Renee,

You crack me up! Welcome to the forum. You can come here not only to discuss gardening but also weather, wildfire, flooding, etc. Sometimes we even stray off-topic and discuss other things.

This is a terrific group of people, with wide experience in various areas of gardening as well as how to deal with Oklahoma's wild, wacky and ever-changing weather.

I'm a native Texan but have lived here for 9 years now and am proud to be an Okie. I'm in Love County in the vast, fairly empty rural area between Thackerville and Marietta.
My main challenges here are the bermuda grass, thick red clay soil and every kind of wildlife imaginable since I am extremely close to the Red River. I've been gardening all my life and just love it.

Dawn

Welcome, Renee. You will find Dawn a deep well of knowledge. And I think I've accumulated a puddle or two over the past 40 years of gardening in Ok. Don't have as much scientific knowledge as she does, but am willing to share my experience. However I am over here in LAPLAND--where Oklahoma LAPS over into Arkansas in Adair Co., so am not sure how applicable my expereince will be to Elk City area. But ask away, there are members in your area too. Dorothy

Renee,

Dorothy is too kind. She knows everything! And she's fun to "talk to" as well. Hi Dot!

Dawn

Renee, if I was you, I would do a search on Dawn on this site, and read all I find.

She has a wealth of the BEST information posted here.

Moni

Welcome Renee! I'm your neighbor over here north of Clinton. Nice to have you with us. So, are you starting a garden this year???

Lynn

Moni,

Such praise is lovely, but embarassing. I'm just an old dirt farmer, as my daddy used to say. Well, that and a tomato maniac, but what's a girl to do? There's so many thousands of tomato varieties to try, and so little time.

I hope y'all know I learn as much from you all as you learn from me. New ideas and new ways of looking at things, and new ways of doing things.....it is all right here on the Oklahoma Forum, isn't it?

Rene, Lynn is another GREAT source of info...she is a very knowledgeable and experienced gardener. I suspect she understands your growing conditions much better than I ever will because hers are quite similar. (Hi, Lynn!)

Dawn

My main learning that I would pass along to others:
Everything grows better with compost!

Gamebird,

Truer words were never spoken. No matter what the gardening problem is, I think compost is ALWAYS a part of the solution.

Dawn

Hi Renee,

Yep, dawn is pretty sharp at gardening (for such a young whipper-snapper) and I enjoy her company when I get to interact with her on this forum.

Kindred spirits and all that.

You will find that most of us lifetime gardeners are pretty easy to get along with, and that most all of us preach compost in all of its various forms.

Dawn does seem to have a fixation on tomatoes - undoubtedly from a bad experience with tomatoes in her formative years - but she is good folks anyways.

Jeff

Jeff,

I see that you so kindly referred to my out-of-control tomato obsession as "a fixation on tomatoes". Oh, how cruel. Can I help it if they are just about the best thing on earth when picked fresh from the garden and devoured before they even make it to the house?

For what it is worth, my fixation on tomatoes is all Oklahoma's fault. Yes, it is! When we lived in Texas, I only had enough room to raise a few plants, so I usually had maybe three different varieties. Thus, I couldn't do much experimentation with all the different ones. Then we purchased acreage and built a house in Oklahoma, and now I have room to grow way too much of everything!

And, for those of you who think that tomatoes are all I grow and eat....that's not true. LOL I also grow corn, peppers, eggplant, onions, potatoes, okra, sweet potatoes, garlic, green beans, summer and winter squash (including pumpkins, almost as many varieties of melons as tomatoes, and about 15 different herbs. Oh, and about 25 kinds of flowers and some fruit as well. I just like to talk about the tomatoes a lot more.

Trubby, are y'all still freezing cold up there? Also, thank you, kind sir, for referring to me as "a young whipper-snapper", even though I don't think of myself that way. LOL This is off-topic, but dear son and his darling fiancee' recently became engaged and are planning a Summer '09 wedding. Apparently, I am an ANCIENT DINOSAUR because EVERYTHING about weddings has changed.....and I am shocked, shocked, shocked at how differently things are done nowadays. (Laughing at myself here!)

