Not happy that I am in that mapped area, but my garden is in pretty good shape as far as planting goes. My tomato plants are not in the ground yet and I am glad because they wouldn't have had time to establish if I had put them in. Of course, they are saying we may have 'severe' weather in addition to flooding, and that sounds even worse. I can see a little green this morning on the peas (2nd batch) that I put in early this week, so they should be OK. Potatoes are coming up nicely, first peas are a couple of inches tall, and asparagus is jumping up each day. I did get those beans planted yesterday, so it is possible that they will rot, but I doubt it. Oh well, it's Spring in Oklahoma.

Good grief.

Oklahoma: The State of Moderation. NOT.

Diane

This is not good for me. My ground is still too wet to till. If I wait til after the rains my planting will be late, if I till now my garden may wash away.

I am going to place shavings in the drainage ditches around my garden that has been tilled in hope to save most of the soil. The other gardens have a good bonding of Elbon Rye roots and should stay put even in heavy rains.

Larry

Whew! I did garden cleanup today, despite my aching bones (arthritis). Most of it is now done. I added some chicken manure to one garden area and raked it in well. Should be okay. I wanted to do it before the rain so it could get watered in.

I discovered many more things have broken ground, too. I hope we don't get too cold nighttime temps next week.

I guess for now I'm okay here in central OK.

Susan

We're under a flash flood watch and could get 4"-6"... We shall see.

We are at about the same conditions. I went out this morning just as it started to sprinkle to do dome last minute weeding. The area where I "Forced" the garden into readiness is wet and packed very badly, but at least I have some Cole crops in. I can see where it may be after the first of may before I get my summer crops in, which is often the case.

It is raining pretty hard now so I will go over to DD's and do some work on the inside. I may buy some plants from the nursery near her house. My starts have been neglected so much this year that they don't look too great.

Larry

I just saw some pics on twitter of cars stalled in flooded intersections in Norman near the OU campus. I swear this town has some of the worst storm drains I have ever seen. Our automatic rain gauge at home is saying 1.5" so far, but I'm willing to bet the actual total is closer to 2". We'll see how much it's underestimating when DH goes out to check the manual rain gauges once the rain stops. Our backyard is a lake at the moment, and I could see standing water in the pathways of the garden before I left for work this morning. I'll have to check and see if my latest planting of carrots and lettuce are washed out when I get home. I hope not! The lettuce has been up since late last week and the carrots were just starting to sprout yesterday, so hopefully the roots are anchored enough to stay put.

Norman is already at 2.66 inches according to the Mesonet, and radar still shows heavy rain in that area. This morning when I left home (between Edmond and Guthrie) to head for work, there was already water in the drainage ditches and ponding in the yards. Many of the roads that I drive to and from work in far north Oklahoma County near Hwy 74 flood, so chances are I'll be taking an alternate route to get home this evening. I'm glad for the rain but sure would be nice if it came in moderation instead of all at once. We're supposed to go to Beavers Bend in far SE Oklahoma next week, so we're watching to see if the anticipated flooding in that area impacts those plans. One report said SE Oklahoma could receive 10 to 20 inches by the time this week is over ... yikes!

Suzie

The good thing about my garden is that we've had a little over an inch of rain today and I could work in my garden right now if it wasn't still raining a little (and I wasn't at work). The paths are muddy, but the beds are great. In a couple months, the fact that my garden drains so well won't make me very happy, but it's great for now.

Leslie

I have been watching the radar and the Mesonet rain reports and thinking of all of you, and hoping the rain will be kind to your plants. DS's friends in the OKC/Norman/Chandler area have been testing and tweeting, describing their oceans of red mud/clay/water. It sounds like some areas have really been hit hard up there.

I've been working in the garden, trying to get as much done as possible before it turns into a lake. Only raised beds are planted except that the potato bed is not really raised. It is at the high end of the garden where I usually grow sweet potatoes in clayey-sandy-loamy soil so I am not especially worried about the taters. However, the onions which are in two different raised beds, have large areas where onions have rotted because of all the previous rainfall. I always over-plant onions because our clay soil mixed with heavy rainfall is not kind to them, so we'll still get plenty of onions. Raised beds help during wet years but those raised beds can get waterlogged too if it rains enough since they have a heavy clay content.

