What I’m Still Planting in My Garden in July – Michigan Zone 6a

Come with me while I plant out more seedlings & seeds! It’s the beginning of July so i’m putting some last minute seedlings in and some cooler weather crops. I’ll be succession sowing some of the cooler crops until end of August probably. They’re in a nice shady spot in the garden so they shouldn’t bolt too quickly in the summer heat! Are you still planting? Let me know in the comments what you start in July!

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What I planted:
Kentucky Wonder Green Beans
Maxibel Filet Bush Bean Seeds
Contender Bush Bean Seeds
Carnival Blend Carrot Seeds
Marketmore Cucumber
Homemade Pickles Cucumber
Table King Acorn Winter Squash Seeds
Waltham Butternut Winter Squash Seeds
Bloomsdale Spinach Seeds Organic, Heirloom
Vivian Romaine Lettuce Seeds
Bouquet Dill Seeds
Long Standing Santo Cilantro/Coriander Seeds Organic, Heirloom
Fiesta Blend Nasturtium Seeds
Black Seeded Simpson Leaf Lettuce Seeds

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Welcome back to More Than Gardening. It is a beautiful morning here in Michigan. It’s super sunny. The sun is really starting to hit kind of like the back half of the garden right now. So, it’s only a matter of time before the entire garden is beating down with sun, which means I need to act really quickly this morning to get some of these chores done. I have to pull all of the broccoli plants out of those beds that I just harvested from last week. I was going to do something with the greens. I was going to eat them. They’re destroyed by cabbage worms. I’m not going to lie. The cabbage worms showed up like literally the day after I harvested. And now they’re just like eaten to bits. And I think they’re better for the compost pile than in the kitchen. So that’s what I’m going to be doing with those. The romaine lettuce I think is done. I did a harvest this morning. And I already put new seeds in a few weeks ago and I’m going to lay some more seeds today, but I think the existing plants are pretty much bolting. So I’m going to pull those too. And then in all of those beds where I’m pulling things from, I’m going to lay some more seeds down. And then I’ve got a ton of seedlings that I need to get planted because if you remember back a couple weeks ago, I started some seeds on my deck as backup because the roly pololies were like destroying all of my seedlings like my cucumbers, my cantaloupe, some of my beans, and I think that’s it. Maybe some of my squash, too. So, I started some seeds as backup. I want to get some of those in the garden today, too. And then I need to water everything. I usually don’t water my garden a whole lot because we get so much rain here in Michigan, especially this time of year, but it’s been 4 days, maybe 5 days since we’ve had a really good heavy rain. My peppers are looking a little wilty. My tomato leaves are starting to curl. And when I put my finger in the soil about 2 in down, it’s quite dry, which means they’re they’re in need of some water. It’s also going to get really hot today. It’s already close to 80°. It’s going to be in the mid 80s today. mid 80s tomorrow. The day after, I think the two days after that it’s going to be in the 90s and then I think after that we finally get some rain. So, they definitely need to get watered today as well. So, a lot going on. Let’s just get started. I want to get seedlings in first because it’s been at the top of my list for weeks now and I don’t want to end up getting like burnt out or something and not getting it to to it today. It’s kind of priority number one. Along this cattle panel, I planted cantaloupe. And I’ve only got three seedlings out of I don’t know, maybe six that I attempted to plant that are actually doing something. So, I’ve got this six cell right here where there’s I mean, this one’s got two. I need to thin it, but basically six more plants. So, I want to put thinking one more over here. Just going to dig a little spot. And I did a little pro tip. If you’re going to be transplanting seedlings, it’s really good to water them the night before or the morning of just to make that root ball and that cell kind of I want to say solidify, but I guess solidify like kind of bunch all together. That way when you pop them out, it kind of stays as a unit rather than a bunch of dry soil just like falling apart. So I did water these earlier this morning. Then I’m just digging a little hole. I’m going to put some worm castings in for nutrients. And then I’m just going to pull this one up. And then you can see the root ball. What I mean about it all kind of sticking together and this crazy looking root that is just it’s silly. It’s just hanging. But yeah, you can see everything is just