Bring On the Heat: What's Thriving in My Seattle Kitchen Garden in Early June

Jackie
1 day ago
6 min read

A walk through what is in full bloom and full swing in my Seattle kitchen garden here in Phinney Ridge, now that summer has finally shown up.

It is June 2 in Phinney Ridge, and it already feels like summer. The light is long, the soil is warm, and after a dry, warm spring, with record low rain through May, the whole garden seems to have decided to grow all at once. This is my favorite stretch of the year. So instead of a how-to today, here is a walk through what is actually thriving in my Seattle kitchen garden right now, bed by bed, the things that are in full bloom or close to it in early June.

The berry beds are the stars right now

The berries are doing the most this month. I grow gooseberries, blueberries, and red currants together in one bed, which looks tidy but is a bit of a puzzle, because they do not all want the same thing. Feeding them well at the same time is hard when each one has different needs, and I am still working that out. It takes a village to figure these things out, and most of what I know came from getting it wrong first.

A few of the others surprised me. The goji berries grow really well here in Seattle, which I honestly did not expect. And the aronia berries are the quiet overachiever of the bunch. Aronia is known for being one of the highest berries around for antioxidants, which is reason enough to give it a corner, even if you mostly cook them down rather than eat them by the handful.

Then there are the grapes, and the grapes are a lesson. My white Interlaken grapes grow beautifully, mostly all over my neighbor's side of the fence, and every year they get right to the point of being ready. Then in one single night the rats or the mice or whatever else is out there finishes the entire crop. I have harvested exactly zero grapes. At this point I am thinking about pulling the vine out and putting in something I can actually get to eat before the critters do. There is no shame in replacing a plant that is feeding everyone but you.

Cluster of unripe green blueberries forming on a blueberry bush in a Seattle kitchen garden in early June. — *The blueberries are setting fruit now, still pale and green, with weeks to go before they turn.*

Strand of unripe green currants hanging from a red currant bush in early summer. — *The red currants are hanging in their little green strings, not red yet but well on their way.*

Cluster of unripe green aronia berries on a chokeberry shrub growing against a gray fence. — *The aronia berries are forming in tight clusters, green for now and headed toward dark purple by late summer.*

The white picket fence is becoming a wildflower fence

This one is still in progress, and I am learning as I go. I have a white picket fence running between the houses, and a while back I saw a picture of one of these fences buried in wildflowers and decided that was exactly what I wanted. It is curb appeal, plain and simple, and it photographs beautifully. So I started scattering and setting out wildflowers along it, and they are coming in now. Right now it is mostly poppies and calendula, which both give that loose cottage look without much fuss.

If you want the same picket-fence-in-bloom look here in the Pacific Northwest, the easygoing annuals are your friends. Alongside poppies and calendula, cosmos, bachelor's buttons, and love-in-a-mist all reseed happily and give you that tall, airy, slightly wild front. They are forgiving, they are cheap from seed, and they fill in fast. I would keep it to a handful of varieties rather than a full meadow mix, because a few things repeated reads as intentional, and a meadow mix can read as messy.

White picket fence lined with poppies and wildflowers along a wood-chip path in a Seattle kitchen garden. — *The white picket fence is filling in with poppies and wildflowers, exactly the look I was after.*

A children's garden on the sidewalk

I built a small garden out on my sidewalk, and the intention behind it is simple. I want the neighborhood kids to stop, nibble something, get curious, and maybe learn a little about where food actually comes from. I grew up in a village in Germany where growing food was part of school, every single year, and I have never stopped believing that every child should know how to do this. A sidewalk garden is a small way to put that belief somewhere a kid can reach it. If one of them pulls something off and eats it on the spot, that is the whole point.

Round container garden on a sidewalk densely planted with lettuce, green onions, parsley, and leafy greens. — *The sidewalk children's garden, packed with lettuce, radishes, and strawberries a kid can pick and nibble right where they stand.*

The heat lovers are finally happy

Now that the warm weather is here, the heat lovers can go to work. In my garden that means peppers, eggplants, tomatoes, and ground cherries, and they all want roughly the same three things.

First, sun, and a lot of it. Give them the sunniest spot you have, at least six hours and more if you can manage it. They will not complain about too much sun in a Seattle summer. Second, rich soil. I fill my beds with compost, good soil, and worm castings, and these crops in particular reward that heavy feeding. Thin, tired soil gives you thin, tired plants. Third, steady water. Water deeply and less often rather than a little splash every day, so the roots chase the moisture down instead of sitting near the surface. Uneven watering is what gives you split tomatoes and unhappy peppers.

Ground cherries are the one I would tell a beginner to try this year. They love the heat, they sprawl without much help, and they drop their little husked fruit on the ground when they are ready, which makes harvest almost foolproof. They are sweet, they are a bit unusual, and they are hard to mess up.

Young ground cherry plant in dark soil with a green papery husk forming. — *A ground cherry already forming its first papery husk, the easiest of these to grow.*

Young cherry tomato plant with feathery green foliage growing in a greenhouse. — *A cherry tomato getting established, putting on its feathery summer growth.*

Young eggplant plant with broad green leaves and purple-tinged veins growing in a greenhouse. — *An eggplant unfolding its big purple-veined leaves and warming up for the season.*

The tools I actually reach for

A short, honest list beats a long one, so here are the five I genuinely reach for every time I walk out the door.

My hand trowel does most of the small work, the digging, the transplanting, the hundred little jobs a bed needs, and if I could keep only one tool it would be this one. My bypass pruners come a close second, because once the garden is growing they are in my hand constantly for harvesting, snipping herbs, and tidying as I go. For planting I use a simple wooden dibber to make a clean hole to drop a seedling or a few seeds into, which sounds fussy until you have done a whole tray and your hands thank you. My cute galvanized watering can (IKEA) with the rose on the spout is for the gentle work, watering seedlings and young transplants without blasting them out of the soil. And a little handheld pump sprayer rounds it out, for a fine mist on seedlings and a soft soak in the spots where the can is too much.

If you would rather have someone set the whole thing up for you, the beds, the plan, the planting, and a care schedule you can actually keep, that is what the Executive Kitchen Garden System is for. I do the planning so you are left with one or two simple tasks a day instead of a wall of decisions. You can read about it on the website if that sounds like your kind of summer.

https://www.palatinogardenadventures.com/executive-kitchen-garden-system

One last thing before you head back outside

Summer in the garden is not only about doing more. Sometimes the smartest move in June is to let the warm beds do their work and to actually sit down in the middle of all that growth. I am writing more about that idea, about rest and why it is not the opposite of getting things done, in a piece coming to my LinkedIn newsletter in July. For now, go enjoy the long evenings.

Happy summer gardening. Let me know if you need help, I am here for you.

Jackie

Palatino Garden Adventures

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