Critical June Garden Tasks Every Gardener Should Do NOW

what's growing on gardeners it's Tuesday June 4th and things are heating up quickly here on the Southeastern coast of North Carolina now that it is officially June we have to start transitioning our mindset away from Spring gardening and towards Summer gardening because now everything changes and on today's video I'm going to share with you five critical gardening tasks that every Gardener should do right now in June if you're new to the Channel Please Subscribe and hit the Bell to receive new video notifications and check out our Amazon store and red shop links in the video description for everything I use in my garden and awesome custom designed to power and other gear your support is greatly appreciated critical gardening task number one is something so simple yet so few gardeners do it and that is to establish a walkthrough routine around your garden so me personally I like to have a 3 to 5 minute walkthrough of my garden every morning and every evening this can be before you leave for work grab a cup of coffee and do a garden walk through and when you get home from work grab a cold drink and do another leisurely stroll around your garden doing this you can catch all sorts of problems that you would otherwise Miss what kind of things can you catch by doing a simple walk through well you can catch things like pest infestations nutrient deficiencies disease problems all of these problems are very easy to correct when they're just beginning but if things get away from you in a matter of only one two or 3 days minor infestations or outbreaks can explode and then it can be too late let me show you what I'm talking about you can learn a lot by simply walking through your garden because by walking through you will be looking at things and you will notice things by the basic power of observation one thing that I noticed this morning on my garden walk through is that I had a couple of leaves that were nipped on this tomato plant this means some type of worm or caterpillar outbreak so I looked on the plant and I found a caterpillar and I was able to smush it now had I not done that Garden walk through that caterpillar in a matter of 24 hours could have decimated this entire plant but because I simply took a minute to walk through my garden I noticed that some of the leaves had been Stripped Away and I was able to rescue that tomato plant and even though it's only been a matter of a few hours I'm already starting to see a sucker push growth so the plant is already recovering these are the kinds of issues that you can catch with simple garden walkthroughs other things that you can catch are diseases starting to grab hold so this plant right here looks pristine but down at the bottom I'm starting to see some symptoms of early blight so right here I can simply remove cut off that stem and then remove it and throw it away had I not found that the disease will be more likely to spread up the plant another issue I noticed this morning was this tomato plant out of nowhere started wilting this is obviously some type of Wilt virus which spreads from plant to plant so unfortunately this beautiful plant is toast but I need to rip it out as as soon as possible before it spreads to the other plants right here this is one of those unfortunate soil-born problems so while it will hurt to lose that tomato plant it's a heck of a lot better than losing every single plant in this bed garden problems go from 0 to 100 really quickly so if you can do this walk through one to two times a day simply by the power of observation you will notice so many little tiny problems that you can correct them when they're small before they blow up and compromise your entire Garden critical gardening t task number two is establishing a defined fertilizing routine now many of us fertilized our plants when we transplanted them or sewed the seeds earlier in the year but for whatever reason life gets in the way or maybe we just get forgetful or lazy and we stop we drop off and we fertilize them less throughout the season as it just starts to escape our mind and this is a problem because as plants grow they require more and more nutrition the heat is going to build which is going to place more stress on the plants you're going to have the plants flowering and setting fruit and trying to take those fruits to maturity so it is critical that we establish a good strong fertilizing routine to keep the plants well fed otherwise they will start to go into Decline and perform poorly now I usually recommend scaling your fertilizer routine to the medium that you're growing in now what do I mean by that well I'm growing a lot of my tomatoes cucumbers and squash in 20 gallon grow bags so because the plants are confined to the nutrients that are stored in this bag and they can't reach the roots out and dig through the Earth for additional nutrients you have to fertilize these more often they are also very prone to wash out from rain or over irrigation so if you water them too much or you get heavy rain you wash out a lot of those nutrients so for that reason I generally recommend that you fertilize any container gardens every 7 to 10 days and if you live in a rainy climate go closer to 7 days because they will wash out more more often if you're in a drier climate where they don't get washed out as much you may be able to go as far as 10 days