June 2026 Garden Update
This month has been a busy one. But it’s also been productive.
At the start of the month, I invested in some raised beds for the backyard and planted most of my vegetables and herbs in them. You can check out how I built them here. It cost a little under $200 for the beds themselves and the fill. I didn’t plant all of them for two reasons:
We’re renters, which means that anything that goes in the ground would need to be dug up if I wanted to take it with us when we move, which we are planning to do at the end of the year. So the plants, like rosemary and lavender that I really want to take with us, stayed in containers.
Not all of the plants want the rich raised bed soil. Again, rosemary and lavender are from the Mediterranean area and like rocky, sandy, fast draining soil with not as much nutrients. So they stayed in containers.
The Losses
When planting everything in the raised beds, I had some losses. Here’s what didn’t survive the transplanting:
1 of 4 chamomile
lemon balm
1 of 2 calendula
3 yarrow plants
Parsley is struggling, and some days I wonder if it will survive.
Although my older rutgers tomatoes weren’t transplanted, they were at the end of their life. I had started them indoors and they were fully mature by the time I even put them outside. They produced about 20 tomatoes throughout their season, but I just had to pull off some green tomatoes and put them in the house to ripen because they were starting to crack due to increased water from our frequent rains and the heat (85-90F) was preventing them from blushing and turning red. These will be removed from their pots and composted once the all day rains chill out.
I am going to have to wait until the end of summer to start any more plants as the heat is not good for germination and will fry any baby plants that do try to grow.
The Wins
After a struggle to start, my borage has stopped turning brown and is now happily growing again. I was sure I was going to loose it after the transplant.
I got my first chamomile harvest. It was 5 whole flowers, but from 2 small plants, I’m still pretty stoked about it considering there are already more flowers that are almost ready to harvest. Hopefully I’ll get a decent amount from the 2 that I have that will give me enough for tea this winter.
My beans are almost ready for harvest. By this weekend I should have about 5-10 beans from 3 plants that are ready.
My basil recovered. When i transplanted it, the plant was starting to yellow due to lack of nutrients available in the pot, so after about 2 weeks of being in the raised bed, it recovered. Now almost a month later, its deep green and ready for a harvest.
My new tomato plants and cucumber plants are LOVING the raised beds. They’re growing like weeds.
Bergamont and hyssop are also starting to really get some growth behind them now that they’re extablished in the raised bed.
Notable Mentions
My dill is about 3 feet tall and still trying, but its slowing production. I believe that dill is a cool weather herb, so I’m not surprised.
My peppers are slowly growing, one faster than the other. But hey! they’re growing!
I actually did a gardening faux-pa and planted my peppermint in the raised bed. The plant was no longer thriving in the 1 gallon pot it was in and became rootbound. So i loosened the roots and put it in with the other herbs. It seems to be a lot happier now that it has more space.
My grapes are still slowly growing and making progress. I moved them inside under the grow light because they were still pretty leggy when they were outside. Now they’re a bit stronger and will be ready for transplant when we buy a house.
Enchinacea is still SLOWLY growing in a 1 gallon pot. It’s barely above the soil at this point, but its still growing. It will stay under the grow light where I can monitor it until it’s big enough to go outside.
Things I tried
I started some cool weather vegetables in the basement, but only the broccoli sprouted. I could not get another lemon balm to sprout at all, which was disappointing because that’s a really good tea herb. Everyone says its really easy to grow, but I think the warm temperatures are preventing germination.
My dog now loves running through the gap between the raised beds and will snoot around the plants in the garden. I think he’s looking for large mulch chunks to chomp on because he’s not hurting any of the plants. I think it’s adorable that he comes out with me everyday after work and snoots around the garden with me.
The Pillaging
At the end of the month, I had my first real run in with pillaging animals. I believe its the white tailed deer that I see around the neighborhood. They ate the long stem off of my tomatoes and clipped them at the top, my cucumbers weren’t touched as much, but some of the higher leaves and stems were eaten as I use a 4 foot chain link fence as a trellis. My calendula was eaten to almost nothing and one of my pepper plants was eaten all the way to the dirt, with a hoof mark next to the roots while the other pepper plant had all its leaves eaten.
They didn’t touch the herbs much so my basil, chamomile, and other herbs survived.
Right now, I’m not sure its worth the investment to try to protect the garden with fancy things. After reading online, the only thing that will really stop deer is a 12ft fence. My coworkers who have gardens had some different, yet odd ideas.. like peeing next to the garden to add a human scent. But the deer don’t seem to be too scared of us and they’re starting to get friendly with my dog.
Getting Ready for Fall
I am now switching over to start my seeds for fall. We made it through 5 days of 100F and the weather seems to be smoothing out, at least for the next 10 days or so. I am going to take advantage of this and start some seeds in the basement of my house where the temps are cooler and they should be ready for transplant by late August and early September.
I am really hoping that I will be able to get a harvest before the cold of winter starts here, which can start as early as October. But based on the last couple of winters, I should be good until November. Fingers crossed.
I will also be starting some herbs like more lavender and rosemary that take a year or so to get a good start so next spring I can plant those at the new house and be able to have my first real lavender harvest.