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Growing Strawberries, Potatoes, Lettuces, and Gooseberries in June: A Comprehensive Guide
June is a bountiful month for gardeners, with long daylight hours, mild nights, and the start of harvesting delicious produce such as strawberries and fresh peas. Here's a guide to help you grow strawberries, potatoes, lettuces, and gooseberries successfully during this critical growing period.
Strawberries
June-bearing strawberries typically ripen in late June or early July. Avoid fertilizing in early spring or June, as it encourages excessive foliage and soft fruit prone to disease. Instead, fertilize after harvesting and renovate by trimming leaves, thinning, and removing runners to maintain a healthy patch. For everbearing or day-neutral strawberries, fertilize early and multiple times through summer. Removing flowers before May encourages stronger plants.
Potatoes
June is the usual time to finish earthing up potatoes. This means piling soil around stems to protect tubers from sunlight and support growth. Ensure thorough watering, especially during dry spells, to maintain soil moisture.
Lettuces
In June's warming weather, water lettuces well early in the day with deep soaking rather than light spraying to prevent stress from heat and dryness. This is also the time to transplant tender crops like lettuce to final positions and thin seedlings for proper space.
Gooseberries
Gooseberry bushes prefer sunny or partly shaded spots with free-draining, moist soil. They tolerate shade and do well in large pots or against walls. In June, maintain regular watering and feeding. Annual pruning is generally done in late autumn or winter, so June focuses on feeding and moisture maintenance rather than pruning.
General June Gardening Advice
- Water all plants early in the day with deep, thorough watering to ensure good soil moisture before the sun evaporates it.
- Thin vegetables and seedlings to ensure proper spacing and prevent competition.
- Use collars or protective measures to guard against pests like cabbage root fly when transplanting brassicas.
By following these crop-specific and general June care tips, gardeners can optimize growth and yield for strawberries, potatoes, lettuces, and gooseberries during this vital growing month.
Additional tips include:
- Local plant pot recycling schemes can be found at many branches of Dobbies Garden Centres, and a site for recycling plant pots near you can be found at recyclenow.com by entering your postcode.
- Now is a good time to go through old seed packets to find seeds that can be sown again without needing to buy new seed, such as salads, carrots, parsnips, beetroot, beans, and sweetcorn.
- Early varieties of potatoes can be harvested in June for a soft, sweet harvest of new potatoes.
- Gooseberries can be protected from birds by covering the plants with fine netting. It's best to wait until the fruits have some give before picking them to avoid overly sour berries.
- Thinning out fruits from apple and pear trees is necessary to ensure large, fully-formed fruits rather than a cluster of small ones that don't ripen well. Thin out to leave fruits every 10-15cm.
- Lifting early potatoes can ensure a better flavor, but waiting longer will result in larger, less flavorful potatoes.
- Sowing cut-and-come-again leaves of lettuces once a fortnight, in short rows, is another option, but they require a shady spot to ensure steady growth.
- It's possible to share excess produce with neighbours, although whether or not to write 'free slugs' next to them is up to the individual.
- Sowing two seeds to a module and growing a small batch of lettuces in cell trays on a cool windowsill or sheltered place outdoors, or buying a small number of plants as plug plants from a nursery or garden center to plant out a new batch every couple of weeks, is a good plan.
- When growing cordon tomatoes, it's important to check the plants for sideshoots every day and pinch them out when they are small to encourage faster fruit production.
- Recycling pots and trays used for growing crops is beneficial, and they can be reused after rinsing and scrubbing with soapy water.
Cooking meals with fresh produce grown in June, such as strawberries, potatoes, lettuces, and gooseberries, can enhance the food-and-drink lifestyle at home. Meanwhile, feeding and maintaining moisture for gooseberry bushes in June, as stated in the guide, sets the stage for a successful home-and-garden lifestyle, resulting in a bountiful harvest that can contribute to delicious meals.
