{"id":155,"date":"2026-06-19T19:49:00","date_gmt":"2026-06-19T19:49:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/confluencemediagroup.net\/blog\/what-to-plant-in-late-june-containers\/"},"modified":"2026-06-21T06:25:03","modified_gmt":"2026-06-21T06:25:03","slug":"what-to-plant-in-late-june-containers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/confluencemediagroup.net\/blog\/what-to-plant-in-late-june-containers\/","title":{"rendered":"It&#8217;s Not Too Late: 7 Things to Plant in Late June (in Pots)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s the third week of June and you&#8217;re just now thinking about planting. Good. You&#8217;re not late.<\/p>\n<p>There&#8217;s a particular guilt that turns up around now \u2014 the feeling that the season is a train you already missed. In containers, that&#8217;s mostly not true. Plenty of things actually <em>want<\/em> to start in warm soil, and a few fast crops will hand you something to eat before Labor Day. You don&#8217;t need a yard for any of this. You need a few pots, a bag of potting mix, and a sunny rail.<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s what I&#8217;d plant this week.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"cmg-supplies\"><p class=\"cmg-supplies__title\">Your late-June starter kit<\/p><div class=\"cmg-supplies__body\"><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/dp\/B076FLM4T2?tag=almanachouse-20\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">5-gallon fabric grow bags<\/a> \u2014 cheap, they breathe, and they store flat in winter<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/dp\/B002Y08J2A?tag=almanachouse-20\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Organic potting mix<\/a> \u2014 potting mix, not garden soil (this matters in a pot)<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/dp\/B078GMZ9KJ?tag=almanachouse-20\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Bush bean seeds<\/a> \u2014 the easiest fast crop to direct-sow right now<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/dp\/B095H2ZJSB?tag=almanachouse-20\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">A long-spout watering can<\/a> \u2014 you&#8217;ll be watering daily in July, so make it easy<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><\/div><\/aside>\n<h2>7 things you can still plant in late June<\/h2>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/confluencemediagroup.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/what-to-plant-in-late-june-containers-02-sow-beans.jpg\" alt=\"It's Not Too Late: 7 Things to Plant in Late June (in Pots) \u2014 sow beans\" \/><\/figure>\n<p><strong>Bush beans.<\/strong> My first pick. You <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/dp\/B078GMZ9KJ?tag=almanachouse-20\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">direct-sow the seeds<\/a> right into a 5-gallon pot, they sprout in under a week in warm soil, and you&#8217;re picking beans in about eight weeks. No transplanting, no fuss. A bush variety stays compact and doesn&#8217;t need a trellis, which is exactly what you want on a railing.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Leaf lettuce.<\/strong> Not the heading kind \u2014 that bolts in summer heat \u2014 but loose-leaf cut-and-come-again types. Give it afternoon shade and you&#8217;ll snip leaves for weeks. A shallow windowbox is plenty. If your balcony bakes after noon, tuck it behind something taller.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Basil.<\/strong> Basil loves what kills your lettuce. It wants heat and sun, and late June is its season. One plant in a one-gallon pot on a sunny rail will out-produce anything you&#8217;d buy in those sad little grocery clamshells. Pinch the tops and it bushes out instead of going to flower.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Bush summer squash.<\/strong> One zucchini or yellow squash plant in a single 5-gallon grow bag is genuinely all you need \u2014 one plant will overwhelm you, which is the running joke about squash for a reason. They grow fast in warm soil. Just keep the water steady.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Radishes.<\/strong> The crop for the impatient. Twenty-five to thirty days from seed to plate, happy in a shallow container, and forgiving of a beginner. When I want to feel like a gardener again after killing something, I plant radishes.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Swiss chard.<\/strong> Tougher in heat than spinach, and it&#8217;ll keep going all summer and well into fall. The stems come in absurd colors that make a balcony look intentional. One pot of chard earns its space three times over.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Nasturtiums.<\/strong> Fast from seed, cheerful, and they&#8217;ll spill over the edge of a railing planter by August. The leaves and flowers are both edible \u2014 peppery, a little like watercress \u2014 though that&#8217;s a topic with its own rules, and I cover safe edible-flower growing properly in my book rather than in a planting list. For now: easy, pretty, and they ask almost nothing of you.<\/p>\n<h2>The two things that actually matter in July<\/h2>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/confluencemediagroup.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/what-to-plant-in-late-june-containers-03-lettuce-shade.jpg\" alt=\"It's Not Too Late: 7 Things to Plant in Late June (in Pots) \u2014 lettuce shade\" \/><\/figure>\n<p>I&#8217;ve killed plenty of container plants, and it&#8217;s almost never the planting that does it. It&#8217;s these two:<\/p>\n<p><strong>Containers dry out fast.<\/strong> A pot in July sun can go from damp to bone-dry in a single afternoon, and a wilted seedling rarely fully recovers. I water once a day, sometimes twice in a heat wave, and I&#8217;d rather you set a reminder than trust yourself to remember. A <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/dp\/B095H2ZJSB?tag=almanachouse-20\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">watering can with a long spout<\/a> makes it a thirty-second job instead of a chore you skip. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/dp\/B076FLM4T2?tag=almanachouse-20\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Fabric grow bags<\/a> help here too \u2014 they breathe, so roots stay healthier than they do in a hot plastic pot.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Use potting mix, not garden soil.<\/strong> Garden soil compacts into a brick in a container and chokes the roots. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/dp\/B002Y08J2A?tag=almanachouse-20\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">A bagged organic potting mix<\/a> stays light and drains right. This is the cheapest mistake to avoid and the one I see most often.<\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s the whole trick to late-June planting in pots: pick fast, forgiving crops, keep the water steady, and start the mix right. Otto, my terrier, will of course assume the bean pot is a salad bar built for him \u2014 but that&#8217;s a problem for July.<\/p>\n<p>I lay out the whole small-space season \u2014 what to plant when, and in what size pot \u2014 in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/dp\/B0H3V14FWM?tag=almanachouse-20\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>Small-Space Big Harvest<\/em><\/a>. This is the late-June shortcut. The book is the year.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/confluencemediagroup.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/what-to-plant-in-late-june-containers-04-nasturtiums.jpg\" alt=\"It's Not Too Late: 7 Things to Plant in Late June (in Pots) \u2014 nasturtiums\" \/><\/figure>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/confluencemediagroup.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/what-to-plant-in-late-june-containers-05-watering-setup.jpg\" alt=\"It's Not Too Late: 7 Things to Plant in Late June (in Pots) \u2014 watering setup\" \/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Late June is not too late to plant \u2014 even in pots on a balcony. Seven fast, forgiving things you can still start this week, no yard required.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":235,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[4],"class_list":["post-155","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gardening","tag-affiliate"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/confluencemediagroup.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/confluencemediagroup.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/confluencemediagroup.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/confluencemediagroup.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/confluencemediagroup.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=155"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/confluencemediagroup.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":240,"href":"https:\/\/confluencemediagroup.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155\/revisions\/240"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/confluencemediagroup.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/235"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/confluencemediagroup.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/confluencemediagroup.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/confluencemediagroup.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}