June Newletter 2025

Ground Up Newsletter

A composted mix of tips, plants, and the growers who tend to our gardens

June 2025 Food Bank Growers

In this month’s newsletter...

• Events Coming Up
• June in the Garden with Dianna

Artist and Editor - Bear (They/Them) FBG Vice President

Events Coming Up

June 28th FBG will be in the all County Preparedness Day at Finnriver

Come learn about planting for Food Security!

Gratitude

Thank you Lee Bebout for holding down the Farmer’s Market booth in PT and Chimacum. Lee made lots of great contacts and new volunteers. We are so excited to see y’all in the garden!



Thanks to the Food Co-op an their Farmers fund - the Quimper Grange has a new accessibility bed so anyone can come and garden. Thank you Barbara for advocating for inclusive gardens!

Last but not least Thank Keith Lierman, Jim Moore, Jerome Zygar, and Mary Hunt for donating, building, and painting a new tool shed at Salish Coast. The 8x14 foot shed will house garden tools and supplies and an office space for Farmer Neil and Farmer Isabel. 

 Big Drip Campaign

Little drops of cash add up so that we can support our volunteers, gardens and schools that feed our local community.

Please Donate at Give Butter

June In the Garden

June Gloom or Junuary is how locals describe this month, but it is not looking like that will be the case this year. It is looking like our Junuary happened in May and June may actually warm up. NOAA is predicting that we will get slightly warmer and drier weather than usual. Our average temperatures are between a high of 65° and a low of 51° F. with an average rainfall of 1.8”. Remember that our vegetables need at least an inch of water every week. So it is time to really get our irrigation schedules in full swing.

Winter Gardening:

Yup —  the middle of June is the time to start planning your winter garden. Much of what we can harvest all winter long can be started now and transplanted out as our Spring crops finish off. Getting starts ready for winter is a little different than Spring, though. Most seeds have an upper limit to their germination temperature that we need to pay attention to. Most brassicas won't germinate over 80°F.   Find a coolish shady location to get your brassicas going so they are ready to transplant out in July. Keep them moist and protected from plant predators like birds and slugs.

What to plant:

• Beans (both bush and pole), celery, cucumbers, corn and squash
• Beets, carrots, leeks, turnips
• Lettuce, pac choi, and spinach in shady locations
• Brassicas like brussel sprouts, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage and kale
• Transplant tomatoes and peppers out under cloches and water with warm water.

Harvesting:

• So very many greens! All the possible combinations of greens are available for salad or steaming or adding to stir fries. We are so lucky to be able to grow lots and lots of wonderful healthy greens.
• Berries both wild and domesticated. Strawberries and raspberries; salmonberries and serviceberries; currants, and rhubarb. Ok, rhubarb isn’t a berry but it makes wonderful pies and muffins, and can be used in savory dishes.
• Sprouting broccoli and early or overwintering cabbage.
• Peas! Snaps peas and snow peas and shelling peas oh my!
• Herbs should be harvested before they flower for best flavor, although the flower can be used as well to flavor and color many dishes.

Garden work:

• Hilling potatoes takes a lot of my time this month. Keeping my potatoes hilled up so the new potatoes don’t turn green in the sun takes the largest part of my time and energy in June. New potatoes form from the seed or mother potato up to about 12”. So it is important to keep them covered at least that far.
• Picking slugs is also on going. I lay out boards or cardboard at the ends of my beds then look under them every morning, collect the slugs and snails and feed them to my ducks. You can also just seal them in bags or containers and send them to the landfill. Hopefully they will be mostly gone after this month as the summer dries out. 

June brings a lot of time spent in the garden doing so very many different things. From soil preparation to planting, weeding and harvesting to just plain enjoying being out in the fresh air and sunshine. This is a time to revel in the abundance that we can grow here in the Pacific NorthWest. We are so very lucky to live here and have so much we can share with those around us. June in the garden reminds me that life is good.

Happy Gardening,

Dianna Wiklund 

 Everyone is Welcome

We’re so grateful for our volunteers! Feel free to join us and explore opportunities to grow, glean, or help remotely. Just let us know what interests you, and we’d love to get you involved!

Volunteer Sign Up

 Thank you FBG Community!