I haven't started any vegetables yet, but I bought the broccoli yesterday and I will be starting soon. Our forecast is for rain next week and probably an ice storm. Looks like it is a two day thing on Monday and Tuesday, then up into the forties on Wednesday. We need the rain, but I could do without the ice.

Yep i got broccoli(green goliath), (show off) cabbage,(early acre) cabbage,red (cairo) caggage, cauliflower,brussel sprouts. have red and green varietys of the brussel sprouts.

Most of these varietys i have never tried.
Our local greenhouse guy said he used to plant 1/2 acre of the packman broccoli and sell to anyone and everyone.

I need to find some of them seeds, as he highly recommended it for Ok.

Carol,

I've been watching the forecast all week, hoping for moisture for all of us but hoping it doesn't mean y'all get ice.

We even have ice in our forecast for a couple of days, but it is doubtful anything will fall here.

On the other hand, there have been at least two mornings this winter when we had 0.01" of moisture (not considered 'significant rainfall' by the Weather Channel or anyone else either, I guess). On both those days, that one/one-hundredth of an inch fell as freezing rain, coating the interstate and esp. its bridges and resulting in multiple motor vehicle accidents, which kept our county's law enforcement agents, volunteer firefighters and EMS responders busy for 2 or 3 hours each day. You wouldn't think such a tiny bit of ice could cause that much trouble.

I keep thinking about the ice storms that much of Oklahoma has endured the last 3 or 4 years, and hoping there won't be one of those this year.

I know we need the cold weather or our fruit trees will break dormancy and bloom too early, but the warmer weather this week has been so nice, and I hate the thought of being cold for the next week.

Busy1,

Packman has always grown very well for me, and I have grown it for many years, but it is very hard to find it in stores. I ordered mine online, as I do most of what I plant. Many of the vegetable seeds sold in stores are not the varieties recommended for Oklahoma and other parts of the south and southern plains. I bet if we walked into any store in Oklahoma with a list of "recommended varieties for Oklahoma" (from the OSU fact sheet), we'd find very few of them here, and that is sad. It's the same thing in Texas.

It used to be that in Texas, we had two Texas-based seed companies that carried ALL the recommended varieties for Texas. One of them, Gene Porter and Sons, closed its doors over a decade ago. If I'd know in advance that they were going out of business (I think the last Porter son passed away, and there wasn't anyone left to carry on the business), I would have bought 10 years' worth of seed to keep me going for a while.

The other one, Willhite Seed, based in Poolville, Texas, one county west of Fort Worth, is still there and still carries a lot of varieties well-suited to this part of the country. So does Southern Exposure Seed Exchange. It is sad that seed companies with a regional orientation struggle to survive. Willhite and SESE both fill an important niche--Willhite sells to regional home gardeners and market growers and SESE sells to the heirloom veggie gardener, so I think they both will remain viable for a long time.

Of course, it is possible to get a good harvest using varieties that are not on the list of "recommended varieties", but I always get the best harvest using varieties 'proven' to do well here (when I can find them).

I've linked the Willhite Seed Co. website below. They do have Packman broccoli, but their seed packets are aimed more at market growers, so the mimimum number of Packman seeds is 300. (But, for the price they charge, that 300 seeds is a good buy.)

If you like to grow watermelon, that's the Willhite specialty, and they have an amazing selection.

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: Willhite Seed Co./Poolville, Texas

Dawn, I haven't started any transplants yet. Here in z6b I always start sugarsnap peas midFeb in peat pots to plant in the garden the first of Mar. It only takes two weeks for them. Then I plant my broccoli and the rest of the seeds I start the first of Mar.
This year though I think I will start some tomatoes and peppers midFeb. George got me interested in heirloom tomatoes and I ordered seed from Baker's Creek to go with the ones I saved from some of the tomatoes he gave me last year.
What I have on my planting bench right now are trays of winter greens that I planted just to have some salad veggies to eat off the bench. I have radishes, spinach, mesclun, carrots, cress, and lettuce. Have already started pulling a few of the radish and cress seedlings.
Next year we hope to have that greenhouse that we've wanted for years. Hope I can keep coldhardy greens all winter. I plan to have in-ground beds.

okiedawn, thanks i'll check out that site. 300 seeds wont be too many, as i hope to sell plants also. we sell at the talihina farmers market in the summer also.

i just need a bigger garden to grow everything i would like to.last year we did a lot of gourds and you know what kinda space hog they are.

i usually do a few watermellons, but have only had some success with charleston grey. cantaloupes are hard to get a good flavor in my clay/gravel.i usually plant the hales best.I did grow some of the rocky fords one year, but they are small.

anyway, i have read a lot of your post to get some ideas for ok varieties.

i'm over here in latimer county.

