Here’s What to Plant in June | Surviving Heat Waves, Heavy Rain & Garden Stress! 🌧️

It smells divine, it smells heavenly. It just helps me to be calm, okay? I've come a long way with eggplants. I don't know why I'm holding on to it. I don't know why I have it here. It needs to be composted if you ask me. I see a lot of advice, prune, prune this, remove this, remove this, remove suckers, remove this, remove. Hello everyone, welcome to Playing in Dirt. My name is Fleur. I am a small space container gardener in zone eight. We are in the month of June. So exciting because we are closer to fall. No, I'm just kidding. We are going to be talking about what you should be planting in your garden. You guys know my spiel already. I'm only gonna be talking about what I'm growing. I'm excited how everything is looking right now in the garden and I'm hopeful. We're gonna talk about some of the things that I did wrong in the past, what I'm noticing is working and what you guys should be doing as well with some of the crops that I'm growing. I'm gonna give you guys a little garden tour to see what I'm growing this month. Granted, everything in the garden is already growing, but if you are in my zone, this month is still a good time to be starting those crops from seed. I'm not going to be listing crops in no particular order. It's gonna be all over the place. Let's jump right into the video because I'm excited. I'm so excited. I'm excited. We're gonna start with herbs and I'm gonna have to say basil. If you are not growing basil in your garden, I don't know what you're doing. Basil is one of those crops for me. I'm growing two different varieties this year. I have the regular basil and I have the holy basil and this is how the plants are looking. I have my basil plants tucked in most of my containers. So I have some in this container. I also have some holy basil in this container. I have some basil over here that is growing. I have basil over here. I think with this one, it went to flower. So I don't know. I don't think it's growing. It's gonna be growing anymore, but it smells divine. It smells heavenly. Look at these flowers. These are allisons, by the way. Oh my gosh. They're so pretty. Look at that. They're all over my garden. All over my garden. Look at this. Basil everywhere. Holy basil everywhere. You can never have too much basil in the garden. They're one of the easiest herbs that you can grow and they produce abundantly. Right now is the best time to grow some basil from seeds because they love the heat. And you know June. June is gonna come with that heat, okay? I bought holy basil tea. I was scrolling YouTube and I stumbled upon this video about this lady talking about holy basil and all of the benefits that holy basil has to offer. And I'm like, I need some of those benefits. And y'all, when I tell you how it's been helping me, it just helps me to be calm. And I need that in my life. So that's why I decided to plant a lot of it in my garden because I'm gonna be able to reap those benefits. It's known as an adaptogen, which is an herb that helps to regulate your nervous system. For those of you who have high stress job, high stress life, dealing with things, let me tell you, it does work. I didn't mean to go off on a tangent talking about holy basil, but this is my first time growing that variety. Oh my gosh, it's raining. Best believe I will continue growing that variety. The next type of crop to plant is your squashes. I have several squash plants that I'm growing. This is the obsidian squash. I planted two seeds in this container, both germinated. So I took one of them and I put it in that green grow bag. If you are growing in containers, they need a minimum of 10 gallons. They grow to be big. I didn't wanna overcrowd this container. This is my second time growing squash. The first time I had a very horrible experience. I'm hoping this time around we get things right because squash is gonna come with the powdery mildew. I did plant disease resistant variety. We're gonna see how resistant to disease it is. I need me some squash. I don't really eat squash like that, but I'm trying to eat the crops for the season. You can buy them as transplants or you can grow them from seed. Now is the perfect month to grow them. Another crop that you should be starting right now is gonna have to be eggplant. And I'm so, so excited of how my eggplants are looking. They're doing fine. Considering last time, it's like a complete 180. This is my second time growing eggplant. Last year, I started some seeds. It went nowhere. This time around, things are looking promising. I have a total of three eggplant plants in my garden. I love the way it's looking, even though there's no fruit yet. I can't wait until it starts fruiting. The other eggplant is in this container. And then we have another one in this raised bed. The other day, it flowered. There's the flower, because I'm like, where's the pretty purple flower that I had? Okay, see, it came off. But it gave out this pretty purple flower. The last two that I showed you, they were the black beauty eggplants. I'm not sure what this variety is. I think it's also a black beauty. The leaves, the color, it looks exactly like the other two eggplants that I showed you. So I'm assuming it's also a black beauty. But y'all, okay, I've come a long way with eggplants. You