Summer squash starts to leaf out in early July. Row covers can also prevent overheating for sensitive crops during intense summer weather. The  forecast is for classic steamy July heat, and the Old Farmer’s Almanac, predicts more of the same in the coming months. (ANN BENNETT PHOTO)
A garden assessment in the early days of July 2025 brings decidedly mixed reviews. But as we head into July the lettuces are lovely, along with chard and mixed greens. (ANN BENNETT PHOTO)
Looking back, it is difficult to recall a spring that better illustrated the necessity of row covers, for all sorts of reasons. Memorial Day weekend found many of my seedlings still in their flats on the deck, but once transplanted into raised beds they were under covers. (ANN BENNETT PHOTO)
Row covers mean the temperature underneath remains above freezing, even when the mercury dips below 32 degrees. The range of protection varies from two to five degrees, and translates to earlier crop maturity, even for tender crops like melons and summer squash.
Independence Day means summer is officially underway, and heat loving cultivars, tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, and melons, are just getting in gear in anticipation of sustained warm weather to come.
Summer squash starts to leaf out in early July. Row covers can also prevent overheating for sensitive crops during intense summer weather. The  forecast is for classic steamy July heat, and the Old Farmer’s Almanac, predicts more of the same in the coming months. (ANN BENNETT PHOTO)
A garden assessment in the early days of July 2025 brings decidedly mixed reviews. But as we head into July the lettuces are lovely, along with chard and mixed greens. (ANN BENNETT PHOTO)
Looking back, it is difficult to recall a spring that better illustrated the necessity of row covers, for all sorts of reasons. Memorial Day weekend found many of my seedlings still in their flats on the deck, but once transplanted into raised beds they were under covers. (ANN BENNETT PHOTO)
Row covers mean the temperature underneath remains above freezing, even when the mercury dips below 32 degrees. The range of protection varies from two to five degrees, and translates to earlier crop maturity, even for tender crops like melons and summer squash.
Independence Day means summer is officially underway, and heat loving cultivars, tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, and melons, are just getting in gear in anticipation of sustained warm weather to come.
July rolled in with the threat of thunderstorms and a string of days in the 80s, on the heels of 90-plus degree readings in late June. The persistent heat is in contrast to much of June, when for seven days the temperatures never climbed out of the 60s, and mornings dawned in the low 40s. Progress on the garden front was correspondingly slow.
Precipitation, in the meantime, has been episodic, rather than consistent, with close to an inch falling in North Conway on the 1st and 7th of June, and several other half-inch soakings, but below normal for the month, according to Mt. Washington Observatory’s Brian Fitzgerald.
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