Renee, As you can see, we also can be a humorous bunch and will poke fun (gently) at one another and at ourselves. I don't think a single person on this forum has an unkind bone in their bodies though. Jeff is one of my heroes, by the way, because he knows so much about growing things (he is a VERY accomplished gardener) and he is always fun to talk to.

Just think of all of us here as your extended family, Renee, but please don't tell us which ones of us are the looney ones that cause other family members to "roll their eyes" and say "Bless her (or his) heart....she's (he's) just that way." Although we are in the Great Plains and not the deep south, we are in the south-central plains, and everyone knows that southerners can be very eccentric. LOL

Dawn

AMen, Amen, Amen, to the compost idea. Just make sure that it is well rotted. I once killed a 50 ft row of half grown bush beans by spreading what I thought was "finished" chicken manure compost next to them. Literally burned them up. Fried 'em crispy! Sob! Dorothy

Compost is the gardeners gold. I moved compost piles with me at all my major moves, in the last 10 years.

Ponca City to Oklahoma City,
Oklahoma City to Tahlequah,
and finally Tahlequah to Tulsa.

Of course, the movers thought I was nuts, but my husband didn't shake his head after the first move. :)

Moni

Dawn, I don't post often, but I love to read your posts. Always something to learn.

Someday we just have to meet. :)

For what it's worth, my husband and I sit here on our laptops in the evening. He reads his cattle forums and I read the garden forums. He often tells me about some argument that has come up regarding breeds, prices, etc. Seeing as how I am yet to see a argument on this or any other gardening forum, I just smile warmly and say how nice garden people are ! lol

Moni,

I'm sure we'll meet someday and I look forward to it. I've missed the swaps the last couple of years--one year son was graduating from the Fire Academy and the other year we were fighting huge wildfires. I've moved compost, too, by the way.....and plants! Lots of plants. Anyone who says you can't take it with you has never seen me pack it up and move it. LOL

Brandy, I do think everyone here is real collegial. Now, if you want to see some venomous discussions, watch for the arguments that pop up on some forums (not ours!) between the die-hard organic people and the non-organic people. It can get vicious.

Also, sometimes discussions on the tomato forum get a little touchy, esp. when discussing whether or not to use Daconil. I don't think anything is worth fighting about. In gardening, there are many paths that take us to the same place, if you know what I mean.

In the evening I sit here with my laptop while DH watches TV. I think I have more fun on the forums than I would if watching TV instead!

Dawn

Brandy's right about most gardeners. They seem to be a fairly gentle, kind bunch. We also have poultry and goats and I've noticed that hobbyists in the animal kingdom can get a little testy at times.

Renee, welcome! You've come to a good place.

Besides compost, I'd heartily recommend mulching, which is simply the laying down of various materials (I prefer organic materials which decompose) between your plants and rows. This too makes compost, but it serves the additional purpose of helping to suppress weeds and conserve soil moisture.

For years my wife and kids have told me that I'm a little eccentric, distinguishing between bags of leaves and grass clippings, and just plain garbage, and making frequent stops for the usable materials to mulch in the garden. But in this one area, life is harder in Tahlequah. There are a good number of others who also do this. So, now I have competition!

George
Tahlequah, OK

Ya know they got doctors that can help with obsessions - fortunately this one is a healthy one.

Nah - it ain't too awful bad freezing cold up here right now. About 35 or so at night and we have seen a couple of 70 degree days already.

Spinach is looking good. Cabbage too. No carrots up yet - but since I just finished up last season's crop, I ain't too anxious about them - yet.

Kind of hard to try and keep track of everything at this time of the year. Got the mulch pulled back so the ground will warm up. Steadily planting the cool weather crops and killing off the cool weather weeds.

Tomato stakes are driven and ready to go.

Cucumber trellis is ready.

Blackberries are all pruned, tied up, and ready for the demon child from next door to raid.

Already have two dump-truck loads of horse manure/straw ready to compost and go into my last bed (as soon as I double dig it that is). I should have had it ready last fall - but since I already grow more than I can possibly eat, I am in no rush.

Might have to join one of those dating sites to find me a nice hungry female so I don't have to wander up and down the streets trying to give away free vegetables.

And I STILL have to get all the canning equipment ready to go!

Unfortunately it is in the shed. And the shed is buried under the elm tree that I STILL haven't cleaned up from the ice storm.

