Maine Home Garden News July

In This Issue:

• July is the Month to . . .
• Firefly Friendly Lighting
• Pollinator Ponderings: Attracting Pollinators to Your Vegetable Garden
• Drinks from the Garden: Using Fresh Fruit, Vegetables and Herbs in Drinks
• Backyard Bird of the Month: Common Yellowthroats
• Book Review: What a Plant Knows: A Field Guide to the Senses
• Join the Movement: Master Gardener Volunteers Wanted
• Maine Weather and Climate Overview

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July Is the Month to . . .

By Katherine Garland, Horticulture Professional

Sow again for fall flavor. Now is a great time to sow another round of dill and cilantro—perfect for making salsa, pickled veggies and delicious dips in  September.

Garden smart in the heat. Plan your gardening tasks to avoid the hottest part of the day. It’s better for both you and your plants. Harvesting early in the morning ensures higher water content in flowers and produce, which improves quality and extends shelf life. If the only time you can garden is during peak heat, be sure to take frequent breaks in the shade, wear a hat and sunscreen, and drink plenty of water. Prioritize your safety.

Get your fall garden started by planting crops such as beans, cucumbers, cabbage, zucchini, carrots, beets, turnips, radishes, peas, summer squash, spinach, kale, and broccoli. These are all well-suited for planting in open areas of the garden at this time of year.

Set manageable weeding goals. Weeding can feel overwhelming, but setting small goals can make it less daunting. Aim for just 5 to 10 minutes a day, or try filling one bucket per visit. Focus on weeds that are flowering, setting seed, or competing directly with your desired plants. Daily attention, even in small doses, can make a big difference.

Deadhead early-blooming perennials. Remove spent flowers from early bloomers like peonies and irises by cutting the entire flower stem. This keeps the plant tidy and prevents energy from going into seed production. Some perennials—such as geranium, salvia, catmint, spirea, and coreopsis—will often rebloom if trimmed shortly after their first flowering cycle.

Keep an eye out for garden pests. Look for adult potato beetles, their bright orange egg clusters, and red, soft-bodied larvae on potato and eggplant foliage. Also, scout for hornworms on tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants. Hand-picking is often the most practical and effective means of managing certain pests in a home garden and early detection makes them much easier to control.

Maintain flowering annuals by regularly deadheading or harvesting blooms at their peak. This encourages continuous flowering and gives you a great reason to enjoy fresh-cut flowers indoors.

Support local agriculture. Visit your local farmers’ market or explore a nearby farm during Open Farm Day on Sunday, July 27. Many farms will offer demonstrations—from milking to felting—along with opportunities to pick berries, meet animals, tour barns, and enjoy hayrides.

Prepare for food preservation. Don’t wait until the harvest is in to prepare. Make sure you have the necessary supplies and up-to-date food safety knowledge. Watch our food preservation videos, attend a workshop, or explore the many free online publications available to help you preserve the season’s bounty with confidence.

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Firefly Friendly Lighting

By Hannah Mullally, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Partners for Fish and Wildlife Biologist, Maine Field Office

One of the sure signs of summer is the soft blinking of fireflies floating in the night sky. Fireflies, or lightning bugs as they are known to some, are neither a fly nor a true bug, but a type of beetle. Unfortunately, firefly populations are on the decline. Like all declining insects, fireflies are negatively impacted by habitat loss, invasive plants, and overuse of pesticides. As crepuscular (active during twilight) and nocturnal insects, fireflies are also impacted by light pollution. These lovely little beetles provide so much magic to our evenings, and they need our help to continue to shine.

There are 15 documented species of fireflies in Maine, most of which produce the familiar flash or blinking as adults. These fireflies exhibit bioluminescence, caused by a chemical reaction within specialized organs. Aside from being a lovely summer sight for us humans, these flashes serve an important purpose. Adult fireflies use their lighting ability as courtship displays during twilight and nighttime hours. In most flashing species, males fly while displaying a specific flash pattern to attract females. Interested females will respond by blinking back, often while perched on lower vegetation like grass. This blinking communication continues until the male locates the female and they mate.

Because of their nocturnal nature and flashing courtship displays, fireflies are particularly vulnerable to the impacts of light pollution, even at a low level. Light pollution comes in many forms: from the sky glow over a city, to bright streetlights and outdoor house lights, even lights from inside houses that shine through windows. Because fireflies use their own light to communicate, they need a dark setting for those blinks to be visible. Some firefly species have been shown to flash less often when the environment was illuminated by bright lights compared to when there were no lights. Between difficulty locating the flashes of potential mates and the overall decrease in flashing activity, light pollution could have serious negative effects on mating success for fireflies, contributing to an overall population decline.

