Scott, I sure hope you don't get damages on either of your crops. Mother Nature can be tough to deal with at times.

Larry

Scott I checked my apple trees when I got home around 1. I was thinking the same thing about them. I have picked a crop every year since my older tree started setting fruit. Losing the fruit I can live with as they are for my eating enjoyment only unlike your pecans I don't depend on them for any income. But if we receive a late hard freeze I might lose some trees which I would hate to see happen during this drought. Hard enough to keep an established tree going let alone starting any new trees. I hope you escape any damage and I do also. But still a lot of time between now and when frost danger is over. I think most of my trees will break dormancy during the 7-15 day warm spell they say is ahead of us. My poor lilac leaves have been froze back several times. We were 26 this morning and I didn't even go and look at them when I got home. I should have floating row cover arrive today. I may try to put it over my apple trees on cold nights. I'm going to gamble some with things I have ready to go out. If I lose some I will just replant. Unfortunately we can't do that on our fruit and nut trees. Jay

My blueberries have already budded out for the most part, but the pecans I pruned today are still totally dormant for now. Our farm is in a really cold valley so they are really late to break bud, but we also have had freezes every April since I have lived back here.

Sure hope they escape, Scott. I remember 2007. That 18 degree freeze pretty much wiped out my early garden. For us it's just a garden. For you it's livelihood. When I lived in California next to an orange grove, I smelled smoke from the smudge pots on frosty nights. Would that work for you?

Scott,

Did you have to remind us of 2007? I've been trying not to think of it!

Can we think positive? There's a 50% chance you won't lose your pecans if they break dormancy next week.

Unlike almost every other plant on our property, the pecans still look asleep, so to speak, and I've been hoping they wouldn't wake up too early. I know we have at least two days in our forecast next week with highs around 80, and I don't think I looked any further out than Wed.

I hope your trees are stubborn and refuse to break dormancy too early. It would be a shame to lose the crop again. I think we've had either 2 or 3 years where the pecans broke dormancy too early, and we've only been here for 14 springs.

My fruit trees have already bloomed and dropped their petals, so I feel like we'll likely lose all the fruit. They are just too far ahead of "schedule" for me to think we won't have a hard freeze at some point that will make them drop their fruit.

While the veggie gardener in me likes the early warm-up, the fruit and nut grower doesn't.

Dawn

Fortunately it's not my actual livelihood, but it is where I've invested all my extra time and money the last 10 years.

I am hoping this crop would be the one to finally get all of my investment back. Seems like I say that most years. I have a bad feeling this time that even if we get a great crop that world and/or economic events will cause the price to collapse this fall (like 08). Natives sold for around $1.50 per lb for high quality ones this past year, but I had none.

Still, I am encouraged that they were all fully dormant when I pruned today.

What's left of mind are budding. I've been desperately looking for saplings. Coupled with bugs I don't know that I'm going to have a pecan tree in a couple years.

Wow, I'm really sorry you guys had a bad 2007! For me, it was the best butterfly year EVER! So many different species laying eggs and flying around the yard, I was totally astounded by the beauty of it all.

My Blueberries are budded out and will bloom this week, I'm fairly sure. Everything is so early this year!

Susan

Susan, Don't you remember the flooding in 2007? We had severe flooding all over Oklahoma and in adjacent parts of Kansas (maybe not in Jay's area, but in SE KS), Arkansas and Texas. A lot of us were under water for weeks to months.

It probably was a great butterfly year for folks with sandy or sandy loam, but for those of us with clay, it was the year that even well-adapted wildflowers rotted off at or beneath the soil surface. It took our pastures until 2009 to recover.

What I remember about 2007 is two late, hard freezes just days apart in April, 9 or 10" of rain in May, over a foot of rain in June, the Red River being tremendously high, Lake Texoma running over the spillway, and having to plant dozens of pepper plants in containers because the ground was too wet for them. Many of the tomato plants that didn't freeze struggled to survive the flooding and didn't produce well until fall. I did have some flowers that survived, but many did not.

Here in southcentral OK it was a great summer for mosquitoes. That's what I really remember. Tons and tons of mosquitoes.

Scott, I went out and looked at my native pecans this morning. They are budding.

Dawn

I remember driving through Mounds and noticing the bleachers floating around. It was awful.

Yes, I remember it. My sister lost her house, which they have since rebuilt. She lives in Neodesha, Kansas, and that area had lots of flooding.

I apologize if my message sounded insensitive. I guess for a city person, with most plants in containers, and with a sloping yard that drains well, I didn't have the problems a lot of folks had. I do remember the butterflies, though. I had butterflies I had never seen before and some I haven't seen since, e.g., Texan Crescent, Bordered Patch, Queen, to name a few.