but it's very good to be more aggressive in your fertilizer routine when you're growing in a confined spaced container now if you're growing in inground garden beds or an earth Gardens you can usually stretch that fertilizing routine to about every 10 to 14 days because inground garden soil typically holds on to nutrients a little bit better and is more resistant to wash out but depending on how much rain you get and if you accidentally over irrigate you may need to change that schedule accordingly my typical Garden routine is as follows I like to top dress all of my plants with 1 to 1 and 1/2 tablespoons of an organic allpurpose fertilizer something around a 555 NPK like this and then follow up with a 1/2 to 1 tbspoon dusting of bone meal between the organic all-purpose fertilizer and the bone meal you should have enough nutrients and things like calcium and phosphorus to help support healthy strong roots and a strong Bloom cycle a top dressing means that you just sprinkle it in a ring around the plants around the roots then take your fingertips and try to work it into the top inch or so of soil then after the dry granulated Organics have been placed you want to get them wet to help facilitate the breakdown and I like to wet them with a water soluble fertilizer I like to take Alaska Fish Emulsion and place about 2 to 3 tablespoons per gallon into a watering can and then mix with that a little bit of Jack 20 2020 or another water soluble fertilizer like that and then I wet down the Organics these water soluble fertilizers are immediately bioavailable to the plants so they will start working immediately the Organics take a few weeks to break down so they won't be immediately bioavailable if you've neglected your fertilizer routine you definitely want to follow up with some type of water soluble fertilizer whatever you choose is fine as long as they are relatively balanced if you're curious about any of these fertilizer products for your convenience I will Place links to them all down in the video description and I will also drop a playlist that I've made over the years that has all of my different fertilizer videos archived in it for your convenience as well critical gardening task number three is something that has revolutionized my garden and has saved me so much time and money over the long run and that is to set up drip irrigation now I know that a lot of gardeners are resistant to set up drip irrigation because there is an initial investment in money and time but if you're willing to put out that investment UPF front then you will benefit from it for years because what happens is when we transplant our vegetables into our garden the weather is Pleasant in the spring and the plants aren't that large so they don't have a lot of demand for irrigation but then the weather starts getting hot the plants start getting bigger it gets dry you get hit by drought and then the watering demands increase exponentially so if we don't set up drip irrigation we have to drag out the hose and pain mistakingly water our plants in 80 85 90 plus degree heat and sit there and sweat and we just don't look forward to it it is absolutely brutal that is why you want to automate the task because what happens is people just hate watering in the extreme heat and they don't do it and the plants suffer as a result so if you're willing to put in the leg work right now and put down that drip irrigation and automate it while the weather is still pretty good you won't have to drag yourself out in the heat of the summer and painstakingly water the plants you'll be able to just turn on your spigot and everything will happen for you and that's what I've chosen to do instead of painstakingly watering all of my individual plants and overhead watering and splashing around the soil and spreading disease everywhere because that is how most soil born diseases are spread it's from watering that then splashes soil on the undersides of the leaves I've chosen to set up drip irrigation and these drippers have been watering the entire time I've been filming so I haven't had to spend any effort at all watering my garden so for a modest investment of time and money up front you will save a dramatic amount of time and money in the long run and you will spread a lot less disease around because drip irrigation doesn't Splash very much at all so it's really safe to water your plants and much more efficient now if you've wanted to set up drip irrigation in your garden but you don't know how I have spent a lot of time crafting a complete DIY drip irrigation playlist and I will link to that down in the video description it will show you how to install virtually any type of drip irrigation clear and easy to understand and if you want to know where I think is the best place to buy drip irrigation supplies that would be drip Depot all of my stuff is from them their quality is absolutely incredible the prices are great I will place a link down in the video description to my drip Depot affiliate store you will be able to find everything that you need there task number four that every Gardener should do in June is to mulch around all of their plants and this is a very important step mulch is of critical importance because not only does it add organic matter back to your soil as it decomposes which is good for the long-term health of your soil but it helps maintain moisture so you have to irrigate