6 Veggies You'd Be Crazy Not To Plant In June

Most people think that if you waited till June to start your garden, then it's way too late and you might as well wait till next year, but that could not be further from the truth. In fact, I started my very first garden right in the middle of the summer, and it was that first garden that got me started and eventually turned me into a gardening pro. So in this video, I have got 5 plants that you can plant this month to give you a huge garden and a beautiful harvest by the end of the summer. But don't plant a thing until you find out if you're a 1, a 2, a 3. You're a 1 if you have no frost in your area or if your last frost date is in January or February. You're going to be a 2 if your last frost date happens in March or April, and you're going to be a 3 if your last frost date happens in May or June. So let's all tell each other in the comments if you're a 1, a 2, or 3. That way we all know who we're growing alongside. Now let's dive into group number 1. All right, my number 1s, I hate to tell you, but this is going to be your hardest season of the entire year. For the rest of the year, we're so jealous of you guys because you have like no frost frost, it's never cold where you live, so you're just in garden bliss from like January to May. But in the summer, you pay, you pay, because it's going to get really hot. So right now is the time for you to get all these plants in the soil, get them well watered in, because it's going to warm up where you live July and August. So you've got to get these plants in. I want you to think like Caribbean, I want you to think North Africa, I want you to think equatorial for the plants you're going to grow in the middle of summer, because it's hot, okay? It is very hot for you guys in the first category. So eggplants, they love hot weather. They thrive in hot weather. Get a plant, not a seed, into the soil right now, and you're going to have tons of eggplants July, August, September, October, November. They will keep coming. They are tender perennials. They'll want to stay in your garden, especially if you never get frost where you live. You might have eggplants at Christmas and the New Year's. And next up is okra. These plants are going to get huge and tall. Plant them by plant, put them in the center of your garden. These, you got to harvest them when they're little, okay? Don't let them get big. I'm not that big. It's going to taste like wood, okay? But if you harvest them when they're little, they're so delicious cooked up with some tomato sauce and some sausages. Oh my goodness, so delicious. This is a way to get through summer, and the flowers are beautiful enough you could cut the flowers and put them in a vase. Next up, beans. Not normal beans, okay? Not bush beans, not pole beans that you grow in the spring and the fall. You're going to grow yardlong beans. You want to grow these beans. I think they originated in Asia. They are literally a yard long. I'm not kidding, like a 36-inch-long bean. You can chop them up. You cook them just like you would cook normal green beans, but they're yardlong. They're so cool. You can grow them on a trellis. I did this in the school garden for my kids when I lived in Texas. The kids thought they were the coolest thing. They thought they were aliens. They were wearing them as jewelry and stuff. It was awesome. All right, next up is basil. This herb is going to get you through summer. Think about salads that you can make because all your lettuces, they're going to be too hot, but basil, this is what you want to think of as your summer salad. So cut up these greens, put in some watermelon, some fruit. It's so delicious. Put a little feta cheese on it. So tons of basil. Basil loves the summer. It loves the hot weather. And next up, cucumber. Don't grow a normal cucumber. You're going to grow an Armenian cucumber. Again, we're thinking equatorial kind of climate here for your June to August. So you want to get Armenian cucumbers. These are made to withstand the heat, to last through really, really hot temperatures. So these are your plants, and then a bonus is the cosmos flower. These are wispy, they're very romantic, they give your garden just this beautiful cottagey feel. You can get all different kinds of color cosmos to grow. They're going to bring in the bees and butterflies. Even if you don't grow anything else in your garden in the summer, you want to grow some cosmos. And if you just want to like close down the garden, don't leave your garden soil bare. That's the worst thing you can do in the summer if you're in a hot place. Cover it with sweet potatoes. Just plant a bunch of sweet potatoes, let them take over the garden. All the greens will cover up the soil. Just protect your soil, especially if you're in Group 1. Don't leave your soil bare in the summer. Let's move on to number 2. If you're in number 2, you've been frost-free now for about a month. You should already have your tomatoes and things like that growing in the garden. Here are some things to fill in the blanks. I love planting bush beans anywhere I pull up a spring plant. So when I pull up carrots or radishes, stick some bush beans in there. They love to grow over the side of the garden. You'll 