June Gardening Check List

June is one of the busiest months of the year for the gardener. The plants grow, flowers continue to bloom, the days warm, weed magnify, and much needs tending to! Spring comes to an end and summer is upon us! Let’s take a look at whats on my June Gardening Check List!

I am sharing monthly garden to-do lists here on the blog for two reasons: for my future self to refer back to and for fellow gardeners to see the types of things I’m doing each month to stay on top of the garden. Go back and check out my Gardening To-Do List | May and Gardening To-Do List | April to see what I was up to in the previous months.

Here’s what I’m planning to do for the garden the month of June:

Weeding
Removing suckers from the tomato plants
Tying up tomato plants
Plant pumpkins

I’d like to share the tasks on my garden to-do list for June. This is a very busy month of the year for most gardeners! Curious what other gardeners do during June to maintain the garden at this point in the gardening season? Continue reading and I’ll share my list with you. I also plan to share a list like this one for each month of the year, so come back for more all year round!

Weeding:

One of the most pressing tasks for the June garden is staying on top of the weeds. Though this particular spring has been very dry for our area, a typical June is filled with weeds created from the April showers and the warm sunshine of May.

For the past two years, we’ve used a weed tarp on a portion of our garden. This year is covers the tomato, pepper, lettuce, cucumber, and bean sections. This weed barrier has drastically reduced the number of hours I spend weeding! Even still, some weeding must take place in the areas not covered in tarp (the popcorn, watermelons, sunflowers, zucchini, and pumpkins).

I’ll be spending a little bit of time each day weeding certain sections of the garden at a time. See my Managing the Garden with a Schedule post to discover how I stay on top of the garden by doing a little bit of work each day rather than frantically weeding the entire space in one day.

Removing Suckers From the Tomato Plants:

We caged our tomato plants into their heavy duty cages last month and soon after we saw the first fruit developing! I hope to do everything that I can to gather in a bountiful harvest in a few months time.

Pruning the suckers from my tomato plants is one way that I assist in the process.

Pruning tomato plants is a bit of a controversy. Some folks stand by it religiously while others don’t find it necessary. The important thing to know is that not pruning your tomato plants won’t cause problems, but pruning them back can improve the quality of fruit you harvest.

Read more about How and Why to Prune Tomato Plants in this blog post to find more information on the topic. I also have an entire blog post dedicated to explaining what tomato suckers are. You can read that one here: All About Tomato Suckers.

Tying Up Tomato Plants (The Most Time-Consuming Part of the June Gardening Check List):

Some of our tomato plants are surrounded by a cage while others are supported by a wall of wire. Each method will require tying up growing branches. I’ll be doing a lot of that this June!

Tomato plants want to grow along the ground. They’re created to grow additional roots along the main stem that allow them to creep along the ground. There are a few issues with this natural way of growing: insects and disease.

Caging and tying up rouge branches will give the tomato plants the best shot at thriving and producing healthy fruit.

Read more about How to Cage Tomato Plants here!

This looks like manipulating long branches back inside the cages when they try to escape (and encouraging them to grow upward) and tying branches to the wall of wire as they grow large enough (I use jute or twine).

Plant Pumpkins:

One of my favorite vegetable to plant and grow are pumpkins. There’s something about watching something so large come from your own garden! I’ll be planting my pumpkin varieties at the end of this month.

Learn everything you need to know about planting, tending, and harvesting pumpkins right here: How to Grow Pumpkins. We’ll discuss when to plant the seeds, how to water them, weeding tips and tricks, and more! You’ll be sure to gather in an abundant crop of pumpkins come autumn if you follow this process.

June Gardening Check List