What to do in the garden in June

June is a great month for gardening. It has great weather, long days, pleasant evenings and, typically, mild weather. (We know, try telling that to the 2021 Heat Dome, which was severe, but was also an outlier.)

So, what exactly can you do in the garden this month? Well, it might be easier to list the things you can’t do!

The Oregon State University Extension Service June garden calendar, is full of ideas and advice. You can be as busy as you want to be. Here are a few of the tips:

* Your lilacs, forsythia, rhododendrons and azaleas are done blooming, so prune them.

* Fertilize your vegetable garden. You can do this one month after the plants emerge. Simply apply a side dressing alongside rows.

* You probably have ripe strawberries or will soon. Pick them regularly to avoid fruit-rotting diseases.

* Thinning. You can thin planted beds of lettuce, onion and chard. You can also thin remaining tree fruits in June after some of them normally drop. This helps produce a crop of larger fruit among those remaining.

* It’s a great time to plant dahlia, begonia and gladiolus bulbs. If you don’t have any, they’re available at your local nursery or garden center. Find one here.

* If you have houseplants, you can move them outdoors for cleaning, grooming, repotting and summer growth.

* Read the whole article for the complete list of tips. Questions? Be sure to use your Master Gardener hotline as a resource.

June is a great month to plant vegetable seeds and starts. Seeds you can plant include arugula, Asian greens, basil, beans, beets, broccoli, brussels sprouts — and those are just the A’s and B’s! There are many options for what you can plant right now. Portland Nursery’s helpful Veggie Calendar (PDF) tells you what you can do right now. You can pick up the seeds and starts you need from many of our local garden centers.