sticking together rather than falling apart. So, I’m going to go into this little bed here, dig my hole, and just place it and cross my fingers and say a prayer that the roly polies just leave my seedlings alone this time. If they get to them at this point in the season, like, I don’t know. I’m so over it. It’s going to like really make me mad. But, what are you going to do? I might lay I really don’t like putting anything in the garden, but a lot of people have been telling me lately that like de or sluggo would work. So, I might put a little bit of sluggo around these seedlings later. We’ll see. Maybe I’ll give them a day or two to see if they even get a whole lot of pest pressure and then make the decision based on that. But, there’s four here. I think I’m just going to leave that and put these other ones on the other side cuz that other side of the cattle panel only had one seedling survive. So, it it definitely needs more than this side does. This is the one here that Oh, you know what? There’s another one coming up next to it. Needs to be pulled. There’s this little one. You would literally never be able to see this one. It got absolutely destroyed early on. But I’ve got a weed there. I’ve got space here. We’ll go one, two, three. How many do I have? I’ve got four good ones. So, one, two, three. And then I’m going to pull this little shrimpy out and go the last one here again just like that other side. Little worm castings. And honestly, it is July 2nd. This is way later in the season than I would like it to be to be starting cantaloupe. However, these cantaloupe I’ll leave the what’s it called? Oh my gosh, my brain. I will leave the variety like a link to everything I’m planting in the description below. Caleb shouldn’t take too long to grow. I do think there’s still time left in the season, but ideally by July 2nd, I mean these plants would be like up to here on the trellis probably. So, it kind of sucks that I’m putting seedlings in, but this year has been such a challenge. Like, I can’t even I’m not complaining today. I complain in like every video about how bad this year has been. I’m not going to do that in this one. I’m just going to be happy that I actually got some seedlings germinated this late. I’ve got seedlings to plant. And that’s what I’m going to do. Started an entire six cell of pickling cucumbers. And then kind of I want to say overnight, but like really randomly these all started really picking up the pace and outpacing the roly polies. These two right here are really strong. And then there’s a few in here that look good, too. So, I don’t know that I need all six of these, but I love pickles. So, I’m going to go ahead and at least put some of these in that way. I don’t know. I don’t know. I really don’t need them, I think. But like, what am I going to do? These seedlings are so cute and they look so good. Like, I can’t just not plant them. So maybe I got a little ahead of myself worrying about these ones when I started these seedlings, but rather have extra than not enough. So I’m just going to put maybe I’ll just do two. I’ve got one, two, three, four, five, six. It’ll be seven if I put two down. Can’t really have enough pickles. Well, that’s a lie. We still have probably two or three rows in our canry on our canning shelves of pickles from last year. Probably still have like over 20 jars of pickles from last year. But you know what? I want more. So, I’m just going to keep on planting these. I’m just going to do two more here. And then maybe that’s it. This side over here is kind of the same deal where I didn’t think they were doing good and now they are. I’ve got two here that really need to be thinned down to one. So, I’m going to pull that. And then I’ve got two here again that need to be thinned. So, what am I left with? Five. And I’ve got six more. Maybe wasn’t necessary, but that’s okay. And these ones are a slicing cucumber. the market more variety. I love these just for like sandwiches and snacking and salads. And honestly, this is one I’m not worried about getting started so late because even in July, you could start these from seeds. If you saw the latest Epic Gardening YouTube video, I was very fortunate and very lucky to be featured in that. And if you’re finding my channel through that video, welcome. I hope I hope this video doesn’t disappoint you if this is the first one you’re seeing. But anyways, in that video, I got to talk about the seeds that I like to start in July or seeds that you can start in July in zone 6A. And this specific cucumber variety was one of those because it’s like a 60-day seed to maturity type of deal. So, it really doesn’t take long at all. Like, you can start the seeds in July. Like, literal seeds, not just seedlings like I’m