May happened to be a busy month for me, with an out-of-town trip to celebrate a college graduation. I managed to plant the tomato seedlings I bought at the Napa County Master Gardener tomato sale, and a few peppers and eggplants found their way into the bed reserved for them. However, I am way behind on planting beans, squash, basil, cucumbers and melons.
Fortunately, planting a garden is not a now-or-never activity. The vegetables that love warm weather are still available in June, and we have a long summer, with plenty of time to grow many vegetables to maturity.
Before you plant, add fertilizer and compost to your vegetable patch. Warm-season vegetables need food to produce a crop, and it is easier to feed with a balanced fertilizer before planting than to try to fertilize around the plant roots later.
Determine how much space the full-grown plant requires before planting the seedling. Tomatoes, pumpkins and some squash take up a lot of room, and they can overwhelm smaller vegetables planted nearby. Consider what support your plants will need, and set that up at planting time so you don't disturb roots or break plant limbs when you get around to it later.
Vegetables to plant as seedlings include tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, squash and cucumbers. You can sow seeds for beans, corn, cucumbers, melons and pumpkins directly in the ground. Check seed packets or plant tags for “days to maturity” to be sure the plant has time to mature before days start getting short and cool in October. If you plant a tomato or pumpkin variety that matures in 80 days or fewer, chances are good that you will get a harvest. Varieties that need 100 days or more may not ripen by the end of summer.
Many cool-season vegetables thrive in Napa Valley if planted in June, including beets, carrots, chard, fennel, green onions, leeks, lettuce, parsnips and radishes. In the hottest parts of the valley, plant them in areas that get afternoon shade.
Several annual herbs can be planted in June. Sweet basil comes in many different forms and flavors and can be an ornamental addition to the garden. Cilantro grows rapidly from seed to flower, so sow several times throughout the summer. You can also sow dill seeds now.
It is not too late to plant many annual flowers. Because I am trying to use less water, I'm not starting any new garden beds, but I am adding flowers to my vegetable beds wherever there is space. Some annual flowers that you can easily start from seed include marigolds, zinnias, nasturtiums, tithonia, cosmos, sunflowers and statice. These annuals and others are also available as seedlings at nurseries.
Be sure any flowers you plant won't shade sun-loving vegetables. My spring vegetable bed produced lots of salad greens, carrots, beets andpakchoias well as bachelor buttons and volunteer larkspur. These flowers kept the ground covered as I harvested vegetables, and they looked great, too.
Give your fruit trees a good, deep soaking in June, then apply a thick layer of mulch. I use homemade and purchased compost for this purpose. Mulching is important in the vegetable garden, too. I mulch the tops of beds with compost and the sides and pathways with straw. Besides conserving precious moisture, mulch makes the beds look tidy.
Soon I will have planted most of the summer vegetables I intend to grow this year. But now the spring vegetable bed has a lot of bare space. What can I plant there? For an avid vegetable gardener, the garden is never complete.
Workshop: Napa County Master Gardeners will host a workshop on the drought on Saturday, June 6, from 9:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. at the University of California Cooperative Extension Office, 1710 Soscol Avenue, Napa. Understand the implications of drought in California and learn irrigation tips and strategies for low water use in a sustainable yard. We will also cover low water use landscaping plant resources.Online registration (credit card only)Mail-in registration (cash or check only).This workshop will be repeated in Yountville on June 14.
Master Gardeners are volunteers who help the University of California reach the gardening public with home gardening information. Napa County Master Gardeners ( http://ucanr.org/ucmgnapa/) are available to answer gardening questions in person or by phone, Monday, Wednesday and Friday, 9 a.m. to Noon, at the U. C. Cooperative Extension office, 1710 Soscol Avenue, Suite 4, Napa, 707-253-4143, or from outside City of Napa toll-free at 877-279-3065. Or e-mail your garden questions by following the guidelines on our web site. Click on Napa, then on Have Garden Questions? Find us on Facebook under UC Master Gardeners of Napa County.