know, like I said, last year, a total bust. Make sure that you keep them hydrated, keep them fed. Yesterday, I did give them some fertilizer. I gave them the three, five, six, because they're starting to flower. And I want the plant to focus its energy on producing the fruits in the flowering stage. When you give them a fertilizer that is higher in potassium, higher in phosphorus, that's going to help with that fruit production. That is what we want. If you love eggplants, now is the perfect time to start them. I forgot to mention, this is another squash. This is the straight neck. I've never grown it before. Hopefully we have some success, because as you can see, it is starting to form flower buds and whatnot. I figured now would be the best time to increase their phosphorus and potassium. The next crop I'm excited about, I'm going to show you guys. Of course, has to be your cucumbers. And I love, love, love the way my cucumber container is looking. It's already producing fruits. I also have cucumber in this bed, which is going to go up this trellis. I have four. I only need two. So I think I'm going to be removing the other two, but I don't want to. I want to keep them all, but they need room to grow. And I feel like this bed is going to be chaos with the cucumbers. You really have to make sure that you're not only giving them room to vine and spread, but also pruning them somewhat. You know what I mean? So that leaves are not on top of each other. That's what causes disease. And next thing you know, all of your plant is infested. It's covered with powdery mildew. My original plan was to have two cucumbers in this bed anyways, but I'm so tempted to keep all of them. At the same time, I'm reminding myself that it's not realistic. This is my second year growing cucumbers. So I'm still new to cucumbers. The first time that I grew them, y'all, I heavily pruned my cucumbers. I pruned them until they looked like a skeleton. And what ended up happening was the stem started becoming thin and weak, and I had a lot of yellowing of the leaves. I did not realize that it was because of the heavy pruning that the plant was stressed. I thought, oh, yellowing of the leaves. Let me go and prune some more. And that's what I did. It's good to prune your cucumbers. This is, again, to allow for airflow. You want the leaves to be able to breathe. Ooh, look at that beautiful butterfly. But at the same time, in order for the plant to produce successfully, it needs the leaves. If you see any dead leaves, you can go ahead and remove them. But for the most part, y'all, if the leaves are looking healthy, if the plant is producing, just leave the leaves. Leave the leaves alone. That is where I messed up. I'm learning all of this. If it doesn't need to be pruned, I'm not touching it. The same goes for the tomatoes. I see a lot of advice, prune this, remove this, remove this, remove suckers, remove this. So I'm excited. I'm excited with how my cucumbers are looking. I have three plants in this container, two on one side and then one on the other side. And even then, I see that it's starting to get crazy. I had this trellis in my garage. I forgot that I had it. So I just stuck this trellis right in front of the bed so that the side shoots can, you see, it's already latching on, so they can have more room to grow. I'm just making the best use of the space that I have. And then this one over here can attach itself to this one. But look at all the cucumbers that I'm getting. This is the Marketmore cucumber, if you are curious. And then I have another cucumber plant over here. Now with this plant, I think the container is a little too small, but I just needed to put something in there. So I added another cucumber. I'm going to put a tomato cage so that it has that to grow. We'll see how it does. The next plants that you should be starting from seeds are your okra plants. I have several okra plants. This variety is the Texas Longhorn. I have another Texas Longhorn in this container. By the way, I'm not keeping both plants. I am gonna be cutting it down to one plant. If you are growing okra in grow bags or containers, they need a lot of root space. So minimum of 10 gallons, y'all. 15, 20 gallons, even better. It's only gonna be one plant in the containers. I just haven't thinned them. This one right here is the Emerald and this is a 10 gallon grow bag. I had such bad luck with okra last year. I'm hoping we get it right. We have a total of four okra plants that I'm growing in my small, tiny space. And I'm hoping all four of them thrive. In a perfect world, that's what would happen, right? The next plant that you should be starting from seeds are your beans. In this container, I'm growing yard long beans. I'm gonna be reducing it down to two. I don't know why I haven't removed the other one yet. I don't know why I haven't removed the third one yet. I also have some bush beans that are everywhere. Getting eaten. This is a bush bean. The weather is doing a number on my beans. I put in my community tab a picture of my yard long beans. I don't know why they look like that. I don't know if it's the weather, if it's something else. They look really, really stressed. If this is not stress, I don't know what is. Compared to these, I have two yard long beans in this bag and this one is looking really good. These are pole beans. So