At our house, I am more worried about the chance of severe weather than just rainfall. So much rain has fallen the last few months that we are almost totally waterlogged, so maybe this rain will run off and fill up the ponds and creeks. We still have standing puddles of water from last week's rain...or the week before, whenever it last rained here.

All we've had here so far is the tiniest little bit of misty-drizzle stuff for about 2 minutes this morning, and wind, wind, wind. Our wind gusts fairly high periodically, with the highest gust so far being 44 mph.

Because of the TWC's TorCon numbers for the region, DH and DS have been working on the VFD's tornado plan, checking supplies and even went to the station and tested the tornado siren that our local electric co-op gave to us and put up on a tall pole for us. I have the tornado shelter open and airing out, and as soon as the NWS issues a Severe Thunderstorm Watch or Tornado Watch, I'll put our "go bags" of extra clothing and emergency supplies down there.

NWC issue flash flood warming for our area. Our property received 2.88" rainfall since this morning (in 6hrs) and radar maps shows huge water moving, probably another couple of inches in few hours. Oceans of water every where... looks like 2012 going to be flood year!

Fortunately I manage to spread the compost and prepare all beds for beans and corn yesterday and planted few more tomatoes, I guess they may not be happy sitting in flood of water.

Oh yeah. Those broccoli plants are swimming now. Not too worry about it. My best babies are potted up on the porch. But, wow.... I could place a cruise liner in my back yard.

bon

well here in El Reno i worked some yesterday getting comfrey and swiss chard and such situated,boy the rain is steady,hoping my tiny barely up peas are still there.....my ground is well draining so hoping so ...

i am all mixed up on what to do right now since weather so weirded out,was thinking to start some kale from seed since could not find any plants in town or in yukon.

hang on everyone, another NON boring season in OK :)

all my cats are asleep and making me sleepy

I'm grateful we are getting more than the "less than one inch" they finally whittled the rain amount predictions down to earlier. I didn't really want 5, but more than one inch was highly preferable!!

I bet Western OK is pretty happy. They've been getting a little bit of rain out of most of these storms we've had this spring.

The storm total rainfall here at our house for today was 4.01". The pathways in the garden are about 70% underwater, but the beds themselves look okay. The green leaf lettuce that I planted several weeks ago is all laying down on the ground, though. Hopefully it'll recover, but if not then the path of lettuce I just planted about a week ago still looks good.

Correction: Apparently I heard wrong and DH said it was actually 4.18". And I meant to say "patch" of lettuce. :)

HaHa - Why couldn't I figure out patch? I thought maybe you dropped a pack of seeds in the path. LOL

We only got 1/4" this morning but heavy rains are supposed to move in tonight, maybe a little rough weather also, looks as though we may have 2 or 3 days of rain. The weather man on a Ft. Smith station said some areas may receive 10" of ran in the next few days.

The weather just came on the TV. It looks as though George, Carol and Dorothy may be getting a little nasty weather about now.

Larry

Larry, We have thunder and lightening, and have received three inches of rain so far and we are just getting started. It appears that the severe thunderstorm and tornado that they have warnings on at the moment are going to cross into Arkansas and Missouri before they get to us, but there is still a lot more rain headed our way, and who knows when severe weather will develop in those clouds.

The south half of my garden slants to the north and everything is running off of it. I have snow peas and some Chinese cabbage near the north fence and raised beds with asparagus and onions that I think are OK....but the onion bed that is in the ground and the big broccoli bed is pretty well under water at the moment. It is raining too fast for it to run off, and I also have a french drain that has to drain off from there. We may be doing a little trenching in the morning to encourage the water to move better. I live up on a ridge fairly high above the water, so if we can get the water to move, it will just drain into the lake. Right now it is raining faster than it can drain off.

We normally get heavy Spring rain but it normally doesn't come until April and May. I am glad that my tomatoes are not in the ground, because I am sure I would have disease issues for the beginning if they had to swim in this. After playing outside for a couple of weeks now, they had to go inside today. They are too small for this much water.

Lol, I almost did! It was windy the day that I planted them, so there are lettuce seedlings popping up in all kinds of random places.