Dorothy,

I love Baker's Creek. If reading their descriptions doesn't get you hooked on growing heirlooms, then I don't know what would. They also have had the absolute best shipping and customer service I've ever seen and I have ordered from them since back in the day when they were a much smaller company. It has been amazing to watch their business grow. If I lived closer, I'd drive there for some of the festivals.

I am sure you'll be able to keep coldhardy greens going in a greenhouse all winter long. If Eliot Coleman can do it in Maine (you've read his book about four seasons gardening, haven't you?), then you can do it here!

Busy1,

Latimer County? Oh, what a gorgeous part of our state you live in!

Pike is a terrific cantaloupe (OK, technically a muskmelon, but in the USA we call muskmelons cantaloupe) for clay soil as it was developed specifically for clay. I am not sure about gravelly soil though. I think Baker's Creek (www.rareseeds.com) has Pike. The best melons in my clay (which has been improved with compost, manure, chopped/shredded leaves, etc.) AND which do not take up excessive space are Black Tail Mountain and Yellow Doll. Sugar Baby and Bush Sugar Baby grow just fine for me, and I have found Moon and Stars to grow very well in clay, and it produces very large melons.

By the way, I grow my gourds on the garden fences and on tomato cages AND a few grow from the fence and climb up the trees that are on the northern and northwestern edge of my garden. Because they are such space hogs, I grow them as vertically as possible. This year I am going to plant gourds to climb the chicken coop and guinea coop. The last time I did it, I got a great gourd harvest even though it is shaded for part of the day.

Dawn

Okiedawn,

i tried moon and stars a couple of times but they just dont good for me. they had a real grainy/stringy texture.

I grow my gourds on cattle panels but they still sprawl. I also grow my cucumbers on the cattle panels also. And anything else that i can get to go verticle.

I got the packman seeds ordered and a few other ones i had'nt planned on. But they just look and sound so good.

I just cant hardly wait to get the warm season stuff started. I actually do have some tomato plants already. but am repotting them as needed to try and get some green tomatoes for the farmers market.

people always ask for green tomatoes and i just cant hardly pick one for fear it might be the first one to turn red. But this year i am going to grow some just for green ones.

I have a question about starting seeds. I don't start them inside as we don't heat our house when we are not here and it gets a little to cold for seed sprouting. I was thinking I could build a "hothouse" with hay bales put up against the east side of the house with clear plastic covering the top. I would lay black plastic on the ground. I have been saving veggie cans and would plant each seed inside it and put it in my hothouse. Is it to cold for that now? I don't plan on doing it this week, but maybe about mid Feb. I would like to get my hot peppers started for a longer growing season. Do you think that will work?
I know I could try it and see if it works, but the scale I want to do this on is a very big job. Has anyone else tried this? I am up by the Kansas line (Helena) so the weather is going to be going hot/cold for awhile.

Busy1,

So, you're saying they want green tomatoes for frying or making chow chow or something? For a market grower, you know, that's good news.....because you can take green tomatoes to market earlier and (with green tomatoes being more rare) command a higher price. Sounds like a win-win situation. I just won't hardly pick a tomato green except in the fall. If a huge cold front is coming and I know I need to pick all the fruit, I'll pick the green ones and try to ripen them slowly, especially the longkeepers. Most years when I have a lot of greenies, I do send a big bunch to work with DH for one of his coworkers who likes to fry 'em green and also make chow chow. I do grow some green-when-ripe types most years, but they're no more suitable for frying when ripe than the ripe red ones are.

