June Garden Ramblings.

The past two weeks have been a flurry of activity around here. Hubs and I have been working on something or another in the yard every single day since the greenhouse closed for the summer.

We had seeds to sow, tomatoes to plant, peppers to pot up, weeds to pull, nursery benches and tables to put away, lawns to mow, yard work of all sorts to do. It feels like we are super late planting everything this year.. yet I know that I am not. Late May and early June is my regular planting time as the greenhouse keeps me busy till after the May long weekend..

As getting the food garden in was top priority, we started by planting tomatoes, starter plants, and sowing seeds like mad … before moving on to the rest of the yard work.

I thought this month I would also mention which flowers I like to plant with each of the veggies for pest control. As an organic gardener I promote companion planting and adding annuals to your vegetable garden. The flowers attract bees and other pollinators, but they also attract beneficial insects such as hoverflies parasitic wasps, and ladybugs that will take care of all the bad bugs for you. No need to ever spray in your yard or your food garden! Please remember that DIY sprays and organic sprays kill the good guys along with the bad, including the bees.

Tomatoes… Tomatoes are my passion. Is that weird? I absolutely love to grow tomatoes! All colours, shapes and sizes, but my favourites are the great big juicy beefsteaks and paste tomatoes for canning and saucing. My ‘boys’ like the paste tomatoes (roma style) best for their sandwiches as they are less pulpy and so do not make the bread soggy.

We grow over 100 tomatoes out in the raised garden beds. Most of them are all heirlooms, but a few are open-pollinated tomatoes from the Dwarf Tomato Project and from Brad at Wild Boar Farm. I think some of these tomatoes will become the heirlooms of tomorrow, they really are that good!

In the main potager, we have 8 raised beds that are 40’ long and 4’ wide. We can fit in 40 tomatoes per bed with 20 down each side, all spaced 2 feet apart for good air flow. Allowing 18 to 24 inches between your tomatoes is key for preventing disease and fungal issues.

We do a lot of saucing and canning so one of these beds is just for the paste tomatoes and should give us 300 to 400 lbs of tomatoes to make into spaghetti sauce, diced canned tomatoes, ketchup, and passata (a simple tomato puree).. and to share with friends.

Companions… Tomatoes are interplanted with basil, parsley, and marigolds. Basil is said to make tomatoes grow better and taste better, while the parsley and marigolds are in there for organic pest control. The marigolds look pretty sad right now as I always keep the ragtag plants for myself after the greenhouse closes, the stuff no one want to pay good money for ; ) They will be fine once the heat arrives though.

If you follow the organic gardener’s mantra, you feed your garden beds annually with a good layer of compost or manure, some kind of good organic matter. If you do this, there is no need to additionally feed your plants as the soil will have all the nutrients that they need. We always feed our soil with 1/2 to 3 inches of organic matter in the fall but decided to do a garden trial this year as I love to try new things. You never know what you might learn along the way.

So, we scratched a bit of 4-4-4 Gaia Green into the bottom of the holes on one side of the paste tomato bed and some Acti-Sol tomato food in the bottom of the 20 plants on the other side. Will see which one does better and whether they perform better than the tomatoes in the other two beds that did not get any additional amendments. Stay tuned for the results in July or August : )

Beans ... Often accidentally lumped in with peas, they actually have very differing needs. Beans love warm soil and heat, while peas love cool temps and the rainy season! Plant your beans now. You can even plant them at the base of your peas so that they are well on their way when you eventually pull out your tired looking peas.

I love pole beans grown up spiral trellises or lattice fences, as they use less garden space, but they do have a longer growing season (about 80 to 90 days). Plant both bush and pole beans for a continuous crop.

Wondering what to plant in the garlic bed once you harvest it? Bush beans have a short growing season, just 50 days! Loads of time to crop up before you start prepping the beds to plant your fall garlic again.

Companions… Beans do not tend to get a lot of pest issues, nor do peas, but you can plant nasturtiums and calendula in their bed. Peas and beans will fix nitrogen in the soil, so they themselves are great companions for most any plants but especially lettuces and greens.

Peppers… The peppers are all potted up into 3 gallon squat pots with my magic mix of 5 parts good quality potting soil and 2 parts chicken manure. They stay in the greenhouse all summer and are watered every 5 to 7 days.

You see a bit of Epsom salts on top of this pot. while I would never toss the salts in my garden beds, I find that potted peppers and tomatoes like a tablespoon or so on top of the soil once a month to stay green and produce well.

I find that peppers do best in pots rather than in the garden and like a sheltered spot away from the wind that gets nice and sunny. On a deck, in a corner of the garden nestled in by a fence or the shed to soak up the heat, or in the greenhouse, which is where I grow mine.

Companions…  They are prone to aphids and maybe a bit of whitefly, too, so if you can grow some potted herbs alongside then, or place the plants near the herb garden. You can also blast the plants with a strong jet of water whenever you are watering them.

