Patiently Waiting for the Summer Bounty
It is June! The days are warming up and hopefully the spring winds are coming to a close! June seems to be a quiet month in the garden if you already planted your veggies. You might be patiently waiting for the very first ripe tomato and getting the bountiful harvest. There is so much to look forward to. Watching the tomatoes thinking about making all the delicious caprese salads or my favorite feta tomato pasta that my mom used to make when I was a kid! Be sure to follow along as I will be sharing some of those recipes come end of July when my tomatoes start appearing!
End of June means our apricot tree starts putting on a fantastic show of the sweetest most delicious apricots. Our beloved tree had to get a heavy pruning last fall so our crop will be smaller this year. Normally I get pounds and pounds of apricots that my family cherish and feast on right under the tree. The rest are canned or made into jam, I even freeze homemade hand pies. I can’t let one tiny gem go to waste!
For fruit trees be sure to thin the fruit by picking some early. Especially if you have smaller branches that are overloaded so you don’t lose them from the weight of your bounty!
Let’s chat about common pests that you might encounter this time of year with your summer veggies or perennial pollinators.
Snails: The biggest culprit eating my basil is snails! There are a few common methods that people have had success with. Putting out a pie plate of beer for them - I know, I am serious they drink it and can’t get out. Feels a bit cruel to me… of course going out in the middle of the night and plucking them off of your plants is an option. I used to have a friend that did this. No thanks. I like my sleep. :) My favorite method is adding some sheared sheep’s wool around the base of the plants getting eaten by the snails. Snails don’t like to crawl across the wool because it feels like barbs on their skin so they stay away. Another benefit of the wool is it adds another layer of mulch protection from the summer heat and helps retain all the moisture in the soil. I have made friends with some sheep shearers so I have good access to wool. Let me know if you want some to try in your garden! Did you know that most is thrown away as it can’t be used for yarn? Let’s reuse what nature gives us!
Birds: Birds can often help themselves to ripening fruit, berries or grapes. My favorite method to use is bird netting to keep them off the tress. I also like the foil reflective tape. I do want the birds to feel safe in my garden to build their nests, come for a drink of water so I am not a huge deterrent of birds.
Deer: We have lived in our house for 14 years and only last year did the deer really become a problem in my garden. I didn’t get much veggies because they ate all my tomatoes…it seemed to happen so quick that I couldn’t intervene. This year, as ugly as it is, I have my front yard garden pretty well protected, wrapped in bird netting and other obstacles to deter them. I know there are many methods like the liquid fence, but I don’t want to use something like that in my garden so I am using a physical barrier. They don’t like to go into spaces they aren’t sure they can get out of and I am keeping a close eye!
Cabbage worms: Have you ever cooked up a some broccoli from your garden and realized you were also cooking a bunch of worms too? I didn’t grow broccoli for several years after this incident. Yuck! The best way to keep cabbage worms (white fly moth larvae) out of your veggies is to cover them in the white mesh netting and make sure you have it securely in place like staked to the ground so nothing can get in. For cabbage worms on butterfly bush - you want to clip any curled eaten leaves, you will see the leaves look different than the healthy leaves. Clip all diseased leaves and dispose in your green bin (not in home compost bin) and then spray heavily with neem oil.
White powder mildew: White powder mildew is pretty common on summer squash, pumpkins and winter squash. There are a baking soda solution which is 1 tsp baking soda in 1 quart of water. I personally have tried this method as I haven’t found the white powder mildew so overpowering that my plants drastically suffer. You can also spray the leaves with neem oil as well and limit watering over plants - drenching the all the leaves in water. It is better to water at the base of the plant.
Lastly, let’s chat about why it is important to cover bare soil with plants. When we see nature trying to grow weeds to fill in bare patches in our garden, nature knows that the summer heat is coming and the soil needs to keep cool to hold in the spring rains and keep the microbes alive over summer!
Thank you to all those that came out to the Saving Water Partnership tour in Sonoma and Marin counties! It was a huge success! At my client’s garden we had about 250 people come by.
It was really inspirational to meet so many liked minded wonderful humans. There were quite a few who wanted to schedule consultations - be sure to check your emails! I am excited to see you all again!
Thank you to all those that came out to the Saving Water Partnership tour in Sonoma and Marin counties! It was a huge success! At my client’s garden we had about 250 people come by.
It was really inspirational to meet so many liked minded wonderful humans. There were quite a few who wanted to schedule consultations - be sure to check your emails! I am excited to see you all again!
Common Ground Film - Must see follow up film from the same makers of Kiss the Ground. Common ground is about how our farming system has changed since the turn of the century to make food less healthy to consume and degrades the soil! This is a must see for EVERYONE!!
