10 Things to Do in the Garden in June

10 Things to Do in the Garden in June in Southern California

1. Sow happy sunflower seeds now with successive plantings every three to four weeks to extend their cheery blooms throughout fall.

2. Attract butterflies to your garden with nectar-rich flowers such as butterfly bush, heliotrope, pentas and common milkweed.

3. Add a fresh layer of mulch to your growing grounds to keep roots cool and slow water evaporation.

4. Homegrow bananas in full sun and in two years, with regular watering, you’ll have some tasty fruit. Among those that grow well here are cold-hardy ‘Orinoco’ and ‘Cuban Red.’ An ideal variety for cooking: ‘Cardaba’ from Honduras.

5. Deadhead spent blooms to encourage perennials and annuals to produce more flowers. For roses, you’ll have to trim the faded flowers one at a time. Use hedge shears to snip across the top and sides of other plants, like lavender.

6. Remove flower stalks from spring bulbs but allow the foliage to remain until it turns yellow and fades.

7. Create a defensible space around your home before wildfire season. Remove dead brush, cut weeds, trim off low tree branches and plan an escape route.

8. Have fun with your kids in the garden by creating a pint-sized worm bin. They’ll love red wrigglers housed in a plastic tub filled with shredded paper. They can feed the worms fruit and vegetable scraps and harvest their castings for the garden.

9. Fight powdery mildew with a daily morning blast of water to leaves coated with the white fungal growth.

10. Plant melon and pumpkin seeds. Look for varieties that seldom show up at the grocery store.

What’s Inspiring Me Right Now

• I’m meeting like-minded friends and finding fun, local events by joining meetup.com (it’s free) and searching “gardening groups in San Diego.” Whether I’m looking for workshops with master gardeners or regular events to develop long-term friendships, meetup.com has excellent opportunities.
• I’m browsing and shopping at gilmour.com/gardening. It’s one of my new favorite sites for great visuals, inspirations and products to add to the success of my garden.
• One of my favorite sites to frequent and consult for all my gardening questions is youshouldgrow.com. You Should Grow—Because Life is Better Homegrown, serves up great advice, recipes you can make from produce in your garden and homestead inspiration galore!

Where You May Find Me This Month

I’m going to take the kids for a picnic at Summers Past Farms to celebrate lavender at its Lavender Day and Antique Craft Fair on Saturday, June 8. Besides shopping in the barn for great lavender gifts, I’ll also be looking for collectables and antiques—and, of course, plants—at the craftsman booths set up on the spacious lawn area. More info can be found at summerspastfarms.com.

It’s Fairy Festival time at San Diego Botanic Garden. I’m not sure if my kids will wear fairy costumes (probably) but they’ll love having their photo taken with the Fairy Princess, leaving a wish at the Wishing Bush, building a fairy house, decorating a magic mushroom and more (if we can fit it all in—there’s so much to do!). The festival takes place from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on June 22. All the information is at sdbgarden.org.

One day this month, we’ll visit the Del Mar Fairgrounds to view the display gardens at the San Diego County Fair. They always have a ton of horticultural groups that staff booths there so I can get free gardening advice on almost any topic. The fair starts on May 31 and goes through July 4. For more information visit sdfair.com.