I'm gonna miss yall, but we're hearing down to Canton for the big flea market. Realtor is supposed to be holding an open house so we're clearing out the critters for it. Cliff's idea, I've been telling him about how we used to go all the time. So he's in for a surprise when he realizes I wasn't exaggerating on how big it is. So enjoy.

Garden is doing well. My dwarf and micro tomatoes already have flowers covering them. And I successfully transplanted some Indian paintbrush from the field into my driveway bed. Now to figure out where the antelope horn milkweed is and move some of it.

Larry I just got home. Unloaded plants and cooler and considering crashing early.

Kim, I am glad you are home safely, you have had a busy weekend.

Madge wanted me to tell you all how much she enjoyed meeting everyone and what a good time she had. I am not sure how to do that, but Madge, Emmy, Jerry. and I all had a good time.

Let's see, garden... I got 7 tomatoes planted, either dwarfs or micros. Maybe 8, I think one pot wound up with two tomatoes in it. And I have gobs more, so I may just plant all of them and let the next owner deal with them. My peppers are pathetic looking. Most are barely large enough to up pot. I may just toss the lot of them and forget about having peppers this year. Basil is taking off, as are some of the flowers. Hoping to get them planted this weekend.

Went over to HJ's Sunday, as she mentioned, and got the tour. Seems like I get over there once a year, so it's fun to see how things have grown from one year to the next.

Rats. Ugh, can't stand the things! My house in Tulsa was near an abandoned warehouse, and the property was packed with field mice. Every winter the little buggers would come searching a warm place to hibernate and I'd have to deal with them. But with animals, especially very nosy dogs, I can't use bait, so I'd just set out traps and hope they were brainless enough to get caught.

HJ, if memory serves, I think you can try to root beautyberry cuttings. If nothing else, you might as well try. It'll definitely die if you do nothing, so what do you have to lose?

Well I squeaked by again. The temp in this valley will often get colder then the forecasted temperature for Ft. Smith. The forecast for Ft. Smith was 39 last light, the records for last night show that Ft. Smith hit a low at 6 am of 40 degrees. My min/max shows that I had a low of 33.

I left some of my plants outside last night in what I though might be a warmer spot. I don't know what the temp in the garden, or the area where my plants were, but all look well this morning.

I do not feel safe in this valley to plant summer plants till after May 1, but it looks safe till Oct. now. I carried in enough plants last night to have back-up plants, and enough plants to give away on May 4.

I hope to start planting sweet potatoes very soon, and I still have some peppers and tomatoes that I want to plant. I had 4 plants that produced very well last year. I took very good care of the 4 plants, and per Sq. Ft. of space they out produced my other sweet potatoes by 5 to 1.

Whew...that air temp overnight dipped right down. They nailed it here with a low of 38F. I'm sure all the newly planted warm season stuff appreciate that.

We've been running ragged lately. The two weekends before, we we're out west in Waynoka & Okeene. Pair that with baseball going full-on right now. This weekend, we were outside working to catch up. The wind still sucks! So ready for that to calm down.

We've got a full garden now with only about 4 eggplants to add when they get a bit bigger. We put down a couple of double rows of sweet corn this year, so I'm hoping that doesn't bring in the worms. Last time we did corn, the worms exploded. BT & Spinosad are great, I'm sure, but the timing has to be pretty spot on.

On the cool season stuff, I've got onions that are a little behind due to me burning the original planting and re-planting a lot in early March. I'm trying to push them with nitrogen, but have to be careful not to burn again. The cabbage is getting big and the broccoli look pretty good so far.

Funny that there has been a lot of talk about mulch. Last season, I removed a lot of rocks out of the front beds and replaced it with pine bark. Last week, we saw a bunch of weird looking stuff that looked like spray foam except it was white on the outside. Turns out it is called "slime mold" and I guess it was in the mulch when we put it down? Strange looking stuff, but apparently harmless.

We've been mulching the garden walkways with pine bark and then mulching the planted rows with goat bedding. I'm about wore out from that and still have over half to go. It makes it much cleaner, i'll say that. If I don't spray glyphosate around the border, I'll be pulling bermuda until the 1st freeze. I gotta draw the line somewhere, because I'm only one guy.