There's Always The Weather

[moi621 (imported)]

No One Else Has Weather?

Been a month since any upload on this thread,

the longest running thread of EA.

This has been a month of Highs circa 60F

and some near chill hours late at night.

Gray sky, no rain or storms

Asparagus I attempted years ago sent

up some spears. Plans are to propagate this

species as liking it here.

Apricots are small, green & abundant

Only the front yard plum tree is budding + making blossoms

(Sugar Plum or Sugar Prune Plum highly recommended)

Moi

Cats Rule

dogs drool

[Arab Nights (imported)]

First fly in the house. Argh. Wife really should haeve a better class of hubby who doesn't attract flies.

[Paolo]

The weather here is just weird. Very dry for June. We had 2 good rains all month. Narrowly missed the severe storms that torn through IN the other day, although they originated near here. Could hear the roaring in the sky for a while. Terrifying.

I've been using soaker hoses for my 20x25' garden. My potted pepper plants are doing the best, though. I have a Santa Fe/Havasu pepper ripening already! My Time Bomb hots and Cherry Bomb sweets are setting on well. I am threatening the regular bell peppers with the burn pile already if they don't get with it! My Shishito wants to fruit and not grow much, so I just let it. I've also had to talk dirty to the jalapeno plants in hopes of getting them going.

Hot days, cool nights. I've test-fired the AC once here, and it didn't blow up, so that's good.

Figured it was time to post, as Moi was probably getting nervous about his thread!

[Arab Nights (imported)]

Same here. Looked like another wet year until June rolled around. Then nothing but sun and blue skies.

Be glad you are not in northern Nevada. Mormon crickets have hit. They'll eat the paint off your house and gardens are toast.

You happy, Moi?

[Paolo]

Another day here in southern Indiana, well, top of southern quarter, with the wonderful Canadian wildfire smoke. My property is 435 ft (132.588 m) long, and the trees at the end are "smoked out" and gray! The air smells like one big wood fire, too, naturally.

I'm sure Moi will appreciate that it didn't affect my crop of wild garlic at all! It won't grow in his area; we tried.

My huge milkweed patch has attracted just about every butterfly in the area, except any Monarchs. My lawn drives the neighbors nuts, as it's mostly gone wild and overgrown. The milkweed patch is a good 50'x20' and expanding every year. I have mostly white lawn clover, but it's on the downhill slide of the major bloom. But I have bees! I have bees that I've never seen before, too!

The yellow European hornets have to go, though. Soon as I find the nest. They are attracted to light and hover in front of you as if saying, "You owe me money!"

In the evening, I am overrun with fireflies, or lightning bugs, if you prefer. The smoke seems to have slowed them down some, I have observed. Their "dance" is not so active as it was last week.

I just wish the wind would change directions!

[WheelyCurious]

We've been getting a lot of rain, mostly as short heavy showers mixed w/ just enough drippage to be annoying... (i.e. enough to need car wipers, but not enough to keep them from squeaking...)

I suspect this will be a good year for honey, but unfortunately I had to give up keeping bees when I got hurt as I can't work the hives from a chair... Our yard is also in line for a write-up in "Better Hayfields & Jungles" - I'm not certain, but I think at least some of the weeds are getting to be taller than the roof of my van...

Mildly strange, but from the media reports, (assuming one is dumb enough to believe them) we aren't getting as much Canadian smoke as places like NYC, even though it looks to me like MA is closer to the areas where they are burning.... Weather is weird!

WheelyCurious

[kristoff]

Another day here in southern Indiana, well, top of southern quarter, with the wonderful Canadian wildfire smoke. My property is 435 ft (132.588 m) long, and the trees at the end are "smoked out" and gray! The air smells like one big wood fire, too, naturally.

I'm sure Moi will appreciate that it didn't affect my crop of wild garlic at all! It won't grow in his area; we tried.

My huge milkweed patch has attracted just about every butterfly in the area, except any Monarchs. My lawn drives the neighbors nuts, as it's mostly gone wild and overgrown. The milkweed patch is a good 50'x20' and expanding every year. I have mostly white lawn clover, but it's on the downhill slide of the major bloom. But I have bees! I have bees that I've never seen before, too!

