What Vegetable Seeds Can I Sow In June In The UK?

Vegetable Seeds To Sow In June

Gardening isn’t a one-hit-wonder. We can sow seeds most months of the year .. no, correction, we can sow seeds every month of the year. Here’s my List of Vegetable Seeds To Sow In June

Many gardeners, especially newbies, don’t understand this, so now that we are halfway through the year I have written a post on what we can sow in June. It’s not exhaustive, there’s so much we can sow, perhaps close to a hundred seed types from around the world. But I’ve tried to mention most of the usual ones suitable for sowing in the UK in June. But bear in mind that even in the UK we have a range of climates and microclimates and my list suits my garden on the south coast of Devon. Most of the UK will not find the need to deviate very much from my suggestions in June, though may have to in other months as the seasons progress.

Keep an eye on this page as I will be adding more veg for a June sowing in the next few weeks.

Asparagus Peas

Alphabetically this is number one, though having grown it once I decided I din’t like the flavour and will not grow it again in the veg garden. But the flowers are beautiful and I am sowing it in the flower garden.

Basil

Perfect for pizza toppings, Basil oil and even as a salad additive. I grow in pots and keep near the kitchen door.

Beans

Fine beans, French beans, Safari beans, Runner beans, Barlotti beans .. there are plenty of beans that can be sown in June that will crop well this year. I especially like the fine beans/french beans as they are a great veg with so many main dishes and my surplus go into pickles.

Beetroot

Beetroot, either the traditional varieties such as Boltardy, or the rainbow varieties can be sown in June.

Or why not give Cheltenham Beet a try. These are not the usual globe shaped roots but grow long tapered roots more like a parsnip shape than the traditional beetroot.

As with most of the other crops here a successional sowing approach is the answer with beet.

Bok choi

This is an oriental veg rather like Pak choi. Great for stir fries or eating fresh.

Broccoli including White And Purple Sprouting Broccoli

June, especially early June, is an excellent time to sow this quick maturing crop. The sprouting varieties produce “spears” in succession up the top of the stem over several weeks. And as the name suggests they are either white or purple in colour. Personally I find the purple varieties a little stronger and prefer the white versions.

Cabbage

There are several varieties of cabbage that can be sown in early June. Then id leave it until July.

Which will you sow?

Calabrese

What’s the difference between Broccoli and Calabrese people ask. Not a lot is my answer. Calabrese is just the form of broccoli favoured by the people in Calabria. Both broccoli and calabrese are the tight, single headed, forms of the sprouting variant.

Carrots

I know many people that don’t bother to sow carrots before June. By doing this its possible to double, or treble crop, land each year. A typical rotation would be early spring planted lettuce, (planted from plugs or blocks in March), harvested in May. This Is then followed by carrots drilled or sown in June. This is then followed by things like kohlrabi, endive, pak choi, swiss chard, salad leaves etc that can be harvested in late autumn. crops such as spring onions can also be sown for early harvest next spring.

To help prevent carrot fly you can cover the crop with fleece, which lets light, air and water in but keeps carrot fly out.

Celeriac

Beautiful with potatoes in a mash or roast like other roots. Or use it as in the classic French Sauce rémoulade .. which beats a simple sauce tartare every time in my opinion.

Chinese Cabbage

Direct drilled in the soil or started in blocks can both be successful. If you decide on blocks you need to be careful when transplanting, that they don’t get a check, or they could bolt. But even if they run to seed (bolt) they can be eaten in flower.

Coriander

Another one to grow in pots or to you can start in plugs for transplanting or even direct drill. The first time I grew it outside I drilled half an acre for an Indian client. It was ready very quickly and is, of course, the perfect accompaniment to curries and other hot spicy dishes. We also eat it in salads.

Courgettes, Marrows, Pumpkin and Squash

Although the fruit are different in size, shape and texture I treat these as one plant. They can all be sown in June and, provided they are given sufficient feed and water will crop very well this year. Remember it’s a long time between early June and Halloween at the end of October. Plenty of time to grow some big pumpkins.

Cucumbers

Cues love the two Hs … heat and humidity. amd most years the warmth is still on the increase in June and beyond. So sowing cues in June makes a lot of sense provided you have a space for them in a greenhouse, tunnel, or at a push outdoors.

Endive, Chicory and Radicchio

Here’s another group of plants likely to cause a bit of an argument. All are bitter tasting but the name seems to depend on which side of the Atlantic you live .. and even within Europe we mix and muddle them together. So go by what it says =on th packet and at least two of you will be right .. maybe.

Fennel

Beautiful thinly sliced in salads or for those of us that can get fish straight off the boat eat it with various white fish, It can also be eaten with pork, chicken and lamb dishes. And don’t forget its not just that creamy white bulb that’s edible, the leaves eat well as well.

Garlic Chives

Imagine one plant that captures the flavour and essence of two others. Delicious and June is a good time to sow this delight.

Kohlrabi

Kohlrabi comes in light green or purple … but what is it? The name translates as turnip cabbage and it’s from the cabbage (brassica) family. The flavour is a sort of mild sweet flavour. It can be roasted, steamed or stir fried. Worth a punt?

Land Cress

Land Cress is suitable for a cut and come again cropping. It’s ready to eat 7-8 weeks after sowing and is an alternative for watercress (see later). Later sowings (August-September) can be overwintered in some areas.

