5 Fun Ideas for The Garden in June

With Summer 2024 soon upon us, it’s important to consider how to maintain best or/and enhance your garden for the month of June.

Here, we look at five fun tips for your garden, from starting a vegetable garden to building a bug safari.

Let’s dive in!

1. Go On a Nature Scavenger Hunt

A great activity that the whole family can take part in is a nature scavenger hunt. Kids will love this as it provides a chance for them to have fun outdoors while overcoming challenges all while developing their observational and explorational skills.

A nature scavenger hunt involves looking for specific outdoor creatures and plants (e.g. ‘Find a Daffodil’, ‘Find a Bee’, ‘Find a Puddle’, and so forth).

Those taking part can then tick off items they’ve found. This could be made into a one-team where all participants work together or as a competition, whether with each individual working by themselves or several teams working together and competing.

Several teams competing might be the best approach as, on the one hand, it can add to the fun but without a scenario where one child could end up dead last. All in all, win or lose, it’s probably better to do so on a team and this can help develop a child’s cooperative and collaborative skills.

Whatever the case, be sure the kids participating are aware of how to keep safe during the scavenger hunt (especially for particularly young children), such as not picking up or touching a slug, not startling a bee or wasp and ensuring they avoid wandering off.

2. Start a Vegetable Garden

This Summer may be the perfect time to create a vegetable garden. After all, June and July are still part of the sowing season for many plants, including carrots, beetroot, lettuce, cabbage and bok choy.

Many of these plants can be harvested throughout the year once they have fully matured. That said, it’s important to ensure you take the right approaches, not just in terms of when to sow and harvest plants but in how to create and maintain a vegetable garden.

Here are the broad steps needed to make a vegetable garden:

Find a suitable location in your garden (if available)
Draw up a vegetable garden using a design you prefer *
Rid the space of weeds before starting
Dig up a space as required to meet your design goals
Sow suitable plants for your climate and the time of year

*You might want to opt for a raised garden bed or in-ground garden bed.

3. Plant a Butterfly Garden

Another way to enhance your garden is by planting a butterfly garden, which is a space of a garden dedicated to attracting and supporting butterflies. A well-made and well-maintained butterfly garden can support local wildfire while further beautifying your garden.

Among the best plants to sow this summer to attract butterflies include cornflower, knapweed, marjoram, French marigold and lavender, whereas, in the autumn time, you may want to plant the likes of asters, ice plants and flowering ivy.

4. Host a Garden-Themed Movie Night

Another idea you should consider is a garden-themed movie night! Creating an outdoor cinema experience is a great way to relax with friends or family on summer evenings by using a projector and projector screen on a dry, mild evening (just keep an eye on the weather forecast before the day and on the day of/soon before the movie begins).

Some ideas to make a great garden-themed movie night include:

Adding outdoor lighting where suited
Serve cold drinks (e.g. lemonade, iced tea, cocktails, wine or/and beer)
Have a gazebo setup or/and suited chairing for the movie night

5. Build a Bug Safari

Last but not least, building a bug safari is another way of enhancing your garden experience this June. A bug safari offers the chance to observe bugs up close and watch what they get up to in detail. To help prolong their lives, it’s best to release them at the end of each mini expedition from home.