Fungus gnats are only an issue in very moist organic soils. Moderating your watering practices or adjusting your media may help. All in all, fungus gnats are quite easy to control. STEP 1: Go to your local BBS and by a package of mosquito dunks (they look like little donuts). STEP 2: Break off a 1/4 of a donut and put it in a plastic gallon milk jug. STEP 3: Fill jug with water and let sit for a couple days. STEP 4: Shake/agitate the water in the jug a bit and then water your plants with the dunk water. (Leave the dunk chunk in the jug.) STEP 5: Refill jug and repeat the next time you water. Eventually the chunk will completely disintegrate, at which point you put a new piece in. NOTE: This is not an instant fix. It will take a week or two.

Violet, I don't think I really answered your original question. Here is what does really well without a lot of work for me: Illini blackberries (Miller Nurseries, NY) Supermale Asparagus (Miller Nurseries, NY) Sour Cherry tree (Miller, either a Meteor or a North Star, redskin, yellow flesh). No spraying whatsoever. Various strawberries from various sources. Kwintus Pole Beans (Park Seed Co., grown on cattle panel hoop frame) Cimarron lettuce, romaine type from Jung and Pinetree Various potatoes, Yukon Gold is the favorite (from various sources including small potatoes I save and sprouted ones from the pantry) Beauregard sweet potato (usually from Dorothy's Digs, local greenhouse close by) Bodacious Sweet Corn (Hummerts in Springfield) also Peaches and Cream and Candy Corn....Bodacious is the favorite) Various tomatoes, mostly heirloom varieties from various online sources....favorite last year was Granny Cantrell (sorry ceresone, Anias Noir got more disease for me) All peppers do well: Parks Thickset, Cal. Wonder, Sweet and Hot banana, cayenne, Anaheim and Ancho, Valencia Bloomsdale Long-Standing spinach Onions: Only Candy and Super Star (from seed, Harris Seed Co. NY) am trying a sample of plants to see how they compare to seed started. They are the only onions that have ever made any size for me...day neutral type. Hope this helps...as you will see, I don't grow exotics...or haven't before.

Susan, I love spinach cooked or raw, but it takes up more space in the garden than I'm generally willing to give it, so most years I don't even plant it. The last year that I grew a big crop of spinach, I had it in a raised bed that was 4' wide and 30' long. We ate a lot fresh spinach and froze maybe a dozen quarts of it or so, but I just feel like I can get so much more of a harvest out of that space by planting something else there. It also is very time-consuming to wash and rinse it, wash and rinse it, wash and rinse it and then spin it dry in the salad spinner. Mulching well helps a little, and so does harvesting using the cut-and-come-again method since you're not yanking up roots and scattering soil, but it still takes quite a lot of labor to get the spinach clean. It is very labor intensive from the point of harvest onward and I just have other, more productive ways to spend my time. The only savoy types I've grown in recent years were Tyee and Nobel Giant and they were good. For a smooth leaf, we usually planted Bloomsdale Long Standing, America or Melody. In our garden, the smooth-leaved types do better than the savoys. Down here in southern OK, it can be very challenging to get a good spring spinach crop especially if we're having roller-coaster weather with temps varying wildly in March and April. Since both hotter temps and longer daylength contributes to bolting, getting a good harvest is highly dependent on having some cooperation from the spring weather. Spinach works a bit better as a fall-planted crop here in our part of the state. It overwinters well here probably 7 or 8 years out of 10. I don't know if that is true for the more northern portions of the state. I usually grow Swiss Chard as a replacement for spinach since it takes heat better and doesn't bolt, or sometimes grow malabar spinach or tetragonia. Lambs quarters is a good late winter/early spring substitute and my dad always grew it instead of spinach. I checked the OSU guide to see what varieties they recommend and this is what I found: Ambassador, America, Bloomsdale, Chesapeake, Coho, Fall Green, Grandstand, Melody and Ozarka II. Spinach germinates well when the soil is in the right temperature range (and when the soil is moist) but poorly if the soil is too hot or too cold or too dry. Tbe optimal daytime soil temperature for great germination of spinach is 50 degrees. At 50 degrees, you'll see about 90% germination in less than two weeks. At slightly higher daytime soil temps, you might get slightly quicker germination, but less of the spinach will germinate. For example, Tom Clothier's data base shows that spinach seed will germinate in only 7 days at 59 degrees, but only 82% of the seed germinated. At 68 degrees, you'll get germination in only 6 days but only 52% will germinate. So, you'll have the highest germination rate at 50 degree soil temps but faster germination at a lower germination rate at 59 through 86 degrees. Once soil temps are above 86 degrees, spinach seed goes dormant and won't sprout. That means a fall crop generally has to be planted pretty late. One way to ensure better germination is to put your seed in a cup of water in the refrigerator and let it sit there for 24-48 hours just before planting. Sitting in that cold water for a limited period of time speeds up germination by breaking dormancy. Dawn

Prairiemoon , ... That is nice even to have a single in june. Fusion -power, I have most of the early ones you mentioned, except Kimberly and Betimes Macbeth. My Stupice and Bloody Butcher are coming along nicely but I am disappointed about Matina so far. Maybe if will comeback from behind. So far my winner is Siletz, specially developed for our PNW weather by OSU. Sun Gold has also near full size fruits but no color break yet. OK folks. We are technically in the first week of summer and at least have 3 more months to go. Maybe 4 depending where you are. Other than early ones I also have MID and Late varieties like: Legend, Kumato, JBT, Mortgage Lifter, Pineapple, Green zebra, Cherokee purple, and few other. The all have some small fruits too. So a lot remains to be seen. Good luck to all !