doing. You can start them all the way down from seeds and you can be harvesting in September. I mean, the first frost isn’t until like mid October. So, this is one that there’s still plenty of time left in the season to get in the ground, whether it be seedling like I’m doing or seed. So, I’m not stressed about the timing of this one. I am stressed about how many plants I have because I’m looking now and I’m just being realistic now. I have seven. I want to do one more here, but I’ve already got this pepper plant that is being completely shaded out by tomatillos. This bed I have a lot of regrets on, which I’ll probably talk about more in my next video or in my next tour, my July tour. I’ll probably talk about this bed overall and just I don’t know. It’s kind of one of my big regrets from this season. But I’ll save that negativity for another day. For now, I think I am going to do just one more here. And I’m going grab this nice strong seedling like this one. Put it in here. Back fill. And then like I said for the other ones. Oh, there’s a dead bug on me. Lovely. Um, I will water these in. This bed has a lot going on. I’ve got nesters on the outside. Butternut squash here, pumpkins, lofah, Japanese cucumbers, bush beans, bush bean, zenyas, but I’ve got a gap here, which needs something. So, I’ve got a lot of extra bush bean seedlings. And even though this bed is like covered in bush beans, I mean, like literally all of these, I’m gonna do more because green beans are my one of my favorite vegetables. And you can’t really have enough. I canned a ton of green beans last year. We still have more this year. They’re okay. I don’t really love canned green beans. I’m a little bit regretting canning so many last year. I wish I would have froze some of them because I think this year I’m going to freeze them. And then we also we just got a freeze dryer and I don’t really know enough about freeze drying yet. I need to figure it out. But I’m wondering if green beans can be freeze-dried because maybe that would be another good way to store them. But regardless, you can’t have enough green beans. I just put three plants in a gap here. And then I’m thinking can probably fit maybe two more here. You can usually space bush beans pretty close. Green beans in general, they don’t need it’s got like more like shallower roots. They don’t really go crazy like a tomato where you want a lot of space in between. almost like 2 ft. Green beans, you can kind of get away with a few inches and be fine. So, that’s what I’m going to do. Woo! Here. And just get these into these gaps. Hope they take. That was an extra one I had to thin. Lay this easy straw. And yeah, I think that’ll be good. I need to get this bed cleaned up and flipped now. Like I said in the beginning of the video, it would be nice. Oh my gosh, this is way Holy canoli. Okay. Um, like I said, it would be nice if I took these leaves off and cooked them up and use them in soups and stews and all those things people use broccoli leaves for, but I just like straight up I do not have the time. Like I got to get these flipped. I got to get a ton more seeds in. I have to check on my bees today. I have just I’ve just got enough going on and that’s all I’m going to say. I don’t have the time to do this. So, I’m just going to put these in the compost pile. Also, like this one’s not too bad, but like this one back here, if I can Jeez, these are like really in there. This one here, let me get closer so you can see, is crazy with the cabbage worms. I mean, there are so many holes in these leaves. Like, I don’t want to eat these. They’re just gross. So, these are going to go into the compost bin. And I’ve also got kale here, too, which I never got to harvesting, and they’re getting eaten, too. So, I’m going to pull them, which is sad cuz I feel like that was a little bit of a waste. But, I don’t know. I know there’s things you can do to get rid of the cabbage worms. My what I was going to do when I planted these beds out was I was going to net them at the first sign of cabbage moths, you know, those little white moths that fly around, but they never showed up. Like, they literally never showed up. And then it was like time to harvest these and they still weren’t here. So, I never got the netting. And then it was like the day after I harvested them, they started flying around. By that point, I’m like, am I really going to net these just to like maybe use the greens and and get some kale, which I don’t know. It just it felt like a big to-do, so I just didn’t do it. So, I’m just going to pull these out. I was able to harvest a few side shoots off of these broccoli plants here and there. I know that’s like such a big thing of like once you harvest the head of broccoli, no, you’re not