a lot less and it helps suppress weeds and of course two of the biggest problems that we deal with in summer when it gets very hot is moisture control and weed seed germination this is one of the best visual ual that I could give you on the advantages of mulch now I planted all of these trees as bare root back in the spring before weed seed started to germinate and all of this area looks great now over here I have some of my older citrus trees that have been planted for years and everything looks great and is relatively weed-free until o what happened here this is one area of ground that I did not Mulch and just look at the crazy amounts of weeds that are germinating around this unfortunately Dead red lime tree you'll see where I did mulch it is virtually Weed Free where I did mulch over here it is virtually weed free but yet we have tons and tons of weed seed germination in this one area that I chose not to mulch because I thought this tree was not going to make it and I would be digging it up come summer and it looks like I was right and as a result the area is overwhelmed with weeds as important as the weed suppressing abilities of mulch is even more important during the summer is the ability for mulch to block evaporation and preserve moisture in the soil so here we have my old dead snap peas which I had already harvested and I'm letting the roots break down to refeed the soil if I dig down in this unmulched soil it is dry as a bone down here I'm at least 3 or 4 in deep right now and there is no moisture at all in this soil to be found because we haven't gotten any rain in a week it's just like dust look at it it's like powder you can see it blowing all we are is Dust in the Wind but if you go back over to my fruit tree area where I planted these trees back in the beginning of Spring I haven't really watered these in probably about a month and a half or so and if I just uncover The Mulch you will see it's pretty shocking how moist this ground is under here in fact wow look at there's earthworms moving around in here underneath the mulch cover it's actually probably a little bit damper than I want it to be honestly but it really shows you a great visual hey there Mr earthworm or Mrs earthworm you'll see down here where I did provide the mulch even though we haven't had rain in a month or so it's still plenty moist now when it comes to selecting a mulch basically any kind of natural mulch is going to be just fine don't use a dyed mulch don't use Stone mulch don't use rubber mulch just use a natural true mulch like shredded hardwood bark pine bark nuggets wheat straw what have you you can even go into the woods and you can get pine needles you can rake up leaves and chop them up you can use grass clippings if they haven't been treated with any kind of herbicides and pesticides and they're free of weed seed tops you can use your own free mulch if you wish you can even go to the county and get your own free mulch the only thing I really want to caution you against with mulch use is if you live in a place with cool late Springs or early Summers you may not want to apply mulch right away because if it is still cool damp and wet where you live when you actually mulch the area it will keep the soil more moist for a longer period of time and keep the soil cool so if it's still very cool where you're at you may not want to apply mulch yet don't apply the mulch until it actually gets warm and the soil becomes at risk for drying out but once that happens that is when you want to apply the and the fifth and final task the gardeners should be doing in June is protecting their plants from high heat and high UV by installing shade cloth above their plants now at first this may sound like something that only people in very warm climates with very long persistent hot summers should do like folks that live in the desert and in the South but that is where you would likely be wrong what I have learned over the years is that the overwhelming majority of things that we grow in our garden things like tomatoes peppers eggplants cucumbers squash melons Etc they are not pioneer species they don't grow out in the open in fields they come from tropical and subtropical areas where they grow underneath Forest canopies they are a forest floor species and understory species so because of that where they adapted to grow they do not get full sun yet here in the United States and other temperate regions because we get Frost and freeze it's recom recommended that we plant our plants out in full sun because in order to condense their entire lifespan into a 4 to six month period so they can fruit for us before the frost and freeze comes we have to put them out in full sun to force them to grow at a much faster rate and that is where we run into problems now in their native subtropical and tropical habitats they have as much time as they want to collect solar energy through dappled light through the forest canopy and form the flowers and fruits and mature fruits and reproduce so there's no big rush to them completing their life cycle and their native habitat there is a big rush for them to complete their life cycle where we live in temperate regions so because of that we put them out in full sun that they never adapted to grow a good way that you can think about is it too hot and sunny for these plants is if you're naked on the beach where you live could you sit out in