I hope we don't get much more rain these next few days. I don't think our backyard has been this soupy since 2007. I didn't care about it so much then, but I can't get into my garden right now without doing a trapeze walk along the wooden frames of the beds. And even then, they sink down into the mud in places when I step on them. We need a sunny day or two to dry out.

We've gotten about 4" and it's still coming.

We have lots more rain coming and we are at 4.08 inches now. GLUG, GLUG, GLUG. Where is Noah when we need him?

The rain started late here yesterday, so we only had 2.25" in the rain gauge when we went to sleep last night. It has rained on and off all night long, and they've been noisy, active storms with tons of thunder and lightning. I imagine there will be quite a bit of rain in the rain gauge later on when I check it in the daylight hours.

I cannot even imagine how much flooding and flash flooding will be a concern today and possibly for some days to come. The rivers in eastern and southeastern OK and in western Arkansas likely will rise really fast with all the rain that's fallen already and which is continuing to fall. Texas is getting pounded too and swift-water rescues were occurring yesterday and into the overnight hours.

This is the way our droughts tend to end--with lots of flooding. It will be nice to have good water levels again in the lakes, creeks and ponds.

Now we need to get ready for the mosquito invasion and, if you live in a part of Oklahoma that has a large fire ant population, watch out! The fire ant mounds will be popping up out of the ground in the next few days.

Man, my plants need oars! Last year we were dying for rain, this year we get too much. But at least the drought is ending.

Didn't start raining here til after dark last night. This morning the gauge shows 3.2", which is a bit more than we needed. We weren't real dry but the top inch of the garden was dried out; we've had a lot less rain the last several months than some of you. Now water is standing in the slightly lower east end of the garden and can't get out because there are leaf and chip piles down there. If I can find someone hauling sandy creek soil next fall I'm going to order a couple dump truckloads, something I've been thinking of doing for 20 years.

Greetings from Grand Lake, and many 'not so grand' lakes. It is still raining here, but at this point it is very light. Our Mesonet total is 5.65 inches as I am writing, but I am sure it will still go up more. I checked the rainfall amount at 5:30 and again ant 8:30 and decided that there was no future in getting up. Al had an appointment to go to, but I just listened to the rain until I went back to sleep. I am well rested, and maybe a bit lazy. LOL

It is much to early to access the damage to the garden, but it looks like it will be mostly limited to the broccoli and the last group of onions that I planted, IF there is damage.

I had planted a few radish and carrot seeds which I had planned to cover yesterday morning, but we had to make a quick trip to Arkansas, and the rain started almost as soon as we got home. I have lots more seed to replace them so that is definitely not a big deal. The asparagus is in a raised bed and is thriving in these conditions. You can almost watch it grow. Since it is only a year old, we are picking very little from it, but it is ferning up nicely.

I decided to bite the bullet and plant some bean seed on Saturday (with Dawn's approval) and last night with the porch light on I could see three bean plants glistening in the rain. If the others had also germinated then they may be OK. One of the locations where I planted Sugar Snaps this year, had pole beans on the same trellis last year. As I was planting the beans, I saw a couple of beans that I guess I failed to pick last year and they fell to the ground. Evidently it was more than a couple since I have quite a few coming up along with the Sugar Snaps. Oh well, it's a 'grow place, not a show place', right?

The beans that I planted on Saturday came from macmex originally and they were early and delicious. I can never remember the name, but it has Tennessee and greasy, in the name. They are not consistently the same size, but that doesn't bother me, since they taste good and produce well. I like them well enough that I grew the small amount out that I had left over, and kept them for seed for this years garden. I will be happy if I have good germination from them, because I really would love to have a lot of them this year. The fact that I can see three already up gives me hope that the others have endured this rain as well. That area of the garden is draining off fast, so they should be OK.

I have moved my tomato transplants back outside again to let them enjoy the light rain that is falling and to get some real light after having spent the last 30 hours or so inside under lights. My immediate future holds little hope for gardening.