*Chuckles to self*

It just occurred to me - I am a real hellion full of all kinds of interesting qualities that ANY female in the world would be proud to snatch up.

I can just see how it would go on THAT dating site:

Q) What are your hobbies?
A) Digging big rocks out of my garden.

Q) What do you do in your spare time?
A) Think about ways to get that big rock out of the garden, and look for sources of compost and mulch.

Q) What qualities do you look for in a woman.
A) She has to be strong - cuz she's gonna help me dig that big rock out of the garden.

Oh yeah, I'm a real catch.

Hi Jeff,

Personally, I think you would be a real fine catch for a rock-loving woman! LOL Why don't you put a harness on all those dogs and get them to pull the big rocks out of the garden? I am picturing something like Santa's sleigh and reindeer....only with your dogs hauling out sleigh-sized rocks.

I'm glad y'all are having a little warmer weather.

It was 88 degrees here on Thursday, which was too hot too early.....and I did set out my first 22 tomato plants that day. I've got the sunburn and the achey muscles and knees to prove it, too! The tomato plants looked a little hot and windburnt on Thursday but were much happier Friday morning, with temps. only in the low 60s.

We have rain in the forecast for the next few days, but I hope to work around it and plant a few more tomatoes every day, at least until I run out of space and then have to till up the "auxiliary beds" outside of the fenced-in garden.

Also, our weather forecasters (and I love Randy's use of the term "professional guessers" when referring to them) have flirted with putting a night or two in the ten-day forecast with temps in the lower 40s to upper 30s, which has me watching the extended forecast pretty carefully.

I don't want a repeat of last year when we had a late freeze around April 15th--ONE MONTH later than our last night of freezing weather, which occurred (obviously) around March 15th. I practically built a spur-of-the-moment hoophouse over row after row of tomato plants to save them from the freeze. I left that plastic over them for a couple of weeks just to be safe. That was WAY too much work, so I'm hoping for more cooperation from the weather this year.

Dawn

I actually thought of using the dogs to pull, but unfortunately they don't work well together. They are also obviously lacking something in the concentration department because they are very easily distracted by small animals. Though this makes for a good pull - it IS a somewhat less than controlled one.

88? Way too hot, way too early.

Yeah, I remember that late freeze last year. It got down to about 6 above up here. Killed off half the wheat in this area. Lost all my peas, big part of my spinach, all my first two sowings of lettuce and a few other first plantings.

Killed the ^%$@ out of my blackberry canes too. All leafed out and looking fine one day - a frostbitten blackened mess the next. Made me sick too my stomach.

Then it went directly into summer - so all my most favorite spring cool weather crops were pretty much a bust.

It happens.

Trubba,

I can't help you pull rocks out of your garden, but I can tell you what NOT to do, based off of my DH's experience trying to pull out a shrub once when we lived in military housing.

DO NOT water the grass for 3 hourse before tying one end of a rope around the shrub (rock), and then tying the other end around the hitch of your pick up truck. If by some chance you do happen to do all of the forementioned activites, DO NOT, I repeat DO NOT... start your pick up truck and STOMP on the gas!

Needless to say he tore up so much grass I thought we were going to get kicked out of military housing! The worst of it was that we had 2 months to regrow the grass before we had to do a 'Move out inspection". In an emergency, grass patch works!!

Courtney

Sorry, guys, I had to work extra shifts @ the hospital (nights, can u believe it?) so I have been catching up on my beauty sleep!! For some reason, it hasn't been working! I'm a nurse, if you were wondering.

Wow you people know a lot about a lot! I'm fresh clay, so mold me, Yoda!

Hi Renee!

Well, I was wondering where you'd been. I was sort of afraid we'd scared you off, and was hoping you hadn't either given up gardening or fled the state.

Had time to do any gardening lately? Or, what's on your "to do" list in the lawn and garden?

Dawn

Renee - welcome to the forum! If you intend to do gardening other than veggies, I am pretty much an ornamental, native plants, butterfly plants person. I am really into conservation of native butterflies, hand raising the caterpillars, etc.

Courtney - OMG - Courtney - I've really missed you! How's the gardening going this year?????? Girlfriend, we need to get together very soon!

Trubbadoobadoo (or whatever) - I think you are our resident hustler! LOL!

Susan