full sun for 10 hours without getting burnt or would you be cooked alive and could that actually kill you if the answer is yeah that could do a lot of damage chances are the full sun is too strong for your plants too the Sun out in the open is absolutely cooking right now but if I go underneath this shade cloth it is like a whole new world you could kick back grab yourself a drink put down a lounge chair and it is nice and comfortable these plants are not dealing with nearly the amount of solar stress that they would be had the shade cloth not be up there now where I live here on the Southeastern coast of North Carolina I am at Latitude 34 so I have found that the best time for me to put up my shade cloth is right about at June 1st that is when the sun becomes way too strong for my plants uh if you're north of me I used to live in New Jersey and Pennsylvania up at 40° latitude and if I still live there I would probably put up shade cloth in July and for most of August if your latitude is south of me shade cloth is absolutely mandatory I talked to so many gardeners every day and it blows my mind how many people that live in Florida Texas Southern California the desert you don't use shadecloth there's no way your garden can survive throughout the summer without using shade cloth I use 40% but if you're in Southern Florida if you're in South Texas if you're in the desert if you're in Las Vegas Phoenix Southern California what have you you may even want to experiment with 50 to 60% you may think that your summers are just too hot to grow and that the sun always kills your plants I'm telling you shade cloth will blow your mind it's a totally different world under here it's a totally different climate if you put this up above your plants you will not be disappointed the rule of thumb for me has been when you see that UV index sit at 8 or nine you can check your local weather station to find out when the UV index is that number when it gets to that point that is when you want to add some type of shade protection and this is an important concept to understand because even if you live at a high latitude where it doesn't get persistently hot and the heat only comes in waves that UV index is still really high and it is that UV index that is scorching your plants beating them up and then the stress of that high UV index just like you'd be under stress if you got a bad sunburn is what breaks down your plants and makes them more susceptible to pests and diseases so if you see UV indexes of eight and N or higher that is when you want to break out the shade cloth and of course you also want the shade cloth for higher temperatures when temperatures start getting in the upper 80s and Eclipse eclipsing 90 you definitely want to break out the shade cloth to cover them rather than drone on forever about shade cloth I will simply link to a video down in the video description which is a comprehensive guide on shade cloth I will also be releasing another video within the next week that will show you how to install shade cloth and I will make sure to drop links down in the video description for this exact shade cloth that I'm using it comes in a huge piece so you can cover a big structure like this but you can also get it in very small very affordable pieces as well to cover individual plants it comes in a variety of sizes so everything you need will be there and that right there are five critical tasks that nearly every Gardener should be completing in June so everybody I sure hope you found this video helpful if you did please make sure to hit that like button subscribe to the channel and please ring that notification Bell so you're notified when I release more videos like these if you're curious about any of the products that I featured in this video I will place direct links to them down in the video description and for all of the products that I use in real life in my garden they will be linked in my Amazon storefront link so expand the video description click on the Amazon link and you'll see everything I use in real life and while you're down there check out my spread shop for custom merch if you want to support the channel thank you all so much for watching and I hope to see all of you again on the next video oh boy look DA's got a new toy come on buddy let's go oh oh he loves it he's loving it oh it's got a squeaker get it get it oh he's ripping it already it only last seconds with the [Music] Beast he's going crazy look at that Tail Wag ow you got my got my knuckle buddy ow this needs this needs to sit hey that's Che eting you can't use hands only humans are allowed to use hands ah he's cheating again he's cheating again oh he got it he got it he got it oh I'm never getting it back oh you nip my knuckle you knuckle Nipper

Channel: The Millennial Gardener

Views: 73,327

Keywords: june garden tasks, june garden, june gardening, june gardening tasks, how to garden, how to garden in summer, summer gardening, summer gardening tasks, summer garden, spring gardening, june, garden tasks, gardening tasks, garden, gardening, vegetable garden, fruit trees, fruit tree, organic gardening, gardening tips, garden tips, gardening tips and tricks, gardening hacks, garden hacks, growing, plants, vegetables, how to, diy, millennial gardener, the millennial gardener

Id: 4rwXrrESs9A

Length: 20min 52sec (1252 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 07 2024