After all this rain, I'm having trouble deciding whether to pull up my tomato plants and replace them or see if they will survive. (thankfully I saved some transplants just in case) Some of them look ok but others look pretty wilted and beat up. Should I leave them alone and see how they do, or put in my backup plants. I'm afraid even if they do survive they will have disease problems. Any words of wisdom would be great.

I really didn't need any rain, but the flood has been great so far. We are up to 3.15" now and still raining lightly. The plants that I "Mudded in" on the 13th. look great, the shavings I tossed in the garden drainage ditch slowed the water flow and there was no washing away of soil.

My plants in the house are terrible from neglect. I only have a few tomatoes and peppers under lights, I just have not had time to take care of them, all other plants I have given away. It looks as tho some of my onions have rotted but I will still have more than I need.

I bought some "Mountain Fresh" tomato plants yesterday from a local nursery that start their own plant, I really like buying from them.

This has been a wonderful day, other than checking the garden and ordering tiller parts, I have only rested.

Larry

Larry, When it is this wet, resting is the best idea. I don't want to do anything that requires water usage, because I am sure the septic system is filled to capacity, so other than flushing, I'm trying to avoid adding to the problem. I have rested most of the day also. Although I have a ham I cooked yesterday, so it would be available if we lost electricity, we have elected to go out to eat.

We are up to 6 inches for this storm and it is still raining. It is draining off better than it does in some storms though. Yesterday it was raining so fast that it couldn't drain off fast enough, but today it is doing a little better. Of course, with this much rain we still have lots of puddles. Will it never end?

We ended up with 4.35" and although we didn't especially need it, we got it anyway. Last summer we would have been deliriously happy to have that much rainfall from one storm system.

We already were wet, so now we're just wetter.

My bush beans, sugar snap peas and corn are loving this weather and have doubled in height in the last 24 hours. As soon as it is dry enough to plant, I'll be planting pole beans in the garden, but that likely won't be until sometime next week.

Ihav2gratkids, I'd leave the tomato plants alone for a while and see how they do. I've had tomato plants survive 12.89" of rainfall in one day, followed by 6 to 8" more rain in the following 4 to 6 weeks. The plants wilted, became twisted and distorted and had horrible color, but I felt like they probably would recover if I left them alone, so I left them alone and they did recover. As the soil finally dried out, they resumed growing, their color improved once their roots were not so waterlogged and could take up nutrients, they began blooming and setting fruit. The harvest was late but was fine.

Much will depend on the health and size of the plants before the rain fell, as well as on how well your soil drains. Time will tell. I'd hate to see you use the backup plants this early in the season. The weather could do something else to your garden in the next few weeks that will cause you to need to use those backup plants, so I'd save then for that while waiting to see if the current plants overcome the wilting. If they stay wilted more than a week, I'd begin to worry.

Dorothy, I feel like I walk a fine line between improving the drainage of the clay soil enough for wet years but not improving it so much that the raised beds dry out too quickly in drought years. It would be nice if our weather was a little more consistent, but I guess that never will happen.
Larry, With all the rain you get every year, it is a wonder you're able to have a garden at all.

Carol, I have a long 'to do' list that doesn't involve being in the garden, including mixing up a soil-less container mix, filling containers and planting into them. So, I can garden, but I just cannot garden in my garden. I also need to pot up seedlings to the next larger size container, and start seed indoors of a few warm-season plants. I have windowboxes to fill with flowers, and lots I can work on in the greenhouse or potting shed.

I just have to wear rainboots or clogs or my ATV Crocs, and none of them would be my first choice of footwear. They are very functional though and were made for these conditions.

Dawn

I bought some rain boats last year for just such an occasion, but they are still in the box.....somewhere. I sure didn't need them last year. Right now I could use them to walk through the yard.

We went out for dinner tonight and the waitress told us that they had been working short-handed because many employees couldn't travel their washed-out roads to get to work. Our roads are asphalt and didn't wash out, but in some places the water was still flowing over them, and in other places they were covered with leaves and sticks where the water had gone over them during the hardest part of the rain.

As of this evening we have gotten 3.8". I wish I could have stayed home yesterday and caught up on inside chores, both in the house and in the greenhouse, but had drs appts both days, one in Muskogee and one in Ft Smith, so it took most of one day's time and all of the energy.

