Late June means “summer” everywhere across America, and for most of us, summer gardens are in full swing already. In fact, most farmers have moved onto starting seed for fall and winter gardens. But if you’ve yet to get everything into the ground for whatever reason (and I’m frequently besieged by such reasons) it’s not too late. There are still lots of crops you can plant right now to yield a decent summer harvest. As a general rule, you’ll be skipping spring crops like peas, strawberries, bok choy, and spinach—it’s too hot for them. Instead, focus on buying really good-sized, established starts and succession planting.
Tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants
Luckily, it’s not too late to get these crown jewels into the ground, but that time is fast approaching. Peppers, in particular, need a long time to fruit, so only purchase well-established, good-sized plants, such as those in gallon-sized pots. While tomatoes don’t need as much time, I’d still focus on gallon-sized starts, and make sure plant them deep on a cloudy day or at sunset, so they have a little time to recover before being blasted by the full sun. If you can protect them from the sun with some shade for the first day, that’s even better. Eggplants, which tend to fruit later in summer, are fine to purchase in four-inch pots.
Lettuce, radishes, scallions, beets, and kohlrabi
These are succession crops and as such, they are fine to plant all summer long, as they are harvestable quickly (in under sixty days). When planting lettuce, look for packages that say “bolt resistant” or “heat resistant.” Also consider shadier spots for your lettuce.
Carrots
It’s not too late to plant carrots, but they’ll be hard to germinate, since they require constant moisture to do so. It may be worth getting starts at the garden center so you’ll have some to harvest come fall. If you do pick up starts, remember to separate them by hand before planting them a few inches apart.
Beans, pumpkins, squash, melon and cucumbers
Do not be deceived, this is actually the perfect, peak time to plant all of these vegetables. Beans can still be direct sowed (seeded directly in your garden), but pumpkins, squash, melon, and cucumbers should be purchased as starts.
Corn
It’s last call for corn, and if you’re going to plant it, buy starts. Even though corn is easy to germinate (and it grows quickly), you’re running out of roadway. The long-held saying, “knee high by Fourth of July” remains because if the corn hasn’t grown that much by early July, it simply won’t grow tall and husky enough by the time it needs to form ears, resulting in tiny, underdeveloped corn ears.
Flowers
It’s a great idea to think about late-season flowers. You can still direct seed zinnias, sunflowers, and other sturdy, tall flowers. There's still time to plant cosmos and salvia starts for this summer. It’s a great time to get perennials at the garden center and plant them.
Focus on fall
It’s a hard transition to make, but soon, you’ll be planting fall succession crops like broccoli and cauliflower again, and perhaps a fall succession of peas. So even if you’ve missed out on summer, look ahead instead and get seeds started in trays outside for planting out come late summer.