June 11-17, 2012

The exuberance of June … It began at daybreak with the chirping and chattering of birds close at hand and in widening circles around us. And then, what greater wonder than the rising of the sun? Even the nights, as yet without insect choirs, were alive. Fireflies against the mass of trees were flashing galaxies which repeatedly made and unmade abstract patterns of light, voiceless as the stars overhead …

-Harlan Hubbard

The Black Swallowtail Moon continues to wane throughout the period, entering its final quarter at 5:41 a.m. June 11 and then becoming the new Firefly Moon at 10:02 a.m. June 19. Rising before dawn and setting in the afternoon, this dark moon moves overhead (its most favorable position for fishing and feeding children) in the late morning.

The moon will travel through Taurus on June 14-17, making those days the most propitious lunar days for putting in root crops to dig in August-October. The approach of the June 15 cool front is expected to lower barometric pressure and increase the likelihood that fish will bite, especially with the moon above you around 11 a.m.

The Lyrid Meteors are the shooting stars of June, falling through Lyra, right in the center of the sky overhead after midnight on the nights of June 14-15 and 15-16. The dark moon should make meteor watching relatively easy.

The sun holds steady at its solstice declination of 23 degrees, 26 minutes (and the day’s length remains virtually unchanged) between June 19-23, and summer solstice occurs on June 20 at 6:09 p.m. All across the United States, the night is as short as it will ever be – about eight hours along the Canadian border, about nine hours in the central states, a little more than 10 hours along the Gulf of Mexico.

Weather patterns

The sunniest June days usually occur between now and June 26. Approximately 100 frost-free days remain on most farms and gardens of the country. Unsettled conditions often surround the arrival of a cool front between June 13-16, but after that system moves east, precipitation typically stays away for several days.

Between June 15-19, average temperatures climb their final degrees, reaching their summer peak near solstice. The period between June 13-26 is historically one of the best times of the month for fieldwork.

Markers for this week of the year include Japanese beetles in the field and garden (even in Minnesota), thistledown in the fields, red berries on the honeysuckles, black raspberries in the brambles, black walnuts at half-size and goslings more than half-grown.

Daybook

June 11: Timothy ripens and cucumber vines for pickles are at the three-leaf stage at the same time nodding thistles turn to thistledown, when August’s boneset has grown knee-high and Canadian geese are molting.

June 12: Sawfly larvae eat the leaves on the mountain ash. Head scab and glume blotch develop on the winter wheat. Lace bugs cause yellow spotting on sycamores, oaks and azaleas. The first generation of sod webworms usually emerges near this date in the central part of the nation.

June 13: Young grackles join their parents to harvest the ripening cherries and mulberries.

June 14: The pink and violet flowers of sweet rockets go to seed when fireflies mate and pokeweed is budding. Grapes are in full bloom throughout the Northeast when you see cottonwood catkins bursting, and the smallest acorns are forming in the Great Lakes region.

The commercial broccoli and squash harvests are under way right when damselflies appear by streams and ponds and black-eyed Susans blossom in the waysides. Blackberries set fruit as earliest cornfields tassel, just when the first cicadas sing and the first katydids come to your window at night.

June 15: The dark moon of late June is favorable for detasseling corn, for harvesting winter wheat, for completing the first cut of alfalfa and for beginning the second cut. This moon is also right for worming and spraying livestock for external parasites and for weeding and mulching, as well as for insect hunting.

June 16: Plan to put in the last of the pickles, corn, soybeans and hot-weather vegetables (like tomatoes, squash, eggplant and peppers) during one of the most propitious late-lunar planting times of the year under the upcoming new moon. New moon time in early summer is also favorable for pruning shrubs and trees that flowered earlier in the year.

June 17: The high noon of the year has arrived, marked by the opening of goose molting season, the commencement of corn borer season, the center of timothy season, the end of spring asparagus and rhubarb season and the first of sweet corn season.