The Japanese beetle and the squash vine borer both show up somewhere around 1000 growing-degree-days into the year.
Source: Cornell University.
This year being pretty close to average, temperature-wise, the Japanese beetles are right on time. I saw my first one this afternoon. Last year’s version of this post occurred on June 20. The year before that, June 18.
It’s not so much that the Japanese beetles do a lot of damage in my garden. It’s that, around here, they are easy to spot, and their appearance means that many other pestiferous bugs will soon be arriving. Relatively pest-free gardening is over for the year.
While Japanese beetles arrive like clockwork, not so the tomatoes. Every year, I plant some short-season/cold-tolerant tomatoes, including Burpee’s aptly-named Fourth of July. And, owing to the warm weather, and maybe an early start indoors, for the first time ever, I have my first red tomato on the same day as my first Japanese beetle. I believe this year’s winning variety is Glacier.
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This early ripening is kind of a good-news, bad-news joke. Good news is, it’s been so warm that the early-season tomatoes are extra early. (E.g., a neighbor of mine has had ripe cherry tomatoes for about two weeks now.) The bad news is that it’s been so hot, we’re already having nigh-time lows in the 70’s F, which is too warm for tomatoes to begin the ripening process. So I’m guessing that I may get a few ripe tomatoes soon, but the bulk of what’s growing is going to remain green until temperatures cool off a bit.