Cucumbers… There is nothing better than cucumbers fresh from the garden! We grow a variety of types as we love them all, everything from the round yellow lemon cukes to baby Persians, and field cukes to the thin skinned long English types.

I direct seed cucumbers and squash right into the garden beds as they do not love to have their roots disturbed. If you plant starter plants, make sure to buy nice small ones that will root in fast without any transplant shock. I find that the seeds come up super fast when sown into nice, warm soil in late May or early June.

Grow them up a trellis or a tomato cage (sow 3 or 4 seeds inside a tomato cage) to keep the fruit up and off of the ground.

Companions… Marigolds, sunflowers, and nasturtiums are great companion flowers.

Squash… Make sure they have lots of room to sprawl. Summer squash like zucchini or pattypans will get quite large, take up about 3 square feet of garden space. Winter squash like pumpkins and gourds will trail a long ways so make sure that you have room for them to roam.

Companions… All flowering plants work with squash to aid in pollination but I like to grow them with sunflowers, calendula, and sweet alyssum.

Cabbage and Brassicas … These guys tend to be the biggest bug magnets in the garden… often full of holes and frass (caterpillar poop) from cabbage loopers or then covered in aphids.

Companions… I plant a lot of companions with my brassicas to prevent these bug issues. Sweet alyssum is my number one pick as it attracts both hoverflies and parasitic wasps. They are both fabulous additions to the garden for many reasons, but their larvae is what you really want as they eat loads of aphids and the eggs of the whitefly, the cabbage caterpillar, and even scale insects!

In addition to the sweet alyssum, you can also plant nasturtiums, calendula, thyme, lovage, savory, dill, cilantro, parsley, yarrow, candytuft, verbena… Diversity is a wonderful thing, planting different herbs and flowers will attract a variety of birds and beneficial insects into your garden to help control the pests.

Covering them with bug mesh or a floating row cover after planting is a good way to prevent the moths from laying their eggs on your brassicas, and keeps the whiteflies and aphids off of them, too.

Veggies, herbs, etc...
Most of you probably have the gardens in by now, for the most part. If not, we still have time to put in pretty much any crops at all from either seed or starter plant. Do not buy over-grown and root bound veggie starts as they often tend not to fare well, you are much better off going from seed instead.

Herbs, on the other hand, will root out just fine usually, no matter how root bound. Pull off the bottom bit of roots and loosen up the root ball, plant and water in well.

Heat loving crops, like squash and corn, love warm soil and will germinate quickly from seed. Do not be afraid to start crops from seed, as many actually tend to grow much better and faster than starter plants do.

Remove any bolting vegetables and replace with heat loving veggies. Things like radishes, lettuces, spinach, cilantro do not like the heat and will soon start to go to seed.

However, these cloudy grey skies and off and on showers will buy us some more time with our spring crops. To have a new batch of greens coming, sow a bit more seeds every couple of weeks.

I just pulled my spinach as it had begun to bolt, so tossed in a bit more leaf lettuce seeds today. Hoping for one more batch of fresh baby greens by the end of the month.

What to plant from SEED now... so many more than you probably thought ; )

- Beans
- Beets
- Broccoli
- Cabbage
- Carrots
- Corn
- Cucumbers
- Lettuce, greens, spinach
- Parsnips
- Scallions
- Squash of all kinds... butternut, delicata, gourds, pattypans, pumpkins, spaghetti, zucchini...

You can still plant some flowers and herbs from seed, too...
- Cilantro
- Chives
- Dill
- Cosmos
- Nasturtiums
- Sunflowers
- Zinnias

Garlic is starting to put on scapes right about now, those curly tops. Remove the scapes for larger bulbs, use for making pestos, in stir fries, roasted with potatoes on the bbq, or anywhere that you would use garlic.

Garlic will be ready to harvest about 4 weeks after scapes are picked. Make sure to stop watering soon as you do not want your garlic bulbs to be full of moisture when you lift them. Wet bulbs will not cure well, are prone to get rot or mould issues. Stop watering 2 to 3 weeks before harvest.

Please plant lots of flowers in your food garden for natural pest control and to attract pollinators. Flowers are very beneficial plants in your food garden. They deter bad bugs, attract good bugs that destroy the bad guys,  attract bees and pollinators, and work as lure plants. Their pollen, nectar and seeds bring in hummingbirds, butterflies, and birds to help with pest control and pollination. They help your plants thrive and may even make your vegetables taste better ..

Plus, they add beauty, colour and fragrance to your garden, while being inexpensive and so much easier to use than all kinds of sprays and tonics.

Any and all flowers are great but some are a bit more attractive to the beneficials than others. Sweet alyssum, marigolds, calendula, nasturtiums, and zinnias are my top five recommendations, but I also grow nicotiana, petunias, sunflowers, geraniums, and sweet peas. Toss in some herbs and you have a perfect food garden.

Happy Gardening