For many home owners and aspiring gardeners, laying out a game plan for regular care and upkeep can feel like a daunting task. Knowing just when to plant, prune, fertilize, etc. also has a huge effect on the overhaul health, success and yield of your garden. So where to begin?! Here is a general Home and Garden Maintenance Guide to help you get oriented in the basic flow through each season.

Keeping a garden journal can be a great tool for helping organize a routine and plan ahead for various tasks. I’ve known some folks to take it to a whole other level and develop their garden journals into some truly amazing scrapbooks, complete with pressed flowers, family recipes, pictures, personal notes, poems and art, herbal folk remedy recipes, reference info, materials and “D.I.Y. article clippings, plant profile tags from the nursery, seed packets organized in their respective months and more! Or just print these articles to hang on your refrigerator for a ”to-do” checklist!

For more extensive lists of pruning, sow and harvesting dates, follow the links to my “Pruning Calendar” and “Vegetable Sow and Harvest Calendar”, in the above menu.

This guide was developed for the Pacific Northwest Hardiness Zones 7 – 9.

GOOD LUCK!!!

GENERAL MONTHLY TASKS for SUMMER:

A swarm of bees in May is worth a load of hay.
A swarm of bees in June is worth a silver spoon.
A swarm of bees in July is not worth a fly.”
~ Bee-keeper’s Proverb (17th Century)

HOME & GARDEN CHECKLIST:

Good time to add new PERENNIALS to garden beds & containers.
Tend to ROSES. ORGANIC FERTILIZERS and/or MULCH can be applied this month. Place & secure CLIMBING ROSES to trellis.
Mix up a batch of *GARLIC SPRAY and keep handy. Kills APHIDS & other infestations, BLACK SPOT, POWDERY MILDEW, etc., but completely safe for plants, planet, persons & pets. *(RECIPE: In a 1pt spray bottle, mix 1 – 2oz. GARLIC INFUSED VEGETABLE OIL, 2 oz. CASTILE SOAP, & Fill with water.)
In the VEGETABLE garden, PLANT: Tomato, pumpkin, brussel sprouts, carrots, eggplant, garlic, onion, peas, potato starts. SOW: Pumpkin, corn, beans, potatoes, spinach, kale, beets, squash, zucchini, radish, greens, cauliflower, chives, turnips.
Set up any needed VEGETABLE GARDEN trellis, stakes & other such support frames to train plants to, as they grow.
Best time to PRUNE Forsythia, Japanese Snowball, Lilac, Rhoddies, Azaleas, Camellia, Pieris, Daphnes, Weigela, Conifers.
Best month for OUTDOOR PAINTING projects. Dry, but not too hot or dusty, and plenty of daylight.
Spring blooming PERENNIALS can be divided & transplanted (Phlox, Brunnera, Primrose, Bleeding Hearts, Daffodil, Ornamental Grasses, etc.). Keep well watered to establish before warmer months roll in.
Clear out spent SPRING BULB flowers & debris from garden beds.
Promote new blooms in ANNUALS by deadheading spent flowers.
Reduce mosquitos & other pests by regularly changing out BIRD BATHS, kid’s pools, etc.

GARDEN HOLIDAYS & OBSERVANCES

JUNE: National Rose Month
JUNE (1st week): National Garden Week
JUNE (1st Saturday): National Trails Day
JUNE 5: World Environment Day
JUNE 7: June Bug Day
JUNE 8: World Oceans Day
JUNE 12: Red Rose Day
JUNE 15: Global Wind Day
JUNE 15: Nature Photography Day
JUNE (3rd week): National Grasslands Week
JUNE 20-22: Summer Solstice
JUNE 22: World Rainforest Day
JUNE 27: National Onion Day
JUNE 28: World Nature Conservation Day

“Do what we can, Summer will have it’s flies.”
~Ralph Waldo Emerson

HOME & GARDEN CHECKLIST:

Add 3“ – 4” inches of MULCH cover to newly planted TREES & SHRUBS to feed & protect plant roots through the warmer months.
Wrap up fertilizing of TREES & SHRUBS so that new growth has a chance to harden off before WINTER.
PRUNE flowering shrubs, Rock Rose, Gardenia, Mock Orange, Candytuft.
In the VEGETABLE garden, SOW: Greens, Radish, Chives, Turnips, Carrots, Beets and Beans.
Keep a steady HARVEST & maintenance routine to ensure best CROP yield.
As seasonal VEGETABLE crops come to the ends of their HARVEST time & are spent, add them to the COMPOST BIN & SOW Clover, Austrian Winter Peas, Cowpeas or other such COVER CROP into the beds to mend, protect & replenish the soil of essential NUTRIENTS.
Time to plant your HALLOWEEN PUMPKINS!!
Harvest Edible HERBS for, TEAS, COOKING, fragrant BOUQUETS, STORAGE for later use and OTHER applications.
ORGANIC LAWN FERTILIZER & MULCH can applied this month.
To encourage deeper root growth in GRASS, thus more drought, disease & traffic resistant LAWNS, the general rule is “Water MORE, LESS often, rather than LESS, MORE often.” (swamp it every 3 days or as needed).

GARDEN HOLIDAYS & OBSERVANCES

JULY 1-7: National Clean Beaches Week
JULY (1st Sunday): Build a Scarecrow Day
JULY 10: Pick Blueberries Day
JULY 27: Take Your Houseplant for a Walk Day

“In August, the large masses of berries, which, when in flower, had attracted many wild bees, gradually assumed their bright velvety crimson hue, and by their weight again bent down and broke the tender limbs.”
~ Henry David Thoreau

HOME & GARDEN CHECKLIST:

Reduce risk of INFESTATIONS of vulnerable fruit and flowering TREES & PLANTS by staying on top of fallen fruit and spent blooms.
DIVIDE & TRANSPLANT Spring Blooming PERENNIALS later this month & next.
Wrap up PRUNING of LAURELS this month *(best times are between April & August.)
HONEYSUCKLE can be PRUNED this month.
SOW seeds for PERENNIALS in late August.
In the VEGETABLE GARDEN, SOW: Spinach, Chives, Turnips, Radishes, Garlic.
Begin CANNING & DRYING (or otherwise preserve) excess VEGETABLE & HERB HARVESTS for storage & WINTER use.
Remove “suckers” from FRUIT TREES & keep well WATERED.
Begin MOWING LAWNS higher this month to help reduce stress, damage and to better retain moisture.
Fill and stir COMPOST BINS.