One Hundred Dollars a Month

This is a guest post written by my buddy Heather from Massachusetts. I thought it would be fun this year to post Monthly Garden Chores from both the West Coast and East Coast. You can see my garden plans for my Seattle, Washington garden HERE.

Geeez, June just FLEW by!  And it was a little bizarre here in New England. The weather seemed to be up, down, sideways and all around! Hurricane Arthur just a few days ago made it swing from 90 degrees down to 65 degrees in a 24 hour time period. Needless to say, the eggplants and hot peppers are having a bit of a hard time.  Others, like my tomatoes, raspberry bushes, and peas are having a grand ol’ time – the temperature swings don’t seem to bother them at all.

Seeds I’m Starting Indoors this Month

Instead of starting a winter garden this fall, I’ll continue on my quest for awesome soil. Last year I amended my garden soil with copious amounts of manure and leaves to each garden box, and this year I’ll do a cover crop.

Can you BELIEVE the stores are stocking up on back-to-school supplies?!!  It’s true; I just saw it today {my plan is to ignore this intrusion on my summer until September}. But it got me thinking, if the retail season is shifting, that means it’s time for me to clean up on gardening sales, especially potting soil, vermiculite, and peat moss for early spring/grow light seed starting {check out how to make your own potting soil HERE}. I learned last year that if you are looking for potting soil supplies in February it’ll be tough going to find any.

I also need a few more large tomato cages. Why is it that you can never have enough tomato cages? Coming up in the next couple of months the garden boxes I like will drop in price also, by like $10-$15! Plus, this week I’ll be heading to the feed store for a chicken water heater, hopefully catching it at a sale price still.

Oooh, yes – the best part of the season! So far we’ve harvested cilantro (and frozen it in water cubes).

Mint, chocolate mint, oregano, and thyme. We’ve gotten quite a bit of strawberries from our two pallets but they seem to systematically disappear, and by systematically I mean every time my daughter goes out to the garden 😉 

I’ve pulled all the garlic and it’s drying on a rack in the garage. I use it primarily for spaghetti sauce so I really think this will be enough for the whole year! And peas, I almost forgot about the peas – so many peas. 
What I Plan to Harvest This Month

Canning

In June I took my daughter to one of the local farms and we picked 8lbs of strawberries to can. I’d never made strawberry jam before, let alone canned it, so I wanted to start small. Let.me.tell.you.bob it was DELICIOUS. And surprisingly easy. My daughter and I picked the berries, and my son and I canned the jam. All in all an awesome day.

Houseplants and Indoor Bulbs

Good news! Poor lemon, I thought he’d succumbed to a massive scale infestation, but in a brilliant moment {before I threw him out} I scraped the stem – it was green underneath! Which means, lemon was still alive and kickin’. So I trimmed the top two feet off leaving the main stem about a foot out of the pot, fertilized him and it started sprouting new stems and leaves. Lemon is back in the game folks!

Trees and Shrubs

The “container” raspberries are growing like gangbusters in the over-sized container, and they look really lush and green. The blueberry bushes are growing fine but they fell victim to the caterpillars that ravage our greenery every year. I was able to catch it early and sprayed them with an organic oil compound {I like this one}, which saved some of them. I’ll probably only get a handful of blueberries this year. That’s gonna be one sweet handful though {assuming I get to them before the kids that is 😉 }.Weed and Pest Control

Sadly I just spied some critters on my tomatoes {spider mites maybe?} and something eating my potatoes {little worm-like things}. So its that time of year to get defensive and keep a keen eye out for any problems before they get out of control.  I think I’ll be able to nip them in the bud with an organic treatment like this one before they destroy my plants.

On the upside, my plan for total chipmunk domination is coming along nicely. Project marigold is working! First I planted marigolds in each corner of each box. Next I planted a barrier of marigolds between the rock wall {where they lived} and the garden.

The local coyotes are not around this year which means there TONS of rabbits. And my unfenced garden has not had one nibble…all because I picked up strangers hair in a bag {barf} and sprinkled around the perimeter of the garden! True story.

Lawn Care

Earlier in the year, when I was putting together my winter sowing buckets I had a grand plan to dig up the front hedge and build a lavender hedge. So far so good, although it will probably be next summer before it gets very big and full like I’d like it.

**These garden chores are based on my Zone 5b Southeast/Boston MA location. Find your garden zone HERE.