Land Cress prefers a little shade and though it doesn’t want as much water as Watercress it does prefer it moist and cool. It’s often harvested right up into November .. or sometimes later if you use fleece to protect it.

Leeks

It’s far too late to sow most maincrop and overwintered leeks but one variety I grow, Nipper, will produce a crop of baby leeks in 10 weeks and last year I overwintered them to get an early spring crop (from a July sowing).

Lettuce

There are so many types of lettuce way beyond what we normally see in supermarkets. One of my favourites is Cos. Its a heavy, dense upright lettuce that looks a bit like the Gherkin as it sits on the London skyline.

The equally old fashioned butterhead lettuce is a bit softer and almost limp in comparison. And what many people don’t realise is that it comes in various shades of green. From a pale wishy washy yellowish green to quite dark green.

Then there’s crisp lettuce. Now very common and with a good shelf life I remember when it first came into the UK. The reason I remember it is because I was one of the first three growers to grow it commercially in the UK. We were told it was a large lettuce and needed to be spaced at least 10 inches apart. I ignored that advice and put them nine inches apart. The difference in the number grown per greenhouse .. and income produced by reducing by 2 inches is huge. They grew well and the next crop was grown at 8.5 inch spacing.

Year one of growing crisp lettuce was very profitable. Year two not bad. By year three hundreds of competitors had entered the market and the profit margin had dropped back to what we had before the new variety surfaced!

Lakeland lettuce were the forerunner of crisp lettuce. They have a dense head but loser that crisp. And they needed to be at least 10-12 inches apart.

Salad leaves are those mixed variety packs that you grow and cut very quick. Rather than plant them so far apart you sow in situ and cut the leaves as soon as they are big enough to provide a crop. They come in all sorts of leaf shape and colour.

Moon Red and others named but strange varieties are so varied. I love Moon Red as it looks novel and tasted good. Its quick a think leafed variety but not at all tough. They are well worth growing.

Lollo Rosso and Lollo Bionda are red and green lettuce with tightly curled leaves, they’re novel if nothing else.

Batavia are another unusual lettuce. It’s a bit like e butterhaed but has more crinkly leaves with wavy margin.

Lettuce are one of those crops that exist in so many forms .. each different but still lettuce at heart. Perhaps the strangest is Celtuce. It’s sometimes called Chinese lettuce or even celery lettuce, but the name stem lettuce describes it perfectly as it grows upright and is all stem and little leaf. In some respects it looks a lot like asparagus!

It seems almost as if lettuce dominates the Vegetable Seeds To Sow In June.

Melon

Though it’s too late for some melon many will still crop if sown in June. Check the seed catalogues to choose your favourites.

Mibuna

The best way to describe this plant is with this video from Seaspring Seeds .. enjoy

Mizuna

Mizuna is one of the species, like Mibuna, that I describe as oriental leaves. Its peppery leaves can be used raw in salads or cooked in stir-fries. And no problem if it bolts as the young flowering shoots are superb in stir-fries.

Mooli

Mooli is the long white pointed radish you might see in Asian supermarkets. It can be sown any month of the year and is very easy to grow.

Mustard

With varieties such as Red Frills and Mustard Red there’s a clue in the name. These are red coloured oriental leaves that pack a peppery punch. The plants I class as oriental greens are various types of brassica .. closely related but looking different.

Peas and Pea Shoots

These can be grown from the same seed. For example I grow Mangetout as a shoot and as a mangetout pod. Both of these and crops grown on as peas are all possible in June.

Radish

In good growing conditions radish mature 28-30 days after sowing. So June is an excellent time to grow them. Don’t forget you can freeze, ferment, pickle or dehydrate radish for later use. r better still eat them now, fresh in salads or with burgers.

Salad Onions / Spring Onions

Whatever you call them these onions grow fast and can be ready as quickly as 8 weeks.

Spinach

Called the King of Crops by some I love spinach in various Indian dishes I cook. But I also eat it as a salad leaf provided it hasn’t become too big.

Swedes

I live in Devon and they grow a lot of swedes on the red soils in this county. You’ll love or hate swedes. But they are definitely on the Devon list of Vegetable Seeds To Sow In June

Tatsoi

This is best described as a pak choi / spinach cross .. though its not that from a botanical sense. Another oriental leaf that is gaining in popularity. Worth a try. Tatsoi rozetto is very dark green.

Tomatoes

It sounds late to sow toms but they make a great catch crop for a late planting after other things have matured and have been ripped out. They are never going to produce six or more trusses but you can easily get 3-4 trusses for later harvest and the green tomatoes make great chutneys for Indian dishes. When I grew tomatoes commercially I always had a good market for green tomatoes in late summer and autumn.

Turnips

This is another brassica .. but this time grown for its root or sometimes its leaves (turnip tops). The nips in the name is from the Latin napus which is interpreted by the Scots as Neeps according to some of my Scottish friends .. though the others say a neep is a swede! Of course, they then claim that the neep is a different sort of turnip. Gardening language can start wars. I suggest you read this article and not involve me in this debate!

Watercress is the final one of my Vegetable Seeds To Sow In June

Crisp crunch and peppery. What else do you need in a salad constituent or veg to go with anything from steak to fish? And it doesn’t need loads of running water. I grow mine in recycled plastic grape punnets and just keep it very wet. It grows at a phenomenal rate from minute seeds.

OK, so that’s my list of Vegetable Seeds To Sow In June. What would you add?

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