June Lawn & Garden Checklist

June is typically the first full month where every grow zone in the United States can garden the whole way through. Help your plants thrive this month with this checklist.

Lawn

• Train your lawn to grow deep roots by mowing high and watering deeply but infrequently.
• Fertilize your lawn with an organic lawn fertilizer such as the kind offered here at Natural Alternative.
• Continue to mow your lawn only when needed and using a sharp blade.

Indoor

• Start to set indoor houseplants outside so they can absorb direct sun for a few hours and take in fresh air.

Tree & Shrub

• After big storms hit, take care to prune any fallen branches correctly so the plant can recover faster.

Vegetable & Fruit

• Harden off and plant warm season veggies.
• Continue to pinch growth on veggies for a more bountiful harvest.
• Know the last frost date for your plant hardiness zone.
• Stake any tall or floppy vegetables, such as tomatoes.
• Sow fall vegetable seeds such as Halloween pumpkins.
• You may start to see slug damage this month. Be prepared to control them if necessary. One trick to trap slugs is to place a small amount of beer in a saucer; slugs are attracted to the beer.
• Harvest and dry herbs now for winter, or freeze herbs in an ice cube tray to use later.
• Remove cool-season veggies when they start to bolt. Bolting is when a plant switches from producing leaves to producing seed heads and flowers. This term is commonly used for leafy vegetables because the leaf of the plant is the part we eat and once the plant “bolts” its leaves are no longer desirable anymore because they become tough and bitter.
• Thin fruit trees every 6 to 8 inches apart.

Flower & Bulb

• Continue to pinch back flowers as their blooms wilt in order to encourage a bushier plant with continual flowers.

Maintenance & Other

• Continue properly watering. If hand watering becomes too much, consider installing drip irrigation.
• Clean bird feeders and bird baths.
• Save on water bills by creating a rain barrel or investing in a similar way to collect rainwater.
• Keep up with weeding; you don’t want this activity to get ahead of you.