The rains of June have triggered all plants to grow and flourish. We now have flowers, early veggies, fresh berries, plus weeds and pesky bugs.  It’s the busiest of gardening times with early harvesting, more planting, and, of course, pest & weed control. This means mulching, fertilizing, regular weeding, scouting for pests (bugs & critters) and succession plantings can begin. In this article I’ll cover how to convert your weeds into liquid fertilizer, mulching, succession planting, and tips for the lawn and garden.

Weeds are natural plants that take advantage of our good soil and space.  They are not really “bad” plants but are unwanted volunteers in the wrong place.  Weeds compete with our plants for soil nutrients, water, and space so need to be controlled.  They will never be completely removed; we just do what we can.  Try to remove weeds as young and small as possible. Get them by the roots to avoid regrowth and add them (without seeds) to your compost or mulch. A newer idea is to turn weeds into rich liquid fertilizer for free.  The process is simple,  Fill a 5-gallon bucket with pulled and chopped weeds (roots, leaves, and flowers). I especially like using invasives like bishops weed, garlic mustard, and nettles. They are high in nutrients that shouldn’t go to waste!  After you’ve packed them down so the bucket is ¾ full, fill it with clean water up to 2 inches from the top.  Mix a little, cover it and wait 2-4 weeks for the natural microbes to break everything down into a nutrient rich broth that you return to your plants when watering. No mixing needed. Add a ¼ cup of molasses or a handful of mature compost in the beginning to make it even better. Dilute this rich, greenish liquid biofertilizer 10 to 1 with water to apply directly to the foliage and soil around your veggies, flowers, and shrubs.  I apply it to all new transplants and any plants that need an extra boost. The beneficial bacteria have extracted the nutrients from the weeds and given you a free solution of fertilizer and microbes that’s better than anything you can buy.  Here is a short video to help you get started. 

Mulching.  We never know if there will be enough rain but we do know there will be weeds.  The solution is mulching to cover the soil, protect it from the hot sun, conserve soil moisture, suppress weed growth, and provide habitat for beneficial pollinators, pest controlling spiders and toads for the garden. The mulch will also slowly decay and add vital organic matter to the soil so it’s all good!  If you delayed lawn mowing you should have plenty of collected grass clippings to use as mulch.  Straw, hay, and wood chips can also provide good mulch materials. Late mowed hay is OK but can have weeds seeds so may introduce more weeds.

Potatoes.  Once your potatoes are up about 6-8 inches tall it’s good to hill the soil up around them to cover the lower stems. This stimulates more potatoes to grow out from the stems!

Harvesting is the best part of gardening.  Garlic scapes were clipped off in late June to eat and promote larger bulbs. Now we can to enjoy the salad greens, lettuces, radishes, kale, early broccoli, herbs, and flowers. As plants are harvested (or lost to pests and age) new space becomes available for replanting. We call that “succession gardening”.

Succession planting is simply re-planting to replace something that is finished so we can make full use of our space over time.  We have a very short growing season, but you can still get multiple harvests of certain fast-growing plants if you time them right.  For example, if you plant leaf lettuce or mesclun seeds every week you should harvest fresh greens every week all summer and into the fall.  I’ve found that a short row (3-4 ft. long) of different salad greens every week produces a good supply for fresh salads into November.  If you lose a plant or two to pests, breakage, or harvest, it’s easy to put in a quick growing replacement like a few radishes, lettuce, beets, spinach, etc.

Late crops of carrots, turnips and beets can also follow (in the same place) the harvests of early salad greens.  After the garlic is harvested in late July there is time to plant fall broccoli and cauliflower plants started from seeds before 4^th of July in that emptied place.

Bush beans planted every 2 weeks provide a good extension of harvests too. Too much zucchini is a common problem, but if you plant one hill of 3-4 plants early and another hill in mid-July that will spread the harvest out so it can be enjoyed over time. The same works for herbs such as dill and cilantro that tend to mature early before we can use them in pickles and salsas. There’s some very good information and specific succession planting recommendations online at Johnny”s Seeds.

Pest Alerts.  The wet weather of June promoted outbreaks of slugs & snails and plant diseases.  Beer traps and the preventative applications of an iron phosphate product (Sluggo, etc.) will reduce surprise damage to flowers and vegetables by slugs.  Keep a close eye on potatoes for potato bugs that can be hand removed before they get too far along. Last year I had great success with insect netting over broccoli, cauliflower, & cabbages to prevent cabbage moth damage.  I’m doing that more this year!

Japanese Beetles emerge from beneath lawns where they over-wintered as white grubs. They first appear on roses, then raspberries, then almost everything! Hand picking into soapy water works well. Commercial traps actually attract more beetles into your yard and kill but a small number. If you see tiny white spots (eggs) on a beetle do Not kill it. It is infected with the parasitic Winsome Fly which will kill the beetle and soon emerge to infect more beetles.

Natural controls for many pests include lady beetles and wasps that we can encourage with small blossom flowers like yarrow, cosmos, & most herb flowers. Birds are constantly foraging for insects and are a major pest controller. Small numbers of beetles and snails can be finger squished, or sprayed with insecticidal soap or neem oil, if you prefer.

Lawn thoughts.  If your higher grass mowing is working, you might notice more white clover blossoms appearing. Good for bees, good for the soil (clover adds Nitrogen), and good for you!  Avoid mowing the clover blossoms once or twice and there will be free seeds to spread beneficial clover even more.  Clover seeds can be purchased too, and the benefits are significant.