going to get another big head, but you should depending on the variety you’re growing. This is a Bellstar variety and they are known for side shoots, so I got a few here and there, but I’m going to be honest, like they weren’t anything to really celebrate. I mean, this one’s this one’s putting on a few more, but I don’t Whoa. The cabbage goodness. The cabbage moths are just They’re not worth it to me. I’m not ready to fight this fight. I’ve got too many other crops to worry about. So, these got to come out. All right. In this first bed, I’m going with the carnival blend. This is like a rainbow carrot from Botanical Centress. I’ll leave a link in the description. That way, if you want to grow these, too, which if you’re in a similar zone to me, you have plenty of time. You can literally plant these until like late July. And the key to get carrots germinated, cuz they can kind of be a pain. And people tend to give up on carrots because of this, is they need to stay really moist the entire time they’re germinating. And this easy straw is starting to annoy me because I have so much in here. Oh, wow. Oh, okay. I don’t like bugs. This is I’m very happy to see this, but I’m actually squirming right now. There’s a worm. If you don’t like worms, fast forward. Here’s your warning. Is this in frame? I hope so. little wormy friend, which means this soil is nice and healthy. Now, I’m going to put you back. Worms are great. Means there’s a lot of nutrients in here. They’re I hate that I’m saying this on the internet, but the worm pooping is fertilizing your garden. If you use worm castings like I do, that’s literally what it is. So, it’s a nice natural fertilizer. Now, what I want to do 6 by3 I need to do I’m going to do three rows of carrots. Yeah. Which means what I like to do for carrots I find it easiest I need to get rid of some of this straw. It’s in my way. Is just dig a little bit of like a trench we’ll call it. And then sprinkle the seeds in this whole line. And then cover these back up with a little bit of that straw. And then I’ll water them in. And the key is keeping the carrots moist the entire time they’re germinating. It’s really best to get these seeds down before it’s going to rain, which it’s not going to rain for a few days here, which means I’m going to have to be watering these almost every day, which kind of blows, but it’s the way it goes. These seeds are really tiny, and I’ll thin these later. But I just like to go down the line and kind of just sprinkle going down the line and sprinkling these in. Need more seeds. These seed packets sure don’t have a lot, but I mean this is a huge bed. It’s 6×3. These like a/4 inch depth. So, obviously these like trenches that I dug are a lot deeper than that, but I’m only going to sprinkle on enough soil and easy straw to cover them by like a quarter inch. And then that should be that should be good. I’m going to cover this up just gently with like a tiny layer of soil and straw. When I’m done, I’m going to come through here and just drench this bed in water to hopefully get some things going. But I think that’s good for that one. I’m going to throw a little bit of romaine lettuce in here. This is the Vivian Roma lettuce variety from Botanical Interest or Epic Gardening. This has been like the breakout crop of the year. Honestly, it has produced so well. I think in the last video I posted, I was harvesting it and then this morning I did another harvest and I just pulled it. So, I basically harvested it once a week, sometimes twice a week from the end of May to the first week of July. So, for about five weeks straight, which is really good for lettuce. I mean, that is not one where you just like like iceberg lettuce. I don’t like growing because you get one head and that’s pretty much it. Where Roma I was able to harvest the outside leaves all season like all five weeks and then it just kept growing back. So I’m definitely doing more of this. And this is one that I’m going to plant now. And honestly you could keep planting through August. It’s a great one to plant in August because it does well in the cold. It likes a little crispier. So, well into fall, you could harvest it. I’ll probably sew these ones now. And I’m willing to bet I’ll probably sew more seeds in August, too, because it’s just that good. I’m going to get these seeds similar. I’m going to lose this glove so I can actually be precise. Similar to the carrots. Just going to sprinkle just a couple of seeds. I’ll thin these once they pop up. Go some here. Here. Here. here. I’m just going to put a few bunches everywhere. And then cover them just a little bit. They like about an eighth inch. So, not really buried. So, I’m just going to sprinkle this straw back on top. Probably just put it all