River,

Bill P., who used to post on Garden Web as Gone Fishin' before he passed away last year, raised most or all of his seedlings in a cold frame every year in either zone 7B or 8A. He was slightly east of Dallas in the suburbs, so I'm not sure which zone he was in but it was either 7B or 8A. He had great success.

Actually, if I remember correctly, his was actually a hotbed because he put down a layer of hot (fresh, uncomposted) horse manure several inches down deep in a trench, put garden soil on top of that, and planted directly in the garden soil. The heat created by the horse manure as it decomposed kept his plants just warm enough at night. He always raised beautiful seedlings and the only trouble I ever remember him having was the year it rained non-stop and his in-the-ground plants almost drowned.

So, I think it could work for you and, you know, you could throw a heavy blanket or comforter over the "hothouse" if a late snowstorm threatened.

I suspect this is one of those projects that you'll just have to try to see if it works. It should work. People have raised seedlings using similar methods for years.

If the seeds don't get warm enough to sprout, then you'd essentially be wintersowing, which ought to work fine anyway for most plants. Well, I'm not sure about peppers. Peppers don't like cold at any stage of their development, so I am a little concerned about that. I'd post a message for Seedmama here on this forum and ask her if she wintersows peppers and has success with them. I think Ilene wasn't happy with wintersown peppers in the past either, but I'm not sure if my memory is correct. (The older I get, the less confident I am that the things I "remember" actually happened.....LOL).

You also could buy a seed germination mat and start seeds indoors using it underneath the flat. In the room where I have my light shelf (with ordinary fluorescent lights) and germination mat, the room always seems hotter to me than any other room in the house, and I think the lights generate more heat than you'd think. Just lights and a germination mat might create enough heat in your house to start seeds, and then you wouldn't have to worry about the temperatures dropping too much outside and causing you to lose your plants.

If you try this method outdoors, you also could place milk jugs or two-liter bottles full of water inside your frame. They'd serve as solar collectors--absorbing sunlight and heat all day long and then releasing it into the air at night as they cooled. If you paint the bottle black, they'd probably heat up a few more degrees. You also could add heat by purchasing a soil heating cable and running it through the soil underneath the cans with your seedlings.

You also could line your coldframe with a light-reflecting mylar paper. It would reflect light/heat back onto your plants. That kind of thing would be available in rolls from someone like Worm's Way that sells to indoor and greenhouse growers. You probably could get a similar effect from aluminum foil, but it might not be as reflective.

Later in spring, as the occasional very warm day hits, you'll have to open the lid up during the day so that your plants don't roast.

Dawn

River, My seedstarting setup is on a glassed porch attached to the house. I have a bench with a sand trough through which I have threaded a heating cable. Regular flourescent lights hang over it to give it more light than the south facing windows on cloudy days and after dark. Turn them off at 9 pm. There is a frame over the bench over which I can drape a clear sheet of plastic on very cold nights.
I also have a very small electric heater on the porch as I also have another bench--unheated--on which I overwinter house plants. The geraniums are getting ready to bloom right now after being cut back hard in Oct.
Like Dawn, I am afraid that peppers wouldn't do well in the setup you describe, especially as far north as you are. Has anyone ever had peppers self seed and volunteer in their gardens? I never have although tomatoes do it all the time.

My inside growing setup changes a little every year, but I think last year was best of all. I have lights attached to a metal shelving unit and they are on chains so I can move them up as required.

I do not have a heating mat, but I have learned that I don't need one. Once I have the lights on the first trays, I place the germinating seed on the shelf ABOVE the lights, and throw one of those silver survival blankets over the top. It is still loose and open on the ends so the heat can escape, but those lights do generate a lot of heat, and of course, heat rises. The silver blanket also throws more reflected light onto the shelves below. I had really good luck with this method last year.

I am wintersowing a lot of flowers this year, and may throw in some veggies just for kicks, but not peppers. Peppers are a special case and they will stay inside until I am sure the temps are high enough for them. I will probably only pot them up in small square pots that fit eight to a flat so I can take them out "to sun" on those warm spring days. Last year I potted them in bigger pots and it took a lot of trips to get those babies into the bunkhouse everytime it was going to frost or freeze. My fault, but I just can't wait to get things outside, and you know how I love to plant peppers. LOL

Hi Dorothy,

Are y'all icy there yet? We're just drizzly here so far.

