath mangoes to prevent anthracnose (fungal) disease; for bad infections, spray with copper solution.
• Prune cassia trees, royal poinciana, bougainvillea, and jasmine after they bloom.
• Prune tropical fruits after the harvest this month.
• Kill pests and disease in vacant beds by covering moist soil with clear plastic for several weeks.

For more from Maria Rodale, visit www.mariasfarmcountrykitchen.com