I planted 90 broccoli and 30 cabbage last week in the low end of the garden and now they are very wet. But if they don't make it I have backups. Same with the tomatoes. Planted 16 and have lots of backups. I need to find someone who wants the extra plants, but not until I am sure I won't need them.

hehe Garden-fresh broccoli soup for me, too. haha Man, my peas shot up about four inches in two days. I'm really glad to have the moisture. The walnut trees are sprouting. They're only half dead, then.

I should have taken a picture of my flooded land to post here. Although we have had a lot of rain in this part of the state since fall, our "farm" had been in one small patch that had missed out. We have had no runoff since last April until this week. So even though the bottom 100 acres is now flooded from the rainfall to our north that came down the creek, the pond didn't start filling until after 3 inches of rain had already fallen, and it is only half-filled now.

We got 2.9 Monday, 1.2 Tuesday, and another .3 last night. Everything is setting up perfectly for a good growing season provided we don't get a hard freeze, which I'm starting to feel better about.

Another plus here is that this flood moved the turkeys from the lowland nest areas to the higher areas before they got too many (or any) eggs laid. The last few years have seen heavy rain and floods while they were sitting on their lowland nests so reproduction was very minimal. This year they will likely establish nest higher because of the water. I miss seeing my baby turkeys in the summer.

We had a small amount of light rain overnight, bringing us to 5.5" so far for this week and we're close to 10" for this month. Our Mesonet station has had only about half as much March rain as we have had, which isn't highly unusual because it is further west, and in our county, the further west you go the drier it normally is.

It is raining again now, as if we need more rain, and it is chilly compared to the weather we've had the last few weeks. However, as soon as this low pressure system moves on out, we'll be in the mid-80s in a couple of days.

Yesterday I was able to walk in about half the garden paths, but the other half were still under water. With new rain falling, I doubt I'll be walking in the garden today.

Scott, We have had heavy rainfall since September but our big pond has stedfastly refused to hold whatever runoff it has caught for more than a couple of days to maybe a week with heavy rainfall. I guess the subsoil beneath the pond has been slurping up all the moisture. At times the pond has had a foot or two of water after a heavy rainstorm, only to be empty by the next week. Right now it has about 3' to 4', so we'll see if that water holds, or if it too is absorbed into the ground. At some point you'd think it would begin holding water again. All the small ponds are full and overflowing, and a seasonal pond northwest of the big pond is mostly full.

I'd wondered where all the wild turkeys had gone. I've seen some the last 2 years, but not very many compared to past years.

Every day that passes, I worry less about a late freeze, but I never feel truly safe until after the first week of May.

In looking at this thread, I see that I said rain 'boats' instead of 'boots', but that might be a better choice if this mess doesn't stop soon. That swirling rain pattern is pretty weird, but I hope it dumps some more rain on Jay and then fizzles out.

It looks like we have a few more chances for rain in the middle and late part of next week, but at least we'll have the warm weekend to dry out a bit. I want to start planting bush and pole beans, but I need to get the soil worked and the trellis set up first.

I would like to plant beans to, but if it is done anytime soon they will have to be planted with a Bean-Flip while I am standing at the end of the garden.

I have only had one Yukon Gold to come up, most of the Pontiac are up.

We have had 4 1/8" of rain out of this system and may get more before the week is out. Things will have to change a lot before I can till anymore soil. I may try to plant in holes in the south garden (tomatoes and peppers) and just mulch around the plants to kill the rye, but I still have plenty of time for that.

Larry

Raining again here too. We're at 4.5" now. Dawn, this is a switch because before this rain, we had been dry with only a couple inches this year. So your weather and mine swapped this year.

I'm ready to plant beans and corn but it will have to dry out some before I can do it. I'm thinking of starting cucs and squash in pots in the next week.

Hmm, do you think it's too early to direct sow summer squash? I'm wondering if trying to plant it early will give me a head start against the SVBs, or, forbid the thought, they arrive early just like everything else.

We had another quarter of an inch today, which brings our total for the year to 4.28 inches. That's a lot less than some of you, but we're always drier here anyway. And when you consider that our total annual rainfall wasn't up to 4 inches until October 8th last year, this year is wonderful. And I know last year was terrible, but seeing a sentence like that last one really shows how horrible it really was. Good thing it's in the past!