I have had peppers self-sow in the garden and sprout the following spring, but almost always they are from the ornamental peppers that I mix into my flower borders, and not from edible peppers. However, that could be because I harvest all the edibles and bring them inside so there's nothing left to sprout or self-sow. I've never had pepper seeds sprout in the compost pile either, although other plants often do. The ornamental peppers, though, I often stop deadheading in late fall, so they drop so dead, dried peppers before I do the big garden debris clean-up. Currently, I have two potted brugmansias that have 6 to 10 little tiny pepper sprouts in the soil at the base of the plant. I didn't even grow peppers in those pots. I think that there were some potted Black Pearl ornamental peppers nearby, so maybe some tiny ornamental peppers fell into the soil in the Brugs' pots.

I love the sound of your glassed-in porch and keep thinking one of these years we'll convert the screened-in back porch to one with glass windows, although we haven't done it yet. It is on the "to do" list, though, along with a lot of other 'wishes'.

Carol,

I love the way you've used the survival blanket. That's a really great idea. I think it is the hardest thing in the world to keep peppers inside long enough. I've learned the hard way, though, that if I set them out and let them be exposed to cold nights, then I'll have a very delayed harvest. Even knowing that, it is STILL hard to be patient and wait for the soil/air to warm up enough.

It is so cold and yucky here today, and I am afraid we have a long, long wait for spring weather to arrive. It always seems like the worst weather arrives about the time we start getting spring fever in late Jan. and Feb.

Dawn

We have very little moisture, but it is already slick and yucky. I have been out of dishwashing detergent for about a week and was tired of doing dishes, so I made one final run to Walmart. At 1:00 I was driving home and I started to see misting rain on my windshield. It stopped for a little while then started again. I filled the bird feeders and took out the trash, etc. and decided I was finished outside for the day because everything is getting very slick. The temp is 28 and the mist is very light, but we are going to have a bad day tomorrow.

Dawn - Unlike you, our electricity goes off frequently. When it is stormy you expect that to happen, but ours will sometimes go off when the weather is fine. We have a fireplace but I haven't even used it this year. Our house is electric, but we have one small gas stove that is enough to keep our pipes from freezing if we lose power. Our bunkhouse has gas heat and hot water, so we just move out there if it gets bad. I still don't have my gas cook stove hooked up out there, but I have a stove height propane stove, a campoven, and a crockpot size pan that runs on a propane bottle, so I will be OK. We also have generators that we can run as long as we can put up with the noise, but we would probably only use them to keep our refrigerators and freezer from thawing out. We made it 6 days without electricity in a storm a couple of years ago. We didn't have a generator at that time, but a friend brought one to use on day four so we would not lose our freezer. During the storm, we made a list of everything we needed to buy, or needed to buy more of, and gradually checked them off our list as we got them. Most of them were just things we needed to have more off, like lamp oil. I had lots of candles but the light from lanterns was much better, so we doubled the amount we had stored.

We had two serious ice storms that year. I think the first one was in February and the next in November, so they were two different winters, but the same year. The first one hit us bad, but some of the towns around us were OK. Just the opposite happened with the second one. The one that got Tulsa so badly, and Miami to our north, didn't cause serious problems here at all. As it happened, friends in towns close-by were able to help each other in both storms. We accused one of our friends of running a "bath house" for several days.

I will just stay home tomorrow, but my husband probably will not. He was supposed to be retired, but is working a part-time temporary job. Some weeks it isn't part-time at all.

I did discover that I had a great gardening book that I hadn't looked at in a long time, so that is probably the only form of gardening I will be doing this week....just reading about it.

Everyone BE SAFE because it is going to be slick. Carol

Thanks everyone for the suggestions. I think the only way to get a headstart on the hot peppers is to get some lights and heat in place. I wanted to get a couple of months growth before warm weather set in but I'll just do the best I can. I can always bring them in about frost time. I plan on growing some in big pots so I can do that. I still have my trinidad chili trees in pots in the laundry room and hopefully they will come back.