Moni,

Lucky you.

We were forecast to go to 32. We went down to 26. We have been below freezing for 5 hours, so my fruit trees probably will start dropping baby plums and peaches in a few days.

I hope this is the end of temps below freezing, but I am not counting on it.

Dawn

26 here too, probably lost the peaches, pears and apples. The plum bloomed but didn't set fruit. We only have one plum tree that is a seedling from our daughter's. Do we need a pollinator?

Weird thing is, we were forecasted with 27. My stuff is uncovered.

Remains to be seen, if nothing got hurt.

Moni

Dorothy,

Plum tree pollination is complicated and you have to know what type of plum tree you have in order to know if it needs a different tree to self-pollinate it.

In general, European plums are self-pollinators.

In general, Japanese plums need to be pollinated by a different variety of Japanese plum. In general, European plums do not pollinate Japanese plums.

However, there are exceptions. Santa Rosa is a Japanese Plum that is self-pollinating.

One of the most commonly-grown plums in the USA is Methley because it is self-pollinating. It also is a Japanese plum, although technically it came from China to Japan so it is truly a Chinese plum. Green Gage is another plum that self-pollinates.

Dawn

the sun is out! hoping today will be warm enough to take advantage of the good soaking and pull weeds! (after I take a zillion bags off of everything=lol) I think I will leave the mulch piled up high on the new tender transplants, until toward the end of the week when the night temperatures rise a little . Bags blew off a few things in the high winds, so it will be interesting to compare the effects. And the older trees weren't possible to cover. Great chance to see if it was worth covering at all. Hoping for the best!

I think my plants would have been fine even if I hadn't covered. The sun was shining when I got up so I ran out in my robe and PJs to remove covers because I had used black flower pots.

I opened my front door at 3 AM and it still had water droplets on it and at 8 AM the sun was shining bright. I am not sure that it froze at all although the forecast was 24. We were surprised when we got to church and saw cars with several inches of snow on them. I guess we were just in one of those pockets that didn't get much. It snowed for a couple of hours but it melted as soon as it hit the wet ground. The hosta look bright and healthy this morning. Maybe we will get lucky and that will be the last weather problem this year. LOL It's a beautiful day here today.

Carol,

If you're in Delaware County, your Mesonet station recorded a low of 28, although that doesn't necessarily mean it went down to 28 at your house. Maybe the same factor that caused the snow to miss you also caused the worst of the cold temperatures to miss you too. If the sky was overcast, y'all very well could have stayed above freezing, especially if you're at a higher elevation than your Mesonet station.

We had no wind and a clear, cloud-free night and that is part of the reason we went several degrees lower than forecast and had frost here.

Dawn

I don't know exactly where the MESONET station is located but I know it is between Grove and Jay (south of Grove) and I am north of Grove. Our lake is so huge that I wonder if it doesn't have an effect as well. I watched the weather report last night and you could see the dry line on the map as it was moving east. I told my husband that with any kind of luck the sun would be out before that clear sky reached us.

The guy that was driving one of those trucks with all of the snow on it, came by this afternoon and we were talking about it. He said they only got about two inches, but it was still on his truck this morning. We had no snow on the ground here, as it melted as fast as it hit the wet ground or anything else. He lives a few miles east of us, near the state line, but about 6 miles south.

My canna had just started to emerge so I didn't try to cover them, but the hosta was big enough that I thought a hard freeze would really set it back so that was mostly what I had covered, plus one clematis. My neighbor has a clematis vine on a black metal trellis that marks our property line. It was not covered and suffered no damage. I don't think we had freezing temps at all, but if we did it had to have been a very short time. Of course, I had moved the portable plants out of the wind and weather anyway. Our forecast has no freezing temps for the next 6 days, so maybe my wintersown sprouts will put on some growth by then.

It looks like I can start moving the tomato plants back out during the day. I never remember how warm it has to be for the peppers though, so I have to research that every year. LOL I do think it makes a difference though, if they get to cool. But even under lights, I don't keep the room very warm for my plants. Although they don't grow as fast, they never seem to get leggy or have damping off. I know that is supposed to be caused by light deprivation and lack of air movement, but I think it may also be a heat issue. Just my 2 cents.

My son that lives in Africa will be here next week end and my tomato and pepper plants are in the bunkhouse where they sleep, so I hope the weather is good enough for the plants to move outside. If not, I will be doing a big, plant shift for a couple of days.

Oh, the trouble we go to for the thrill of growing our own plants from seed. I already have more sprouted seeds than I have flower beds to put them in, and I keep planting new ones everyday. It is so exciting to see that plant emerge from than tiny little seed. I think I like that part better than any other part of gardening. Hurry up Spring!

Here my temps on the hill only got to 34, cold but nothing like the 20 somethings that said we would get to ... at church it read 30 so four degrees just heading down the hill - good news is everything looks like they are good - and I have more to plant and get out there so crossing fingers...