Making simple changes to outdoor lighting is an opportunity most homeowners can take to support all wildlife, from bats and migrating birds to nocturnal insects like fireflies. Motion sensors and timers are great ways to make sure outdoor lights are on when needed but are off the rest of the night when fireflies are displaying. Minimizing unnecessary lighting may also help dissuade browntail moth adults from flying toward and mating in the trees around your house, reducing the chance of infestations. If lights must be on, choose amber to red colored lights, which fireflies are less able to see, instead of bright white. Keep lights only in areas that must be illuminated and make sure light fixtures angle the light beam downward instead of out in all directions. Finally, close house blinds at night to prevent indoor light from spilling outside.

Along with planting native plants, leaving leaves and stems for overwintering habitat, and reducing pesticide use, decreasing light pollution will contribute to a firefly haven. Just a few small changes can have enormous positive impacts. This summer, close the blinds, turn off the lights, and enjoy these treasures of the Maine night sky.

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Pollinator Ponderings: Attracting Pollinators to Your Vegetable Garden

By Patti Elwell, University of New Hampshire Master Gardener Volunteer, Rockingham County

Pollinators are under pressure from all fronts: climate change, pesticides, and habitat loss. The decline of pollinators in your home vegetable garden may be affecting your crop production. Pollinators are not just honey bees. Some pollinators are big and bold like hummingbirds and moths, while others are tiny and inconspicuous like solitary wasps and hoverflies. By offering various types of blooms, and nurturing the ecosystems in your backyard, you will attract an assortment of pollinators that will help your vegetable garden produce abundantly. Consider these simple steps:

Use Native Perennials

Planting native perennials and shrubs around your entire property that bloom at different times throughout the season will keep a continuous supply of nectar available. Attract pollinators to your area, and they will find the blooms in your vegetable garden. Native plants often have a symbiotic relationship with particular pollinators. They provide blooms and they act as a host for various stages of pollinator development in your ecosystem. Keeping the pollinators thriving in your yard is key to keeping them happy and working to pollinate all of your blossoms. Utilizing a variety of perennial natives, including moth and butterfly host plants (i.e. plants that caterpillars feed upon), that thrive in your zone and bloom throughout the various seasons will also ensure that new generations of pollinators will have a home in your garden space.

Visit UMaine’s Pollinator-Friendly Gardening website for some helpful native plant lists such as the Wild Seed Project’s Native Plant List by Growing Condition.

Interplant Annuals

Planting annuals with your vegetables can bring pollinators directly to your garden AND help control pests. As a gardener, nothing is more exciting than seeing a solitary wasp fly from a garden flower over to a cabbage worm on your kale and carry it away.  Plant in groups so pollinators don’t have to fly long distances, and include varieties that will bloom in different seasons. Dill, borage, chives, and calendula are among the annual edible flowers and herbs ideal for this use since they also offer the gardener fresh edible flowers and herbs to pick and eat. Bear in mind, it’s not just about the flowers. For their larvae to survive and thrive, butterflies and moths also need non-flowering plant leaves of carrots, dill, and parsley.

Add a Wildflower Strip

Planting a wildflower strip near your vegetable garden can dramatically increase the number of butterflies and the diversity of insects attracted to your space. Wildflowers attract all kinds of beneficial insects: those that will provide pollination and also predatory insects like hoverflies and ladybugs that will feed on aphids. Beware of the “wildflower” mixes many companies offer because they may contain invasive plant species. Check packet labels and research the varieties included or consider creating your own wildflower mix. Refer to the state of Maine Department of Agriculture’s invasive species lists for additional information.

Wildflowers, both dead and alive, are an essential source of sustenance and shelter for pollinators. Don’t cut back your flower stems at the end of a season. Leave seed heads for winter bird food and stems for pollinator shelter.

Leave the Leaves

Don’t just leave wildflower stems. Leaves, dead twigs, and hollow perennial stems left in the ground through the winter are also crucial since they offer protected sites for laying eggs and cocoon nesting. Do not clean up leaves and other plant material until 5 consecutive days of 50°F have passed in spring. Cleaning up too early can reduce beneficial insects by 90% and delayed maintenance can save thousands of pollinators.

Don’t Forget the Water

Keep a shallow dish of stones filled with water, especially during excessive heat and drought. Pollinators get thirsty too!

No matter the size of your property, you can provide something valuable. Even small actions can still yield big results.

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Drinks from the Garden: Using Fresh Fruit, Vegetables and Herbs in Drinks

 By Kate McCarty, Food Systems Professional, University of Maine Cooperative Extension
Originally posted in UMaine Cooperative Extension’s Spoonful Blog

Summertime in Maine makes me want to sit outside and enjoy the sun on my face with a cool drink in my hand. I love looking to my garden for inspiration for making drinks like sodas, cocktails, and mocktails at home. While the garden isn’t fully established yet, there are still many Maine foods in season in spring and early summer to use in homemade drinks. Fruits like strawberries and last season’s apples; herbs like mint, rosemary, thyme, and basil; rhubarb stems; and even root vegetables like carrots and beets are available locally or will be soon. Read on for our tips for making great drinks from the garden this summer.

