June 25

I keep seeing new things every day but I am having trouble remembering them by the end when I sit down to write.

Daisies are starting to open.
Almost all tomato plants have flowers on them!
Mosquitos are definitely out, with a vengeance.
I bought a canoe and received it today. Hopefully will get it out this weekend. I noticed the lakes are starting to develop that little green algae all over the place.

June 19

Nothing much new to report. Went for a bike ride late and ended up with a lot of no-see-ums plastered onto my arms.
Some of the potato plants have started to flower. I need to cut the scapes off the garlic.

I bought some windows that will be eventually used in a new garden shed/greenhouse that will be put up in the backyard.

I also bought a canoe online today. I should get it by next week.

June 17

We are hitting temps in the mid-80s today.

The garlic plants are full of scapes as of two days ago. Scapes are the seed heads that are sent up each year. I'll have to cut them all off and make pesto. It's the most garlicky thing I will it, basically raw ground up green garlic with nuts and olive oil. If I allow them to fully form, they make little bulbils at the top of the plant that can be planted again. It's a lot easier to cut them off and then just replant the cloves in the fall, which separate about this time.

I saw a lightning bug the other day. They will be coming soon in waves. They are a great indicator of the general numbers of insects in the air. We went for a bike ride the other day and were getting eaten whenever we stopped.

The peonies are pretty much done, but other flowering trees have taken over. We can now see lots of little green apples on our trees, and very small, very green raspberries starting to form.

Angelica flowers, Queen Anne's lace and Wild Parsnip are all present in wetter areas. There are some irises out there too.

There are a couple of flowers on the pea plants. And the cherry tomatoes have flowered as well. One of the broccoli plants has a small flower on the inside. Last year I picked broccoli a month from today.

Spinach is pickable as "baby spinach" leaves. I will let them get a little larger. Arugula is pickable. The first planting of lettuce (little gem) is just about ready to pick. The first planting of radishes is probably ready to harvest as well. So salads every night for dinner for the next month. I will plant more radishes and lettuce in the spots that are opened up through harvest.

The pole beans are sending out their tendrils, looking for something to hang onto. I've set up trellises that are about 6 feet high.

June 12

You can go out at night now and actually smell summer.. the pine trees and the other blossoms. It's a wonderful odor. Went for a night bike ride and was slapped by insects the entire time.

The peonies opened up three days ago. The ants camp out on the unopened blossoms a week before that.

The pine trees now have the lighter green colored outer branches indicating the new growth.  You don't get a lot of indication from other bigger trees, other than new leaves every year, that they're actually growing. But the conifers do this every year and it's beautiful to see the new tips.

Our lone rhubarb was already subjected to a big picking from which maybe 10 cups of chopped rhubarb stalks were freed. I love raw rhubarb stalks dipped in sugar or with honey poured on top. Part of my love is the funny looks and groans I get from other people when I eat it.

Peas are about a foot and a half tall and about to put flowers out.

I planted a couple more strawberry plants. Tonight I picked three nice, ripe berries from the established june-bearing plants. The berries tasted amazing. They were so fresh they were almost acidic in the mouth which I had never experienced from a strawberry.

The garlic looks like it is just starting to put out scapes.

We are still in thunderstorm times. Maybe 3 nights a week for the past 3 weeks we've had the threat of rain. Some of the farm plantings are behind as a result. I've gotten just about everything in that I want.

June 1st

We have a lot of honey locust trees and they are in full bloom right now. Very fragrant. They are dropping their petals all over everything, blowing all over our deck and yard. In the past week the big sugar maple in the back has blown all of its helicopter seeds off, with the thunderstorms we've had.

The cherry trees, apple trees, and plum tree all have visible, immature fruit.

This is the time of year when it rains a ton, and you have to mow your lawn like crazy, but come July and August things will heat up and dry out and mowing will be simply for the weeds poking through and not the grass.
All the grass seed I spread a month ago is looking great.

Garden update:
The squash and pumpkins all sprouted, 8 days after I planted the seeds.
Rhubarb has a couple of times now sent up seed stalks that I have pinched off.
I planted a bunch of onion sets here, there, everywhere that are now coming up.
Cutworms seem to be impacting the corn again, I hope they don't decimate the entire crop like they did last year.

Summer is coming, time to take advantage.