The yellow European hornets have to go, though. Soon as I find the nest. They are attracted to light and hover in front of you as if saying, "You owe me money!"

In the evening, I am overrun with fireflies, or lightning bugs, if you prefer. The smoke seems to have slowed them down some, I have observed. Their "dance" is not so active as it was last week.

I just wish the wind would change directions!

The wasps have been going nuts here. B has the gardens all planted with bee friendly stuff, i.e., milkweed. I've warned him to figure out how to get rid of the hornets, or I am going to bomb the whole back yard, and screw his bees. I am deathly allergic to bee stings. Close call 2 years ago (rescue crew wanted to take me to the county hospital, but I declined - said I would rather live; B took me to his hospital) but nothing compared to the 3 day hospital stay years ago.

[WheelyCurious]

The wasps have been going nuts here. B has the gardens all planted with bee friendly stuff, i.e., milkweed. I've warned him to figure out how to get rid of the hornets, or I am going to bomb the whole back yard, and screw his bees. I am deathly allergic to bee stings. Close call 2 years ago (rescue crew wanted to take me to the county hospital, but I declined - said I would rather live; B took me to his hospital) but nothing compared to the 3 day hospital stay years ago.

It is interesting to note that there is a difference between "BEE stings" and Wasp stings, though most medical folks don't make much distinction, in part because most patients can't be certain which did the deed... The two have different venoms the same way snake venom varies between varieties of snakes... Also, because wasps use their stings as part of their natural hunting / feeding behavior their stings tend not to be very 'clean'. Honeybees will have much 'cleaner' stings....

However your odds of getting stung by a wasp are MUCH higher than getting stung by a bee (unless you are a beekeeper)

If a honeybee stings, it DIES, and to the extent that an insect can be considered to know things, it knows this... So a honeybee will only sting if it feels threatened and can't escape (last great act of defiance) or to protect the hive...

OTOH, a wasp can sting as many times as it wants, so it will be much more aggressive. Wasps are also much more attracted to things like sodas, meat in sandwiches and other things us humans like... I compare it to the difference between "Dirty Harry" and the stereotypical Kung Foo master - the wasp says "Make my day", the bee CAN make you sorry, but will try to avoid it...

I don't know of a total cure to get rid of wasps, but you CAN reduce their numbers w/ 'bottle traps' baited with meat or commercial wasp baits, which are designed not to attract honeybees...

WheelyCurious

[Paolo]

Our yard is also in line for a write-up in "Better Hayfields & Jungles" - I'm not certain, but I think at least some of the weeds are getting to be taller than the roof of my van...

WheelyCurious

My yard is probably 2/3 lawn weeds, and not grass. Last year, I let most of it go. The back 1/4 is going back to forest, which borders it. It's already filled with saplings of all types. The west side is growing up, as there are dozens of volunteer peach trees there. I'm letting them duke it out.

I stopped mowing the parts that I do mow when the white clover bloomed. When it's done, I'll mow it. The other part, I let grow up so the grass could seed out. It worked for the other side, which is now more grassy than it ever was. Free seed!

I had problems with 4 chipmunks this spring, but the glue traps got 2 of them, and the black snake got the other two. I disposed of a young gray squirrel who was digging everything up as well. The mother rabbit, surprisingly, hasn't bothered anything in the garden. I guess the abandoned south end of it is keeping her full and happy.

At least the neighbor hasn't gotten drunk yet and come over and tried to mow, as he did last year. He was making a hell of a mess until he ran over a wire tomato cage around a young hard maple tree and tangled it up in his blades!

[mandler1 (imported)]

I guess nowadays smoke counts as weather. I just stepped out on my11th floor balcony in Toronto and immediately started coughing. Was hoping the smoke was just going to last for a couple of days, but now it seems it will be with us awhile. So much so that we are starting to wear masks outdoors. Had a lot of thunderstorms lately, but I think we are below average rainfall.