on top, I guess. And that should be enough for the Roma. Again, once I’m done planting out that back bed, I’m going to water this entire garden. So, these will all get watered and then I’ll water these pretty much every day until they sprout unless it rains. I just worked this bed a little bit. I made like six different trenches and I laid worm castings. I’m looking at what I have and I think spinach needs to go first. Then this black seedated Simpson. I’m gonna go dill back here, cilantro here, and then I also have three three ntoriums. You can see the roots coming through. These are ntoriums that I had seed started with those other backups that I was going to put in the other bed, but there’s no room for them. So, I’m going to put them in here. Maybe I’ll do them along this front edge. I think that would actually be really, really pretty. Let’s do that. This is truly me winging it. I usually am much more organized when I’m planting. Everything always has a plan. But this is my dabble at chaos gardening. I guess a little bit is I’m just going to put three ntoriums here. And I dug these trenches cuz I thought I was going to be doing seeds in here. I thought I was going to lay the seeds and drop the dirt. So I don’t have much soil to work with to bury these. But that’s okay. It’s going to be fine. And then this last one here. I guess I’ll stand in here to My gosh, this soil is like rock hard. I really should have um like tilled pretty much this whole thing and got it nice and loose. But oh well, that’s the way it is. So that’ll be cute. That’ll be nice to have some nersiums there. And then I’ll go let’s see spinach. What’s my spacing again? like every six inches. Just going to do there. Just going to do a little row and then I’ll thin them later. And that’s my one row of spinach. And then I want to do the next one here. So it’s a bit closer here. And I usually only do spinach and grow bags. So we’re going to see if I regret this cuz the grow bags usually like protect them from any sort of like pest and roly polies. But oh well. Well, these are surface to 8 in. So, I’m just going to sprinkle these. Not going to make the holes any deeper. And then I’ll thin these later. And I’m going to do cilantro in here. I like to do cilantro like all year so I always have fresh to make fresh salsa. Especially like tomatoes for canning are usually ready in like August. So, it’s good to have cilantro starting in July and August. So, I actually have some for when I can up my salsa with all those tomatoes. So, that’s good there. And then I’m going to do just a little bit of dill in here, too. This is actually going to be a cute little bed. Hopefully, I get good germination. It’s really going to rely on me actually getting out here and watering, which I haven’t had to water this garden in so long because it’s we’ve gotten rain frequently. But now that I’ve got seeds that need to sprout, I definitely need to do better at watering. And I’ve got all this straw. Trying to decide if I want to put this back in the bed. I think we can just sprinkle a little bit. I don’t want to bury these seeds too much. But just going to sprinkle some of this in. I think that’s good. I’ll compost the rest. And yeah, I think that’s it. Wow, I’m tired now. That was good. We got a lot of seeds in. Got a lot of seedlings in the garden. I’m looking around. It’s getting really hot right now and things are starting to wilt. So, I need to get to watering. I won’t bore you with that task. Um, if I can give any tips on watering, don’t water your actual plants. water their roots. Especially when it’s sunny out, it’s best to water early in the morning. That way, you’re not frying your plants because if you were to get leaves and like the actual plant wet with water and then the sun hits them, they’re going to sizzle. So, like right now, it’s like 80 something. It’s probably like noon. Not the best time to water, but I’m going to water the roots, so that will be fine. So, I guess moral of the story is water in the morning. And then always when you water, water the roots of the plants. You don’t want to get the actual leaves and all that wet. You just want to get the roots nice and moist. So, I’m going to come through here with my hose, water all these seedlings in, water the rest of the garden, and then yeah, I think that’s it for today. So, hope you enjoyed this little this little planting vlog, little morning in my garden. Let me know what you think in the comments. Leave a like if you like this. If you want to see more gardening content, make sure to subscribe to my channel. Follow me on Instagram and Tik Tok. I’ll leave those links in the description. Thank you so much for watching and coming along with me this morning and I will see you in the next