I feel for you, Dawn. It hasn't been as bad in OKC. We are 2" ahead of rainfall average. We have been right at the Southern edge of storms to the North of us, and right at the Northern edge of storms to the South of us, so we've gotten plenty of good rainfall. Not those quick in and out gully washes that run off and don't soak in either.

Insects? I have been hand picking a few cucumber beetles, but that's about it. A few grasshoppers, but nothing like the last 2 years. No spider mites or aphids yet either. None of the big bugs you might expect either.

I thought that low humidity had its good side, too, like better pollination because it doesn't get sticky like it does in high heat and humidity. No? Doesn't low humidity also keep a lot of the fungus diseases at bay?

I have had some powdery mildew on both ornamentals (Verbena bonariensis is notorious, as is apparently the Coreopsis 'Jethro Tull'), and the cukes, but that's all. Going to have to try to deal with this - probably a milk spray.

I couldn't ask for a better season so far, but my heart goes out to those of you that haven't had such a good one.

Maybe your rain will come when you lease expect it, like July and August. We will do a rain dance for you, Dawn!

Susan

Susan,

Yes, lower humidity has an upside since it doesn't make tomato pollen sticky like high RH does.

I doubt a rain dance will help, but do feel free to dance to your heart's content. : )

I've never had powdery mildew on vebena bonariensis, but as you might guess, our RH stays pretty low most of the time which likely helps. I do have spider mites relentlessly attack VB every year, but then, they are so bad here they even attack grasses, so that's not a surprise.

As dry as it is here and as hard as the heat/dryness are to tolerate, I don't know how Dorothy, Carol and George, and everyone else in their region, can stand how dry it is there. They're usually so much wetter than we are, and if anything, I think they are drier than we are here at this point.

Today's windy, hot, dry weather is going to be very hard on plants in the western half of the state where the Wind Advisory is in effect.

I just had such high hopes this year would be better than last year. It is starting to look like it will be very similar. Last May's 7+" of rain carried us into June in decent shape, and we still had rampant wildfires by the end of June. Without that May rainfall here, I am afraid that we'll see fires even earlier.

Yesterday the rancher across the street was cutting and baling hay and Chris and I were watching and holding our breath and hoping the field or the baler didn't catch on fire. That's nor normally an issue in May. I feel like it is July already!

I've linked a map from the OK Mesonet that shows the 30-day rainfall as a percentage of average or normal rainfall.

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful:

Dawn - hugs. :-\

Dawn, I could'nt agree more, in fact, I could have written your post. I don't keep records but I do check my rain gages for dust removal. A friend called me afew days ago to ask me how much rain I had gotten and was shocked when I said none. He said it had rained off and on all day in Edmond and figured I was getting it too since I live about 14 miles from there. I told him that I had been watching the radar all day and every storm cell either pooped out just before it reached me or like Moses parting the Red sea the storm cell split like a replicating amoeba and went to the north and south of me. Every few days I wake up to a yard full of cottonwood leaves thanks to the wind. We may be a half a state apart Dawn, but I feel your pain.

Thank you for posting - I want to be sensitive to those of us that aren't having such a great start this year...or at least it's looking like whatever start we've had isn't going to go much of anywhere fun :~(

That said, I am thankful that my garden honestly looks the very best it has - ever! My gamble to get about 1/3 of my tomato plants in really early is paying off, the plants are all healthy and loads of blossoms have set and are continuing to set. My garlic harvest was wonderful, and I'll probably harvest my potatoes later on this week...I'm watching to make sure it's really time. My onions (all intermediate-day) are of a very good variety of sizes, with some being rather large. They're not quite ready yet.

I'm thankful for what I have...and I'm continuing to pray that this summer is NOT like last year's --- at all, and for any of us!

Sharon

I spoke to madge last night about drilling a well. She said "there is no way you will every make your money back".
I told her that I would not be drilling it because of good judgment, I would be drilling it out of spite, just so I could spray water in mother natures face.

I am fed up with hot sun, cracked grown, millions of insects, and the list goes on and on.

Larry

Dawn,

I won't like this weather either. Outlook of scanty rain making me scary. Our garden look good so far. I have been mulching all beds with whatever materials I can get, lawn clips, compost, shredded plants, cardboards, etc. I am not going to water garden with sprinklers, but just only with soaker hose and dripper lines buried under mulch. Last i bought 10bags (3cft) of classic grade A red cedar bark mulch for a $9 per bag, but it really nice muluch but it expensive. Any economic alternative to classic grade A?