Mesonet must be near us, but, like soonergrandmom, I don't think it got down to freezing here. When I looked at the temp at 7:30 AM it was already 38 degrees. We covered hostas & peonies and the only damage we detected was one peony which was smashed when the wet box caved under the weight of the brick holding it down. I have hope it will recover in spite of our best intentions. Seems like we actually received enough moisture to do some good, light rain/snow mix all day. There was never enough to "dust" the ground, or it was warm enough to melt. It was beautiful blowing across the lake, such fine, misty precip. looking more like steam than snow. Through it all, bass boats zipping past the entire day. I had my fireplace on!! Sunday afternoon was warm & sunny--glorious! In weather, as in art, I appreciate the beauty in contrast. It's a good thing because that's what is predicted for the next week!

I don't know if this tidbit of info will help any, but your Mesonet station is listed as being 4 miles north of Jay.

Carol, I was thinking that the lake probably gives you some lake effect heating.....with that very large body of water absorbing sunlight and heat all day and then releasing it at night as the lake cools. I think it very well could keep your nights a couple of degrees warmer.

I only scattered a little hay over the onion bed, which probably wasn't even necessary, but I wanted them covered if the snow reached us, which it didn't. Even though our temps went down to 26, the cannas, which are up 6"-8", didn't even show any damage. It will be a while before I'll know if the fruit it going to abort--sometimes it can take a week or two for it to happen.

I had the tomatoes out in the sun and wind for an hour yesterday, and will increase that to two today. After being inside for several days, I'm starting all over with the hardening off process, which is a drag, but I'd rather be safe than sorry.

The peppers can go out when nights are staying above 50 degrees. Technically, it is exposure to cold in the lower 40s that stunts them and causes them to be unproductive, but I play it safe and keep them inside until we're completely out of the 40s. For planting purposes, the pepper roots may be damaged if plants are set out in soil temperatures lower than 55 degrees. I usually transplant peppers a week or two after tomatoes so I can be sure the ground and the air are warm to stay.

I usually have tomato plants in the ground by now, but then I have to cover them up a lot at night and uncover them in the morning, so I am trying and trying to hold off and wait. Easter weather always makes me nervous because it seems like we always have a late cold spell the week before or after Easter.

I hope the weather allows the plants to stay out too, so you don't have to carry them in and out every day while your son is in town. How nice that he'll be in town to visit!

I always start way too many seeds too and then I have to figure out what to do with all the plants. I am ready to play in the dirt, but the wind is brutal outside today. I hope March gets her act together and "goes out like a lamb" and that April weather acts like April weather and not like March weather.

The coyotes are up and running like mad and there are lots of them this year. They are so loud, and so close to the house, that their howling wakes me up in the middle of the night. The three does who have been bringing the 4 fawns to the yard to eat all winter have only come once in the last 4 days and their absence is because of the coyotes, so we probably won't see them much any more. I miss seeing the fawns--it is fun to watch them "grow up".

Despite the rain and higher humidity that we had for a few days, would you believe we still had grassfires every day? I will be glad when we get a more significant greenup so we won't have so many fires here in this county. As long as there is dry, dormant vegetation still standing (and there's tons of it in the unmowed and ungrazed pastures here), though, there is fire danger. Our humidity dropped to 23% yesterday which is pretty low for spring, but it was much lower in southwestern OK.

Wind, wind, go away! I don't know if it is blowing hard everywhere, but here at our house it is very high today.

Dawn

I am not so sure about the heat of lake effect... :)

yesterday, riding by both Lake Overholser and Lake Hefner, on the north side... it was really chilly. ;)

Dawn, about the wind, I like it today. Wash day. That means, laundry on the line. Windy days makes the laundry softer, and also dry faster. :)

Moni

We drove to Joplin MO for lunch and a trip to Sams, then across the corner of Kansas and back to Oklahoma. The wind was very strong in all of those places. Now the weather forecast is for thunderstorms again. I guess we are right at the edge of the bad weather threat again. They say there are two more storms behind this one, so I am sure we will get some of them. It's spring in Oklahoma...anything is possible.

Dawn - Thanks for the pepper info, AGAIN!

Carol,

You're welcome.

I don't mind doing the once-a-year pepper planting reminder. : )

Dawn

We only got down to about 37, I believe. We did get another 3/4" rain last night. Dawn, I tried telling it to turn around had head back to your county where it's needed more but it didn't listen.

Sooner, have you been to sandstone gardens in/near Joplin?

A few friends and I plan to drive up there on Thursday.

You know, road trip. ;)

Moni

Diane,

Well, I appreciate the thought! Should you suddenly develop the capacity to influence the weather and make it do what you command it to do, let me know and I'll send you a "wish list". LOL

Moni,

Hope y'all have a safe and fun trip.

Dawn