5, 10, 15, 20 beans for every single seed you plant. Next up are peppers. This is a great fill-in-the-blank kind of plant. You want to plant plants, not seeds. Peppers are tender perennials, so they will try to stay in the garden all the way through until the end of the year if there's not a heavy frost, and you're going to get tons of jalapeños from one plant. This is absolutely incredible ROI on your space. So if you're pulling up something like a cauliflower or a kale, something that goes out of the garden when it warms up, stick in some jalapeños. They take a little bit of time, about 1 to 2 months to get started, and then bam, you're going to get tons of peppers. Next up is zucchini, another great fill-in-the-blank plant. Plant this from seed. We have this in our free seed collection. If you don't have it yet, I'll put a link right below this video. These are going to get huge, really big plants. You want to think 1 square foot per plant at least. Tons of zucchini. You can plant this anytime in the month of June. By the middle of August, you're going to be giving zucchini to your neighbors. Trust me on this one. Next up is corn. This is a super fun one to grow for your kids, for your grandkids, for yourself. I love watching corn grow cuz corn is a part of so many of the things that we eat. I planted this one bed with about 30 plants of corn. You can start these directly from seed. You're gonna need to hurry because corn needs to finish up before we get to September. It is like a 90 to 100-day plant, but super magical to watch grow and it loves growing in the heat. Next up is cantaloupe. Love to have something sweet in the garden and juicy. Yes, This is something you can start from seed, put it on the edges of your bed, and then grow the cantaloupe out in the pathways of your garden. It's magical. It's juicy. It's fruity. You want to get your kids involved in the garden? Grow some melons. And the bonus is some zinnias. I love putting zinnias all around the edges of my garden. They're great for pest protection. They welcome in bees and butterflies. They're beautiful. They're a great cut flower. They're easy peasy. Start them from seed directly in the garden. These are also part of our free seed collection. Hopefully they're still available. I'll link them right below this video. This is all you're going to plant if you're in section 2. It's time to fill in the blanks. Go in 6 weeks later, fill in all the blanks in your garden. And before we go to number 3, I want to tell you about a class I'm teaching that's all about getting your garden set up. So if you don't have a garden that you really love, or if you've never had a garden set up before, then I want to teach you how to set it up the Gardenary way. The class is only 30 minutes, it's completely free, and you can watch it right after this video. So I'll put a link right below, and watch it when we're done. If you're in group 3, I'm so happy for you. You are finally going to be free of frost. The summer in my Chicago garden, Oh my gosh, so magical. You're in for a treat. So you can switch things like your romaine, your spring mix, switch it out for some arugula. Grow it under the shade of taller plants. It'll last pretty long for you in your climate. Next up, pole beans. Now we're doing bush beans in group number 2, but pole beans is something you can do because you have a long time to grow these beans, and they're so beautiful on a trellis. Grow some purple, some yellow, some green beans, grow them on a pole, put them up a trellis. So pretty, and these really fill out a trellis really fast, which is what you want when you've been waiting for like a year. To warm up, you know what I mean? Next up are cucumbers. I love these pickling cucumbers. Also, you're going to get a quick harvest from these. Plant them in June, you'll have cucumbers to pick maybe by the 4th of July, you know, at least by the end of July, you're going to have some delicious cucumbers. Tomatoes, these need to go in by plant if you haven't planted them yet. Don't put seeds in the garden, put plants in the garden. If you haven't planted them, this is going to be your last month because you've got to get them finished up by September before you're back to frost, okay? And then watermelon, this is such a magical thing to grow. You want to get it in the garden right now. Seeds melons need to go on the edge of the bed, just like we do with the cantaloupe. I love growing watermelon all through my pathways through the middle of the summer. Put it in the sunniest, warmest spot you possibly can find because they're going to need all the sun you've got, all the hours to turn into melons before the end of the summer. And then marigolds—don't miss adding these flowers to the edges of your garden because these are great for pest control, and they're also so beautiful. My favorite are the Gem marigolds, or the French marigolds. The smell is so amazing, and the pest control is awesome. Now you're probably thinking, what if my garden is full of spring plants? How "how do I move it from spring to summer?" And I made an entire video walking you through the step-by-step process to take spring garden and turn it into a summer garden, and you can watch that right here.