Note: Monarch butterfly numbers are being reported on the low side in Mexico, and with many areas of Texas still drought stricken, I encourage everyone to plant milkweed. Hopefully, the rain will reach those areas of Texas as the migration is typically set to begin on March 15th.

Susan

Susan, lol I just wondered if the good butterfly memories erased the bad flooding memories. I'll never forget that year. If we never, ever again see the Red River running that high, I'll be happy. That was the year the water flowed over the top of the dam at Lake Texoma.

You don't have Bordered Patch all the time? They drive me crazy, just destroying all my sunflowers. I've tried to live with them and ignore them, but they will eat all of every leaf and then the plant dies before it can bloom. I love having butterflies around, but not the BPs.

A lot of wildflowers have sprouted early, but no milkweed yet. We had plenty of milkweed last year despite the drought, so hopefully we'll have plenty this year. The ones in my garden beds haven't sprouted yet, or if they have, I can't see them. That could be because the larkspur sprouted in November and is huge and likely is burying everything else underneath it so far.

Dawn

My grandparents also live in Neodesha. Small world! I can't remember if it was 2007 or not, but I remember that at one point in recent years the town was entirely surrounded with flood waters. My grandparents were in a part of the town that didn't flood, but it was still a crazy situation.

We had only been in this house for a year by 2007, so I didn't have much planted yet. With our sandy soil and the fact that our property slopes from one end to the other, we didn't have any flooding or standing water problems. We had some erosion issues, but nothing like some of the pictures I saw from other places. I hate how the Oklahoma climate oscillates between way too little rainfall and way too much. I want more Goldilocks years!

Heather, I bet it is 2007 you're thinking of. It was horrible. Our little VFD spent an inordinate amount of time pumping water out of people's yards in the Thackerville area to try to keep the water from making it into their homes. Then we'd drive out by McGehee's Catfish Restaurant and watch the big, ugly swollen river waters next to the restaurant(but not too close) flowing by with huge trees bobbing like corks.

So, you want more Goldilocks years? Sounds great to me---but could we cope with "average" or "normal" or "just right" when we're so used to swinging from one extreme to another? This is Oklahoma, Land of Extremes. There is no normal here.

Actually, I believe 2002 was pretty normal and 2004. At my end of Oklahoma, 2009 was really decent (no doubt helped by a 12.89" rainfall in a 24-hr. period at the end of April which pumped up our year-to-date rainfall really nicely) overall, but I think it was drier for most of the state than it was here in the summer months.

When I lived in Texas (my whole life) before moving here, it seemed like the weather was more even-keeled, notwithstanding an occasional blue norther or baseball-sized hail storm. I don't know if moving 80 miles further north jinxed us, or if the weather patterns themselves have changed, but it seems like we have more erratic or more extreme weather since moving here.

Dawn

Dawn yesterday was on the mild side temperature wise. I try to check the soil temp in the garden at least once a week. Had jumped from 42 a week ago to 54 around 2 yesterday close to the same place at 4 inches of depth. The 80 degree days earlier in the week really boosted it. The temps are lower where I have the deep mulch but warming up and the garlic is jumping every day now. The tops grew 3-4 inches in the last week. Think the deep snow from the blizzard that laid on them really fed them well. With the warm temps they are saying are ahead starting tomorrow I imagine my soil temps will continue to climb. If this trend continues into April I think I will start the cooler soil tolerant sweet corn varieties and put floating row cover over them. Have most of one flat potted up. I'm heading to get another tray to hold grafting plants and another heating pad. Then will try to finish up grafting the first tray of rootstock and then will pot up the remainder in the regular tray. I posted about my germination rates and that I had 2 varieties that had never germinated. The one variety was Emerald Evergreen and the seed is only one year old from a normally good seed source. I planted it on 2-12. The seeds in that tray started emerging in 5 days and no seeds had emerged for sometime till Thursday and every seed of it emerged. Hard to figure out. The second planting I planted of it hasn't emerged either. I was preparing to start some more seeds in the same cell. Believe now I will wait and see if any of them emerge. The peppers are strung out but I expect that with the number of different varieties I plant. I will start weaning my first grafting tray off of the humid conditions and gradually increase the light but so far looks like I might save 6 out of 8. I knew I mismatched stems on one and didn't expect it to survive. I'm learning as I go. The second tray I'm using is one of the self watering wick type Burpee trays. If it works I won't have to add water every day to the bottom like I do the other trays. A light rain fell on and off all afternoon and prevented my from planting onions and potatoes. But was nice to set in the lean to potting up listening to the pitter patter of rain drops. Jay