Leslie

Miraje, I doubt we will get a head start on any kind of bug this year, I think they have been out in the garden all winter just waiting for us to start planting again.
Something is eating my radishes and Chinese cabbage already. I have seen Flea Beetles and expect I have other kinds of bugs also.

Larry

Carol, What we need are little foot-sized Jetski/boot combinations so we can zip around the garden and work without having to slosh through the muck and mud.

Heather, Isn't it exciting that we get to plant beans so early? I've already got the first four varieties of bush beans in, and am getting ready to plant pole beans next week just as soon as the soil is dry enough that the seeds won't rot.

It might not be too early to sow squash seeds, but I'll likely sow mine in paper cups. Squash is really sensitive to cool soil temps and cool air temps. However, if your soil temp is at least at 60 degrees at planting depth and doesn't drop colder than that at night, you probably could do it. I don't usually plant squash until my high temps are consistently staying above 65 degrees. If they get too cold, even for just a day or a night, they can stall and refuse to resume growth until they get over being mad about being too cold. If the warm-up that begins tomorrow for most of us catapults you into warm-enough temps that you think are likely to last, there's no reason not to give it a shot. Sometimes early plantings do indeed manage to produce a lot before the SVBs show up.

I have found SVBs to be very hard to predict. Last year I didn't see a single one. If you familiarize yourself with the appearance of the moth, you'll know when they arrive and then can cover up your plants or protect them in whatever way you choose.

Larry, For me Yukon Gold almost always emerges later than Red Pontiac. The potatoes I have in a raised bed in the Peter Rabbit are loving the rain. The plants I have at grade level in the main garden are one-fourth the size of the ones planted in the raised beds. I just hope the ones in the grade level beds don't rot.

Dorothy, Tim and I drove back from Texas on Tuesday and came across at the Taovayas bridge at the far western end of the county. We have been so green and lush here, that I forgot the western part of the county had been receiving less rain than we had. They haven't had nearly as much green-up and their fruit trees are blooming later too.

We have plenty of rain for March now, and I wish it would stop. (I am so hard to please because back in July I would have given my left arm for 10" of rain...or for five inches or three inches.) I was thinking for most of this month that I was getting your rain and Carol's rain and that y'all were getting mine. It looks like your half of the situation has improved a lot, but we are still getting now-unwanted rain here today. It is very, very light but any rain is too much rain at this point. In June or July, I'll rue saying I wanted the rain to stop.

Leslie, It is wonderful you have had so much more rain this year already and that it is falling early in the year. I am always mindful of the fact that we have gardeners here who face very diverse soil and weather conditions. What some of us consider "too much" rain likely doesn't sound like "enough" to others. If the rain keeps falling, maybe your rainfall this year will end up being higher than average. Wouldn't that be great?

Larry, We've had leaf-eating pests all winter. I don't usually see a lot more pests in a wet year, or even earlier pests. What I usually see is an early arrival of some of the worst pests in a hot winter or spring. It seems like the early arrival of hot weather always brings me spider mites and grasshoppers at destructive levels by May instead of July.

Dawn

*sigh Spider mite infestation on my cilantro seedlings. I did see some predators, too. (Trying to stay positive here.) Something is eating up my broccoli seedlings.

My yarden is a mess. New an unestablished it's not draining well in some places and looks like a disaster. I hate to even begin thinking of putting my potted seedlings in it. Those that are planted seem to be gasping for air at a time I cannot even wade into the garden to help them out. Frustrated and impatient. Maybe I'll feel better after some sunshine tomorrow and my tomato plants perk up.

Amazing how quickly an environment can change in Oklahoma.

Bon, There are some people who say we don't have all 4 seasons in Oklahoma--that we go from winter to summer and back again with no spring or fall. I would argue that they are wrong. We do have all 4 seasons here in Oklahoma. It is just that some years we have all 4 seasons in the same week...or maybe, in rare cases, all in the same day.

The changeable weather keeps us all on our toes.

Dawn

Isn't that the truth? I think the only plant-friendly spot for plants in my yard right now is right under the slow decay compost pile.