I don't know what's going on, y'all. I'm hoping they come around. The next type of crop that you guys can be growing in June, I'm gonna have to say Swiss chard because this is how my Swiss chard plants are looking. I started those from seeds the other day. But y'all, this is Swiss chard. Considering how hot it's been, they look like they are thriving. So hopefully we continue in that direction. I was hesitant about growing Swiss chard because they're typically considered cool weather crops. But when I did my research and learned that they tolerate heat better than any other greens, I'm like, let me try a few in my garden and see what happens. This allows me to harvest greens throughout the summer. You guys need to be pulling out your shade cloths. If the sun is intense, it's gonna be better to cover them. And with all the other plants too, even the ones that love the sun, it's good to have a shade cloth on hand. The next type of crop to plant in June is gonna have to be your melons, y'all. I almost forgot this baby. It just sprouted the other day. This is sugar baby melons, by the way. I started one plant indoors. However, it was not looking too good. So that's the reason why I decided to direct sow it. This is the other one that was indoors, y'all. I don't know why I'm holding onto it. I don't know why I have it here. It needs to be composted with the X-beam. I'm gonna have this really, really, really tall, long trellis for it to climb. I have a beam on the other side. I probably will have to start this over again. I have my bush bean over here, and then I have my basil over here. We'll have beans growing on one side, and then melons growing on the other side. The next type of plant that you should be starting in June, well, you're not gonna be starting those from seed. Hopefully you have the slips ready to be planted, and they can be planted right now in June, especially if you're in my zone, are your sweet potato slips. I did plant those slips about a week ago, and this is how they are looking. So far, they haven't died, thank God. We've been getting a lot of rain, so look at this one. This one even have new leaves that are coming up. Sweet potatoes love the heat, y'all. They thrive in the summertime. Now is the perfect time to plant your slips if you have not planted them yet. If you don't have slips, then you can purchase them. Purchase them online, because the ones in this container, I did purchase. This one, I grew from the sweet potato. Can't wait until they start vining. Let's jump into the monthly grow guide. I wanna share some tips with you all, and if you wanna grab a copy of the guide for yourself, you can find it linked down below in the description. June is full summer mode in the garden, and heat becomes the main challenge. You can still succession plant crops like bush beans and cucumbers every few weeks to keep the harvest going, while cool season crops may need shade, or it may be time to start planning for fall crops. Mulching, deep watering, trellising, and companion flowers become really important this time of the year, especially for container gardens. And y'all, be mindful that this season can also bring heavy rain. And it's not just the rain. It can also bring humidity and extreme heat. That combination can lead to fungal disease, stress plants, and nutrients washing out of containers fast. So make sure that you're improving airflow, you're spacing plants properly, you're mulching well, and protecting plants when needed. Summer gardening definitely has its challenges, but learning how to adapt to the weather is part of growing food. So I'm hopeful, I'm really hopeful this summer I'm gonna be having eggplants, squash, you know, crops that I was not able to grow last year. The only thing that we can keep doing is being hopeful. Summer planting can humble you real quick. We're having to face with extreme heat here down South. The heat is no joke. So as a result of that, the plant leaves, they're just burning right before your eyes. Shade is gonna be important. The other thing that we're gonna have to be dealing with is the heavy rain. Now we're having to deal with root rot issues, powdery mildew, fungal disease, nutrients washing out from the containers. It's just a lot. And then you have your pests. I mentioned this in my last video that the cotton ball essential oil sticks, they're not as effective in the summertime. That's what I am noticing. It works better in the fall than it does in the summer because with essential oil, they evaporate quick. You're gonna have to reapply every single day if you want it to be effective, and that's just not practical. So we're gonna have to think of creative ways to deal with aphids, squash bugs, hornworms, beetles, spider mites, all of the above, because they're gonna come. They're already here, actually. They're bringing the pack with them. One thing that I'm learning about gardening is that we're all just trying to figure it out as we go. Even though these issues are gonna come, the goal is just to keep learning, figuring out ways that you can work with nature. You are definitely not alone. Yeah, we're just gonna have to make the best of whatever season that we're in. If you found this video helpful, please give it a like. Hit the subscribe button so that you guys can follow my journey. I will see you all in the next video.