Gardeners Checklist: Here Is What to Do in This Third Week of June

By Ron Kujawski

• Continue planting anything and everything. Water plants in pots several hours before transplanting. Also, water the planting site beforehand. Cloudy days and evening hours are the best time to plant since there is less stress on transplants at those times.

• Begin applying fungicides to tomatoes to protect them from various leaf spot and blight diseases. Organic options include products containing copper, potassium bicarbonate, or the bacterium, Bacillus subtilis. These fungicides are used as preventatives. Therefore, they must be applied at regular intervals. Be sure to read and follow label directions of the product you select.

• Begin harvesting snow peas while the pods are still flat and thin, and before the seeds within the pods begin to fill out. On the other hand, sugar snap peas are picked when the pods are plump and tender. The pods of shelling or English peas are not edible. Peas of all three types are beginning to ripen, so be vigilant. If you keep picking, they’ll keep coming for quite a while. Save any leftover pea seed from the spring sowing and use to sow a fall crop in early August.

• Make the last harvest of rhubarb and asparagus by the end of next week. These plants are so-called heavy feeders and need to put on good leaf growth this summer to replenish their food reserves. They’ll benefit now from an application of composted manure or a general-purpose garden fertilizer such as 10-10-10.

• Groom and up-pot houseplants to the next largest pot before moving them outdoors for their summer vacation. Since most houseplants are adapted to low light conditions, put them in a shady location or a place where they’ll get dappled light such as beneath a tree.

• Apply a general-purpose garden fertilizer or compost around spring flowering bulbs. Do not cut down the leaves of bulbs until they turn yellow or brown. Bulbs need to replenish the food reserves consumed in the flowering process this spring, and they can only do that while they still have green leaves.

• Place netting over the strawberry patch to keep birds from eating the ripening berries. As difficult as it is, pinch off the blossoms and any developing fruit from strawberries that were newly planted this spring. This will help plants get established and ensure a good yield of berries next year, assuming the birds don’t get them first.

• Apply a low nitrogen fertilizer to rose bushes when the first flush of blooms begins to fade. Specialty rose fertilizers may be used, but a general garden fertilizer with an analysis such as 5-10-10 is OK. Read the product label for amount to apply. If in doubt, apply a small handful around each plant. So, what’s a small handful? I couldn’t find a small hand to measure, but one tablespoon per plant should do it.

Ron Kujawski began gardening at an early age on his family's onion farm in upstate New York. Although now retired, he spent most of his career teaching at the UMass Extension Service. He serves on Berkshire Botanical Garden’s Horticulture Advisory Committee. His book, Week-by-Week Vegetable Gardener’s Handbook, is available here.

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