MENDOCINO CO., 5/27/26 — Mendocino doesn’t have one growing season — it has three, and June is when the gap between them is widest. The coast is still in cool spring. The 101 corridor has tipped into summer. The interior valleys can be either, sometimes inside the same afternoon. The trick is matching your June work to your actual weather, not the calendar.
Coast: Fort Bragg through Gualala
The fog is a feature, not a bug. June on the coast is the long, slow stretch of mild days and cool nights that brassicas dream about. Kale, broccoli, chard, cabbages, collards — all still happy, all still planting-ready. Lettuces and arugula can be succession-sown every two weeks without bolting. If you ever wanted to actually eat the spring salad garden, this is the month.
Tomatoes outdoors are a stretch. The varieties that earn their place here are the short-season cool-climate ones: Stupice, Glacier, Siletz, Oregon Spring.
Better yet, throw a low tunnel over them. If you boycott clear plastic, use Reemay, a polyester product that lasts far longer than clear plastic. Even four degrees of warmth and a windbreak make the difference between green fruit in October and a real harvest in August.
Slugs are the eternal coastal opponent. Iron phosphate bait (Sluggo and its cousins) is the pet-safe answer. Beer traps work too, and they’re satisfying. Copper tape on raised-bed edges holds the perimeter.
Fawn season is now. Does are nursing and bold, and a five-foot fence is a polite suggestion. Eight feet is the real number, preferably with fencing without a solid top. Deer don’t like invisible barriers or even worse, fencing that slants either in or out.
And as Mendocino Wildlife Association’s fawn coordinator Olivia Grupp mentioned,“Mamas often leave their fawns hidden in a bush for long periods. Don’t assume they are abandoned.”
One coastal joy worth naming: this is dahlia country, and June is when you stake what you planted in April. The Mendocino Coast Botanical Gardens in Fort Bragg are open and worth a walk before you finalize what you wish you’d planted.
101 corridor: Hopland to Willits
Heat lands by mid-month, and your tomatoes are ready to run. If they’re not in the ground by the first week of June, get them in. Mulch heavily — straw, wood chips, anything that keeps soil temperature steady and water in the root zone. Drip irrigation under mulch is the gold standard. Overhead watering on 95-degree afternoons just feeds fungus and evaporates.
Peppers and basil want warm feet. Soil temperature above 65°F at eight in the morning is the green light. Plant before that, and they’ll sulk for a month and never quite forgive you.
Willits is its own thing. The Little Lake Valley is a frost pocket and can dip into the high 30s into early June. If you garden up there, harden off slowly and watch the forecast through the second week. After that, you’re in the clear.
Squash, cucumbers, and melons go in now. Cucumber beetles arrive with them — floating row covers until the female blossoms appear will keep the beetles off without sacrificing pollination. Pull the covers the moment you see flowers.
The corridor’s June reward is the first real tomato weather. Hopland and Ukiah growers know an Early Girl planted on time will set fruit by late month. Save a sunny spot near the kitchen door for basil. You will use more than you think.
Interior hills and valleys: Anderson Valley, Potter Valley, Round Valley, Laytonville
Microclimates here change inside a two-mile drive. Anderson Valley pulls afternoon marine air up through the Navarro River gap, so Navarro and Philo run cool while Boonville and Yorkville bake — sometimes a ten-degree spread on the same afternoon. Plant tomatoes and peppers up-valley, brassicas and lettuces down-valley, and you’ll have both crops thriving inside one zip code.
Potter Valley runs hot and dry by late June. Mulch early and mulch deep. Drip on a timer at dawn beats hand-watering in the afternoon every time. Wells around here have had a tough few years, and water you put in the soil structure now will mean your plants will be less stressed in August.
Round Valley and Covelo can still see a stray late frost the first week of June. Hold off on basil and melons until the second week, then go all in — the heat units pile up fast, and the season finishes strong. Covelo corn is the best argument for the place.
Laytonville and the ridges off 101 north are mixed. South-facing slopes are tomato country. Anything shaded by Doug fir is closer to coastal conditions, fog or no fog — plant what you’d plant in the town of Mendocino and be pleasantly surprised.
Everywhere, this month
Thin your stone fruit. Apricots and plums set heavier than they can carry, and unthinned trees give you small mealy fruit and a broken branch. Pull half.
Stake tomatoes before they flop, not after. Watch for the first hornworm by the last week of June — they show up overnight, and they’re easier to handpick than to spray.
If your overwintered brassicas have flowered, save the seed. Cilantro that bolts is coriander; let it dry on the stem.
And get a rain gauge if you don’t have one. We live in a Mediterranean climate, and the water you put on the garden in June is the water that’s not in the creek in September. Mulch isn’t optional — it’s the whole game.
Each of Mendocino’s three growing zones rewards different work in June. Plant for the weather you actually have, and the rest of the summer follows.