Making Your Own Juice

Homemade juice is a great way to sweeten your beverages without added sugar; there are several ways to make your own juice. You can use an electric juicer, a steam juicer, or make juice on the stovetop. UMaine Extension Master Food Preserver TerriLee wrote a post about her love for the steam juicer. I recently made some tasty apple juice with it and found the process to be very easy and mostly hands-off. You can also make juice without any specialized equipment, by washing and chopping fruit, then heating it on the stovetop with a little bit of water (use up to 1 cup per pound of fruit). After the fruit is softened, it can be dripped through a sieve or a colander lined with cheesecloth. See this fact sheet on extracting juice from fruit from the National Center for Home Food Preservation for more details.

I love homemade strawberry-lemon juice or a blend of apple, beet, and carrot juice with a little fresh ginger for spice. Cucumber-lime juice makes a great agua fresca on a hot day. For safety, fresh juice should be refrigerated and used within a week or frozen for longer term storage. Some juices can be canned in a boiling water bath canner like apple, grape, and a tomato-vegetable blend.

Shrubs and Flavored Syrups

Shrubs, or simple syrups with vinegar, are a great way to preserve fruit and make a tangy sweetened beverage. Made from equal parts fruit, sugar, and vinegar, shrubs got their start in Colonial New England when apple cider vinegar (not lemon and lime juice) was more readily available. Some good shrub flavors are peach-ginger, blueberry-basil, and strawberry rhubarb.

Some people like the tanginess that shrubs impart, while others might prefer it to be sweeter. You can control how much vinegar you add when making the shrub—I add half as much vinegar as fruit syrup, since I find adding an equal amount of vinegar to be too harsh. Shrubs are concentrated, so they’re best served diluted with sparkling water or something like ginger beer. A few tablespoons in an 8-ounce glass of sparkling water will make a delicious and refreshing homemade soda.

Flavored simple syrups are another good way to add garden flavors to your drinks. Think homemade blueberry-thyme soda, berry lemonade, and spicy jalapeño margaritas. Simple syrup is made with one part sugar or honey and one part water (i.e. one cup sugar and one cup water). Bring the liquid to a boil and stir to dissolve the sugar. Add 1 to 2 cups of flavoring like rhubarb, berries, peaches, herbs, or peppers, then turn off the heat, and let it steep for 5 minutes. Strain the syrup into a clean, glass jar with a lid and let it cool before making your drink. Shrubs and simple syrup should be stored in the refrigerator and used within a month.

If you’d like to see some of these recipes in action, you can watch our Drinks from the Garden webinar where we demonstrate making shrubs, flavored simple syrups, and a delicious mocktail made with mint, beet juice, and ginger beer.

Garnishes from the Garden

Garnishes are another great way to use herbs and fruit in your drinks. Freeze herb leaves, fruit, or edible flowers into ice cubes for “fancy ice” or make a salt flavored with powdered dehydrated (or freeze dried) fruit to use on the rim of a glass. I made a delicious strawberry-lime salt and used it on the rim of a margarita. Cheers to a new season!

Resources

• Canning Fruits and Fruit Products: Berry Syrup (National Center for Home Food Preservation)
• Drinks from the Garden
• How to Make and Preserve Elderberry Syrup Safely
• Kombucha Tea (National Center for Home Food Preservation PDF)
• Preserving Foods: Fruit Juices & Apple Cider (Oregon State Extension PDF)
• Three Refreshing Drinks to Beat the Summer Heat
• Tomato and Vegetable Juice Blend (National Center for Home Food Preservation)

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Backyard Bird of the Month: Common Yellowthroats

By Maine Audubon Field Naturalist Stacia Brezinski

Common Yellowthroats could be referred to as “gateway warblers.” They are widespread and easy to spot (for a warbler). It’s quite an arresting sight when a male, all yellow throat and black eye mask, flits into the open, singing at eye level only a few yards away. Common Yellowthroats prefer brushy edge habitats, making them one of the few wood warblers that you don’t need to crane your neck to see. Males sing a loud “witchity-witchity-witchity” or “which-is-it-which-is-it-which-is-it.” Females look almost identical, minus the mask. That wide black “Zorro” mask could serve several functions. A study on a species of shrike with similar markings suggested that it may reduce the sun’s glare, like eye black on a football player. The mask also may confuse predators, making it more difficult to see where the bird is looking, and therefore what its next move might be. Then there’s sexual selection. Scientists out of the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee found that larger mask size in males correlated with mating success–that is, in Washington State! The same researchers, in partnership with scientists at Skidmore College, found that females in New York showed a preference for males with larger yellow bibs. The markings on birds like these striking warblers serve as a great reminder: the markings aren’t for us!

