The cold is finally somewhat better, but the migraine is still blinding. I will not get a break with that until the weather clears. It's the 4th day. Bending over is still not an option. But at least I feel well enough to do SOMETHING. It was pretty much a "lost weekend". Today, I hope to find permanent homes for all the patio pots I brought in! Half are still on towels in the family room. Husband has not said anything yet, though that's the room he hangs out in, so obviously they are an eyesore. Yes, I have to be careful where I plant. A tentative trowel in, then see what's down there. I hate it when I skewer a bulb. Most of my reticulated iris died out, so I was so happy to find some at Menards, that I bought 4 packages. I'm lucky I really have been planting all along, until the last 2 weeks. Sounds like you are doing well, Sue. Working in stages is the best approach for me too. It does take a lot of extra time to cover the planting area with wire mesh and stake it down, but it means cheating the squirrels out of an costly snack at my expense, so I do it. I don't want to push it too late. The year I did it after Christmas, chipping off the top frozen crust to plant, almost nothing came up.

Happy Halloween everyone! I looked out my window today to see what was once my shade garden under our elm tree (which has now lost all its leaves). It was a really wierd sight, seeing my red salvia, nasturtium, wax begonias and impatiens all happy and still blooming! In the main garden there are still some glads blooming, some sunflowers that got a late start, cosmos, carnations, rudbeckias, annual chrysanthemums, annual scabiosa, gaillardia, vinca, marigold, ageratum, portulaca, plus a few others and yes, even a few tough zinnias still in bloom. Sure, they aren't in their prime anymore, but still alive and adding color and greenery. Still have those big castor bean plants, too. Also, I left a spider plant out that's still 100% fine! What? Tomorrows' November 1st? More like October 1st! I'm thankful for the extended season. We had some patchy frost here earlier in Oct., but obviously not enough to make much of an impact. -tg86

Wind and heat...what a combination! It's certainly miserable up here in OKC. :~( I'm going to do a little hand-watering here in a bit. Should I mention how thrilled I am at the neighbor's (in their 40s-50s) sons out smoking in the back and front yards?!? I don't usually make these sorts of judgments, but they are IDIOTS. Sharon

Amy, Five dogs is a lot! When we had 8 dogs (because our Honey showed up as a skinny, starved and apparently pregnant stray), only 3 or 4 slept indoors in the house and the rest slept in the garage. The three we have now all are spoiled house dogs, and they're getting to where they don't like going outside when it is too cold, too hot, too wet, too windy, etc. I guess they are spoiled from living inside a climate-controlled house. I hope y'all have a great week and that the wedding is perfect. I bet your dad is really enjoying having everyone around a bit more right now. I used to get livid over the herbicide drift, but what good does it do me to let my emotions get all riled up? I have tried (really, really, really hard) to remove emotion from the equation because I just want to be able to live with a peaceful, happy soul. This is one reason I don't document everything and file complaints---I just don't want to end up in a perpetual war with everyone who sprays, and I guarantee y'all that people never will stop using herbicides. I did tell Tim I wanted to put up a big billboard across our front pasture near the bar ditch that says something like "Organic Garden: Stop Spraying Your Herbicides Carelessly and Killing My Plants", but he was not a fan of the idea. lol. Oh, and I was just kidding about doing it.....but there are days when it seems like a good idea if I thought anyone would change their ways because of it, and I do not think that they would. I think I found the source of the Round-up drift, and it is a fairly close neighbor. (sigh) I hope that killing what they wanted to kill was worth the two dozen tomato plants that we lost to their drift here. I wonder how strong some of this crap is that they use. Y'all might remember that several years back---maybe 4 or 5---somebody in the road spilled a tank of herbicide in the road or at least had a big major leak from a tank that ran down into a portion of our bar ditch. I didn't see it happen and only became aware of it after the fact when that area turned brown and died while everything around it was green and thriving. . It was a broadleaf weedkiller, easy to tell because all the broadleaf plants died and the grasses did not. So, here we are 4 or 5 years later and there's still only grass in that area---everything around it has wildflowers. Obviously that soil is contaminated and I assume the contamination is so bad because the herbicide ran into the soil in a concentration greater than what is sprayed through the air. I expected to see the wildflowers return to this area, but they still haven't. After that spill we stopped collecting the grass clippings when we mow the bar ditch. We used to catch them in the riding mower's grass catcher and use them as mulch or as fodder for the compost pile, but we don't any more. The rain mostly missed us too, but I am not going to complain because our soil remains incredibly wet from all the previous rain. We ended up with about a half-inch, which is much less than the 2-3" or even the 3-4" that the QPF predicted for us 7 days out from the multi-rain event. I'm not complaining. Heavy rain fell west of us, moving north towards OKC. It fell over a huge area to our south with so many problems caused that it makes my head spin just thinking about it. Overnight it fell to our south/southeast. All we had here was light rain, mist, clouds and, today, fog and mist. I miss the sunshine and hope it comes out of hiding today. Larry, Your garden might be spotty, but it sounds like you'll have plenty of everything regardless. Jennifer, There's something to be said for planting only a reasonable number of tomato plants. I might do that next year because this year my tomato plantings are totally out of control, and I'll pay the price for that by having to preserve tomatoes like mad this summer. Luckily, I am not a sentimental tomato grower, so when I have harvested and canned, frozen and dehydrated all I want to preserve, I can ruthlessly yank out the plants and throw them on the compost pile without a second thought, keeping only a small handful for fresh eating. I always remind myself when that time comes that (to steal my cousin's daughter's favorite childhood phrase) that "you are not the boss of me" (I'm speaking to the tomato plants there) and out come the excess plants. There are people here in my neighborhood who think it is a crime to pull out healthy tomato plants that still are producing. Well, that's their issue, not mine, because my large number of tomato plants are a tool that serve me and when their service is done, I want to be done with them and replant that space in something else that will provide a different harvest. I also have no desire to spend the entire long, hot summer trying to keep 100 tomato plants watered and happy and healthy because that becomes an increasingly difficult battle at some point every summer. I'd rather have southern peas growing at that point because you generally don't have to water them much if at all. I believe I could give up canning, freezing and dehydrating tomatoes in a heartbeat at some point and just grow a few for fresh eating each year, but I am not at that point yet. I think I might retire completely when Tim retires from working. Well, maybe I'd make one or two salsa batches per year for us. Just for us. Rebecca, It sounds like it was the perfect day for you to get a lot done yesterday. I planted corn and beans yesterday and this morning, while it is foggy and misty out, I'm going to start some hot-season flower seeds in flats. It is hard to guess how many to start because so many volunteers are so slow to pop up and show themselves in the garden this year. I don't know if we'll have less because of all the excess autumn/winter rain and the excessively wet ground we've had since September, of if they are just slower to appear. Or, if maybe I mulched so heavily last year that they cannot sprout. Time will tell. This year continues to remind me a great deal of 2002 when we stayed cool and rainy through June and then were instantly hot and a whole lot less rainy. I wonder if that will happen this year? It wasn't the worst year ever as the cool-season plants stayed productive very late into spring and almost into summer. The only hard part was the ultra-brief transition from cool to hot. My broccoli is trying to head up. I hope we are going to get normal heads and not buttonheads. It seems awfully early considering how late (compared to most years) that I planted. Dawn