With this year flying by and June already upon us, now is the time to catch up on your gardening jobs and ensure that you are up to date with everything that needs doing.
June is a lovely month when it comes to gardening. The temperature is rising, the days are getting longer and the mad rush of planting everything should be over.
Now is the time to tend to your plants, really look after them, water them if the weather is dry, ensure pests are kept at bay, and keep the weeds down. June is also the month where you start to harvest some of your lovely fresh vegetables, such as broad beans, salad, baby carrots and beetroot.
In June it is vital to make a good compost. Now the garden is full of growth and the lawn is being cut regularly, there will be plenty of material available for composting.
Make sure to fill your compost bin with an equal volume of nitrogen-rich material (grass clippings, manure, shrub prunings) and carbon-rich material (flower stalks, shredded paper, woody clippings).- Keep your compost bin moist. The contents should hold together, but not drip water, when you squeeze a handful.
- If you want compost fast, the secret of success is to turn the contents of your bin once a week.
- When you add grass clippings to the heap, add a shovelful of soil too. This sped up the composting process in our trial.
The warmer weather in June should see grass growing strongly.
- Cut the grass once or twice a week as many mowers struggle with longer grass.
- Apply a lawn feed at the frequency advised on the packaging.
- For a quick tidy up, just trim the lawn edges to get things looking crisp and neat.
The natural June drop will see many small fruitlets fall from your trees, but for the best-size fruits it’s worth checking to see if you need to thin more of them.
Thin apples to one fruit per cluster: for dessert apple varieties, thin to 10-15cm between clusters; and for cooking varieties, thin to 15-23cm between clusters.- Pears should be reduced to two fruits per cluster, with clusters 10-15cm apart.
- Plums should be thinned to 5-8cm apart.
- Peaches should be thinned to 20-25cm apart
- Nectarines should be thinned to 15cm apart.
Roses are traditionally at their peak in June.
- Removing the flowers as they fade will keep your display looking good and encourage more blooms.
- Snap off just below the head – this is thought to make new blooms appear more quickly than the classic method of cutting just above a leaf
You need to prune several soft fruits now to ensure you get bumper crops.
Gooseberries – For plants grown as bushes, cut back the current season’s growth to five leaves, except for branches needed to enlarge the plant. For plants grown as cordons, cut all side-shoots back to five leaves, and once your plant has reached the top of the support, cut back the tip to five leaves from last year’s growth.- Red and white currants – Once cordon plants are at the desired height, cut the growing tip and the shoots from the main stem to one bud of new growth.
There is always plenty to be getting on with in your garden, despite which month, and whatever the weather!
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