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What a Plant Knows: A Field Guide to the Senses
by Daniel Chamovitz, PhD (Scientific American/Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2012)

By Clara Ross, Penobscot County Master Gardener Volunteer

In all my years as a lover of plants, I don’t understand how any of the information in this book has gotten past me. I do know that I was hooked by the first chapter. I’ve known that we human life forms tend to anthropomorphize other living things. However, Daniel Chamovitz gathered information from many scientists to explain how plant life forms can sense their environment in many ways, just in a very different manner than humans do. We use our ears, eyes, fingers, nose, and proprioception to access our surroundings, but not so plants. So, probably we must learn to use a different language to describe how plants sense things as we profess to be well informed about them.

Without eyes, do you know that a plant senses light (you remember, the sun is needed for photosynthesis) at the very tip of its shoot…not one half inch below? If you cut off the tip the plant does not bend toward the needed light. A plant knows to send its root downward based on sensing gravitational pull only at the root tip…not one inch further up the root. Somehow, against gravitational pull, to grow upwards a plant uses its apical bud to steer it towards the sky (different from seeking the sun/light). When injured, a plant has different responses depending on the injury (cut leaf, bug bite, etc.). How does it know what time of year to open its blossoms, or in the case of a Venus flytrap, when to close to capture its prey? All of these processes and many more are described in What a Plant Knows. Chamovitz uses many published experiments to explain how a non-human life form may sense its awareness of objects around it without using human-like sense organs. Plants show GREAT awareness! Some of the analyses of the experiments bogged me down a bit because, at times, genetics and chemical terms were used to describe them. However, I always felt the desire and need to keep reading for understanding.

The book helped me realize why I’ve always felt an affinity for plants and the desire to be amongst them. Try What a Plant Knows, I think that you will like it. It’s 141 pages jam packed full of interesting information.

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Join the Movement: Master Gardener Volunteers Wanted!

Are you passionate about gardening and making a difference in your community? If so, join the ranks of the 655 Maine Master Gardener Volunteers who, last year alone, contributed over 26,000 hours to projects across the state. From improving food security to educating others and promoting environmental stewardship, our volunteers are planting seeds of positive change every day.

Want to see their work in action?

Check out our new interactive ArcGIS map of Master Gardener Volunteer projects in Maine. Tip: Click “Select Project Focus” in the upper right corner to filter by topic, then click on a project to learn more about it.

Ready to get involved?

The application process for the 2025/2026 Master Gardener Volunteer training opens July 21 at noon! Whether you’re a seasoned gardener or just starting out, this program is a fantastic opportunity to grow your gardening knowledge, connect with like-minded people, and give back to your community.

Mark your calendar

Learn more about the training program here.

While we are not accepting new project requests at this time, you can still help us grow our impact. Share this opportunity with a fellow gardener or community-minded friend—let’s cultivate a stronger, greener Maine together!

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Maine Weather and Climate Overview

By Sean Birkel, Assistant Extension Professor, Maine State Climatologist, Climate Change Institute,
Cooperative Extension University of Maine

Daily weather station observations from Bangor, Caribou, and Portland show that June 2025 was warmer than normal (top 1/3 ranks) and drier than normal (bottom 1/3 ranks).  A notable short-lived, intense heatwave impacted Maine June 23–24, where inland areas saw daytime high temperatures generally reaching into the mid to high 90s with heat index values in some places above 105°F.  A number of high temperature records were set.  For example, the National Weather Service Record Event Report indicates that temperature at Augusta on June 24 was 100°F, which exceeded the previous daily record of 93°F.  This also set a new record high for June and tied the hottest temperature recorded at Augusta, observed August 5, 1955.  Portland high temperature on June 24 reached 99°F, which breaks the 98°F hottest temperature record at Portland observed June 28, 1991.  Despite this heat event and below-normal precipitation for the month, hydrologic indicators continue to register near normal for this time of year across most of the state, but with abnormal dryness persisting for Cumberland and York County.

NOAA’s probabilistic climate outlook for July and the three-month outlook for July-September show above normal temperature and equal chances of above or below normal precipitation across Maine.  NOAA’s 2025 North Atlantic hurricane season outlook suggests 60% chance above normal, 30% near normal, and 10% chance below normal activity (see also this summary graphic).  As always, visit weather.gov for the latest weather forecast for your area.

Additional climate and weather data and information is available on the Maine Climate Office website.