"What is so rare as a day in June?" A quote by James Russell Lowell says it all. June is the month of weddings, graduations, class reunions, and in our town, opening of the Farmers Market this year on Father’s Day and Homecoming Day on the last Saturday of the month. Many of these activities take place in June because the weather is conducive to lingering in the outdoors with family and friends enjoying the celebration and the warm sunshine and gentle breezes.
By June most of the main vegetable plantings are in the ground and many gardeners are enjoying their first crops of lettuce, spinach, arugula and sugar snap peas. Rhubarb and asparagus came in early because of the warm April weather. The flowering trees and shrubs have been particularly lush this year with all the rain we had early in the spring. Gardeners have been adding annual plants to their perennial borders and window boxes. We’ve been in the swing of lawn cutting and regular outdoor work, so it’s time to celebrate joyful events as a reward.
School children have a hard time concentrating on classes and are looking forward to the end of the school year with its lazy days of summer. I liked school and my teachers, but can remember the feeling of euphoria when the last day came in June and we were free to be outdoors all day and play with our friends. We would go outside early in the morning and the only thing that would interrupt our play was a call in for lunch or supper. As long as it was light outside, or, until the streetlights came on, we were outdoors. Even on rainy days we played on the porch. Having no air conditioning in those days, in the hot weather we played in the cellar with a regular set up of furniture and games to keep us busy. I look back on the days of my youth where we had no television, video games, or any of the technological entertainment of today and think how lucky we were to be able to create games, with our own sets of rules—settling disputes ourselves and still remaining friends with all the kids and looking forward to what we could do tomorrow.
Because of this love of the outdoors, climbing trees looking for birds’ nests, picking wild raspberries that grew along the roadsides, roller skating on neighborhood sidewalks and playing baseball, boys and girls together, it follows that I love to spend as much times as possible outdoors.
When I visit my sister or any of my children we sit outside in the yard so that we don’t miss a bit of what is going on with each other’s garden or which birds have built nests in the birdhouses or been to the feeders. My family all have vegetable gardens and often know what each is looking to plant this year. As a result, my daughter found shallots and ‘Bright Lights’ Swiss chard plants that she knew I was looking for and gave them to me for my garden, and I found hay at a local farm for her to use to edge her garden. She has created an entirely new garden in the yard of the home her family just moved into last summer. It has been a lot of work, but I’m sure it will have many creative touches because of her artistic ability.
Gardeners are always willing to share, be it their extra seedlings, plants or bounty when it comes in. Swapping seeds and plants that you have particularly enjoyed is a good feeling and when you’ve heard that someone has divided a plant you’ve given and passed it on to friends, it’s a double bonus. There’s never a lack of communication from one gardener to another, whether on to get rid of an animal that is burrowing into your yard, or which creature ate off all the new broccoli shoots or perennials that flourish in the shade.
Many of the June festivities take place outdoors and we can be ready for a day off from yard work to attend a graduation, barbeque, golf game or day at the beach. There’s something for everyone in June.
