Its June and It Is Still 70 Degrees

June and it is still 70 degrees. It has been pushing 80 today but overall it has been very nice weather. Spring was slow to start and we had a very bad freeze in April, down to 18 degrees, two nights in a row that killed the uncovered cabbage and broccoli plants but my early planted spinach and lettuce was covered with a sheet of plastic and it survived.

June is when it begins to really turn hot here with the humidity rising also. Those early crops like spinach and lettuce usually have bolted by now but we have had successive cool spells that have kept cool weather crops going. I believe the April cold snap I mentioned earlier also set a lot of the bugs back. There have been very few insects working on my vegetables. I put some Dipel powder on my cabbages once because there was some chewing on them. There also have not been any mosquitoes to speak of also.

Speaking of bugs, we were plagued by these little gnats that would fly in your face, your nose, and your ears. They would infrequently bite me but other people in the area really got bit up pretty bad. The bites would swell up and itch like crazy for several days. What I learned about the little pests was they breed in running water. Which we do not have right close to the house but apparently they can fly quite a ways to find someone to bite.

The thing that really surprised me was a friend of mine who gardens about 50 miles to the east of here didn't have any gnats at all. The reason being there was no running water close enough. The line of demarcation for the infestation was actually about 35 miles to east of here.

These little insects are a recent phenomena. A couple of years ago they were not an issue. What I did to combat them was bought a hat on ebay that has mosquito netting on it. It is just a baseball cap style hat the has a little pocket at the top that the netting can fold up into. I put it on every time I went out in the garden because at one point the gnats were so bad you could not hardly work. So I don't know why they have moved into the area now.

They were so numerous that even driving in the daytime would make a mess of your windshield. I drove down the river valley road to an estate auction last month early in the morning they were just all over the windshield. You could hear them hitting as you drove. They seem to have just about disappeared now. I picked some stuff for supper this evening with no problem.

Along with the cool weather we have had plenty of rain which is always nice. The ground seems to have good soil moisture and it is very nice and moist underneath my mulches. I did some tilling of weeds a couple of days ago and the ground was nice and moist. My sweet corn is tassled out so now is the time it needs plenty of water.

I was disappointed with my broccoli heads this year. They really were not very big. I am sure moisture was not the problem. I guess it could be fertility but the plants are robust and very large. The broccoli we have eaten has certainly tasted good though. It tends to get rather strong tasting during hot weather so this has been very tasty.

Well I know at some point things will turn off hot and the mosquitoe population will continue to grow. So I think I will go out and enjoy the wonderful evening that is happening right now.