June is National Pollinator Month!! June 6th – National Gardening Exercise Day June 7th – World Food Safety Day June 9th@ 5:30pm - 4H Garden Club call our office if you are interested in joining! June 13th @ 7pm - Beekeepers Meeting June 13th - National Weed Your Garden Day June 17th –
National Eat Your Vegetables Day Saturdays @ 8am - Noon – Alexander County Farmers Market
Image is of the Alexander 4-H Garden Club members working on the pollinator garden that is located at the Taylorsville Community Garden. For more information on the community garden please see the article in this newsletter.
July Garden Calendar
Fertilizing
We recommend giving landscape plants a second (last) feeding of fertilizer.
Planting
Begin your fall vegetable garden this month, planting beans, carrots, Brussel sprouts, collards and tomatoes
Start broccoli, cabbage and cauliflower plants in peat pots to transplant into the vegetable garden in
mid-August
Re-pot overgrown houseplants
Take semi-hardwood cuttings of azaleas, holly, rhododendron, etc.
Divide and transplant your iris and daylilies (late this month through September)
Community Garden Bed Rentals! If you don’t know already, Taylorsville has a community garden right in town! Beds are rented for the season at $10 a bed. Our regular raised beds are 3ft x 16ft and we have 1 of those left for the season! Also available are 5 taller, metal raised beds that are 3ft x 6ft for those with
disabilities or can’t work as well in a lower bed. If you are interested in renting a bed, please call our office at 828-632-4451.
BOLOs (Be On The Lookout)....
Month-by-month lists of common plant diseases, pests, and other problems you may encounter in North Carolina yards and gardens. Straight from our PDIC (Plant Disease & Insect Clinic) entomologists and pathologists!
Orange rust has arrived with a vengeance this year and unfortunately symptoms are not always as obvious as on the wild blackberry pictured above. For those not as familiar with the disease, orange rust is caused by two fungal pathogens that cause systemic infection throughout the blackberry. While the telltale sign of this disease are bright orange pustules called aecia on the leaf underside, other signs and symptoms indicative of systemic infection include:
Be scouting for bagworms now as they are emerging from their bags. Early June is a perfect time to spray for them (if you have scouted and have seen them). Right now, they are small caterpillars and are very susceptible to pesticides. Use a pyrethroid, such as permethrin or bifenthrin because this type of pesticide has longer residual life then most other insecticides. These pesticides are readily available at most garden centers and box stores. Be sure to spray early in the morning or late in the evening when our pollinators are not our foraging. As these are very potent pesticides, they would be very harmful to our pollinators if they are not
used properly. Please read and follow all label instructions before use. To read more about bagworms click the following link: https://content.ces.ncsu.edu/bagworms
Here are a few more articles that you may find helpful on Japanese Beetles and June Bugs:
NC State University and N.C. A&T State University work in tandem, along with federal, state and local
governments, to form a strategic partnership called N.C. Cooperative Extension.
