June Garden

June is typically a month of rapid growth. In May everything is small, starting from seed and seedling, becoming established in those 3-4 weeks. June is when everything starts to really flourish, grow large and start blooming for July and August harvests. May and half of June had really strange weather, it barely rained at all and this month we had repeated wildfire smoke blocking the sun (and putting us in a dangerous fog once too that was really scary).  The dahlias began blooming, thanks to pre-starting, which always makes me happy. 

Tomatoes

The tomato plants are growing, there are blooms and tiny tomatoes. There's a little more early blight than I would like and they feel a little smaller than normal, so I put some fertilizer spikes for tomatoes near each plant. The marigolds are growing nicely (these were seedlings from seed) and the borage (transplants from the pathways and possible from seed) is also doing great - it's large, flowering and attracting pollinators. 

Vines and Things

The cucumbers are growing up the trellis. The nasturtiums are growing nicely. The rainbow chard is already looking great and the carrot sprouts are slowly coming along. The melon vine started small and I was concerned it wasn't going to make it, but it seems to have rallied and taken off. The pink medium height snapdragons have really filled in and are budding. The malabar spinach vine has sprouted - it's a really slow starter but should grow a lot later. The peas on the archway (that are actually in the flower cutting garden bed) are ready for harvesting - we are enjoying the short season while we can. 

Flower Cutting Bed

The snapdragons have really popped and started spreading out. I have a few blooms coming in with a lot more going to pop soon. There's definitely pink, a bright magenta/purple, lavender, white, yellow and orange in there.  The Apricotta cosmo is producing early blooms but the plant is super small. The pink lemonade cosmo is the opposite (see pic 3 above) - it's a huge plant with no blooms yet. 

The zinnias are struggling a bit - the sprouts are withering and turning brown instead of taking off like they usually do - zinnias are usually the easiest thing to grow! Some of them are fine, but others are really sad looking. 

Dahlia Bed

The dahlias just started blooming at the end of this month! Every single one of them, which is fantastic since late June is early for dahlias (thanks to pre-starting them in the greenhouse). The earliest blooms were cornel bronze, american dawn and felida Solar flare, but soon the rest came in. And the biggest surprise of all... Fairway spur was not fairway spur. It's a white and purple dahlia gifted to me last year by my neighbor before the spider mite invasion. I thought this one had died, so I must have mixed them up (the plant was alive but not blooming). Bummer about Fairway spur, but I'll get another one when I'm ready - in the meantime this one is lovely with the purple snapdragons! 

Here are all the dahlias:

Herbs and Strawberries

The strawberries never stood a chance because the chipmunks are getting in somewhere. I need so set up a camera or something to see where they are getting in - I can't find any holes! My best guess is that they are climbing or jumping the fencing. These monsters are excellent climbers. The two strawberries we got in May were the last of the berries. They ate everything else green. 

The herbs are all thriving. The oregano is already trying to overtake the garden. There are two borages here that self-seeded and growing large, I'm leaving them for now since the bees love them. The sage, calendula, chamomile, dill, thyme and purple sunflower are all growing nicely. The overwintered lavender is going to bloom soon and the rosemary that overwintered in the greenhouse looks great. 

Pots

My neighbor gave us a patio tomato and I put it in a big pot. The cayenne pepper already has peppers growing and the jalepeno pepper is blooming. The seeds for the morning glory sprouted and are growing up the trellis (maybe this will be a better year?) and the mini snapdragons I grew from seed are still alive. The medium snapdragons in a pot I overwintered are blooming already (probably because they overwintered). There's a dalinova I potted that is an experiment because they don't like smaller pots. There's basil in a pot, lemon balm I transplanted from the pathway (they were weeds and are now thriving) and a tiny rosemary I keep bringing out.  

Elsewhere in the Yard

I had one final big bouquet of lavender from the plant by the house. It's my best lavender harvest yet (3 big bouquets of the dark purple, plus the light purple one in the raised bed garden hasn't even started blooming yet).  The dark purple one barely survives in this zone (6A), but this spot is a sunny southern exposure and well protected by the house, tree and deck in the winter. The light purple one overwinters in the garden out back without the same protections and does fine, so it's definitely a hardier variety. 

It has been a wonderful season for raspberries. The bramble was thick with healthy canes - new growth for next year and old growth covered in berries. We had so many over 3 weeks it was delightful. Raspberry bird ate quite a few but there were plenty to share. 

There are tiny green blueberries growing on my blueberry bushes, but I'm not sure if I'll be able to stop the birds since we don't have much to cover them with right now. Those blueberry boxes are still a dream and I can't find my mosquito netting either (bird netting did nothing but hurt the birds when they got stuck in it, no thank you). 

My citrus trees have adjusted to being outside, they came out mid-May and it takes a bit of time to reacclimate to the sunshine and weather conditions (though they are much happier outside in the summer). The elderberry bushes in the way back along the fence are growing really big (one more than the other, but both are establishing themselves!) and we even had a couple of blooms.  I harvested a few of the early blooms - they are big, white and lacy in the bottom photo. 

The dahlias I've planted decoratively around the yard are also all doing well - the only ones that are struggling are in pots, and I knew that was a risk because they don't really like being in pots (at least for me). Even the ones I've thrown along the back border are doing well. I'm scared we're going to have another spider mite infestation but so far everything seems to be surviving okay. I check them often!