The Old Farmer's Almanac: June Gardening Tips

• Any bedding plants you find for sale can safely be planted outdoors in beds, boxes, or containers.


• If you long for a hanging basket filled with blossoms, compare prices on different-size plants. It may be more economical to buy several small plants and combine them yourself rather than pay for one large plant.


• Starting this month, keep hanging plants such as fuchsias well watered and out of direct sun, or their leaves will burn.


• Mulch around trees to create a safe zone where your mower won't go. Nicking a tree trunk can seriously damage even a well-established tree.


• Mow your lawn according to the needs of the grass, not the calendar. Grass thickens and provides better cover when regularly clipped at the proper height.


• Prune rhododendrons after they flower. On young and old plants, snap off spent flower stalks by bending them over until they break away from their stems.

For more gardening tips, go to our Gardening Pages.

Courtesy of The Old Farmer’s Almanac® Dublin, NH www.almanac.com.

The Old Farmer's Almanac: Calender

Full Strawberry Moon (June 11)
The Algonquin tribes knew this Moon as a time to gather ripening strawberries.

Flag Day (June 14)

What we know fondly as the "Stars and Stripes" was adopted by the Continental Congress as the official American flag on June 14, 1777, in the midst of the Revolutionary War. Colonial troops fought under many different flags with various symbols and slogans -- rattlesnakes, pine trees, eagles, "Don't Tread on Me," "Liberty or Death," and "Conquer or Die," to name a few. The first flag had 13 stars on a blue field and 13 alternating red and white stripes for the 13 original colonies. Now there are 50 stars, one for each state in the Union, but the 13 stripes remain. Flag Day was first celebrated in 1877, on the flag's 100th birthday.

Read about some Do's and Don'ts for the U.S. flag.

Father's Day (June 18)

Like Mother's Day, Father's Day has a modern origin. The idea came to Mrs. John Dodd as she listened to a Mother's Day sermon in 1910. Her father, William Smart, had raised his children alone on his Washington farm after his wife died giving birth to their sixth child. Mrs. Dodd proposed to the Spokane Ministerial Association and the YMCA that they celebrate a "father's day" on June 5, her father's birthday. The idea received strong support, but the good ministers of Spokane asked that the day be changed to give them extra time to prepare sermons on the unexplored subject of fathers. The first Father's Day was observed on June 19, 1910, in Spokane, and soon other towns had their own celebrations. In spite of widespread support, Father's Day did not become a permanent national holiday until 1972, when President Richard Nixon signed a law declaring that it be celebrated annually on the third Sunday in June.

Send an Almanac E-card to Dad to celebrate this special day.

Courtesy of The Old Farmer’s Almanac® Dublin, NH www.almanac.com.