Our office produces tons of cardboard every week from the shipment we get. I just wonder is there a better way to use that materials -like shredded cardboard for mulching? is there any good cardboard shredder in the market? any side effect on plants?

-Chandra

I am getting pretty concerned. Our corn didn't germinate well at all, due to dry conditions. But what did come up is now knee high and has seen no measurable rainfall during its life time.

George

Hi Y'all,

I knew if anyone would understand what I was feeling, it would be all of you.

I worked in the garden until 12:20 p.m., and when I came inside it was 92 degrees here, and they'd raised our forecast high from 93 to 95. It currently is 96 out there, but since I'm in here, who cares? Well, I'm kidding...I care because the best-looking garden I've ever had is out there withering in the heat. What can you do though? We can't make it rain, and we sure can't control the wind.

Mia, Thanks for the hugs. I feel loved.

Terry, Misery loves company, huh. Jay and I have a phrase that covers what you're experiencing. When it rains all around his place or our place but misses our homes, we refer to it as being in the doughnut hole. While we are in the 'hole' of the doughnut, it is the doughnut itself that is getting the rain. It is amazing how often there are years where some of us are in the doughnut hole quite often.

I loved your comment about the dust in the rain gauge. That's exactly what is in mine too.

Sharon, I'm glad your garden is doing so well. Actually this is about the best warm-season garden I've ever had, so far, but that likely won't last. The plants that looked perfect last week are starting to fade a little in the constant face of dry heat and wind. Still, everything is producing well. The warm-season part of the garden certainly has been more productive than the cool-season part, but likely that's because the cool season got too hot. In fact, the garden is producing so well that I'm harvesting much more than is normal for May and am not doing a very good job with timely harvesting, although I'm trying to catch up. I just don't know if the garden can keep doing this well in this kind of heat. That is part of the frustration--having a garden that is doing so terribly well now but seeing the handwriting on the wall and knowing that "now" isn't gonna last long.

Larry, Ditto on the well idea. The last people who built a home along our roadway had a local well driller who has successfully drilled wells here for decades come and drill on their land. After drilling several deep, dry holes, they stopped trying. It was a lot of wasted money. It used to be pretty easy to find water and drill wells around here, but the last few years, that seemingly has changed.

I agree with you on the millions of insects. I am seeing all kinds of insects this year that I've never seen before, and I've been gardening for ages. I have no idea what they are, where they're coming from or whether they are the good guys or the bad guys, but I am afraid they're mostly bad. I have caught some of them in jars and brought them inside and sat for hours at the computer and not found an ID for a single one of them. I hate this.

Chandra, Any shredded or chipped tree trimmings would work, but none of them will look as nice as the purchased mulch. I use straw and hay because that's what is available here and I don't care if people like the way it looks, or not, because I am out in the boonies and no one but me has to look at the garden. I do put down solid cardboard underneath the mulch to serve as a barrier to block the sunlight from the earth so no weeds come up from the ground and grow up through the mulch. I've never heard of a cardboard shredder, but if one exists, I think it would be marketed to recycling centers or to factories that recycle cardboard into something else. I'm not sure one would be available to homeowners. Plain brown corrugated cardboard is not harmful to gardens. I don't know about glossy, colored cardboard.

George, It sounds like your corn is doing pretty well in the absence of rainfall. In my garden, the Early Sunglow that was planted in, I guess, early March, benefitted from the rain we got that month. The mid-season, Country Gentleman, was slow to sprout but is slowly catching up. The late-season, Texas Honey June, planted a couple of weeks later than Country Gentleman, sprouted and grew quicker. It may be that the late and mid-season corns will swap places in terms of producing in the middle or late, or maybe at the same time. Texas Honey June is the strongest and most vigorous and drought-tolerant sweet corn I've ever grown. It generally does well even in very bad conditions.

Y'all know I briefly mentioned that fires are starting to happen, but they haven't been really bad yet. I think that's because of all the moisture we had in Sept. 2011-March 2012. Well, when I came inside today, I had a text message telling me there was a grassfire in Denton County, TX, to our south (not our immediate south). I was told it was 60 acres. By the time I got on the computer and could find the news story, it was up to 500 acres. Now, it has burned 1,000 acres. That's one thing I fear for all of us who are already abnormally dry......another fire season in the summer like we had last summer. I wasn't all that worried about grassfires here in my county until last week when the ranch that is catty-corner across the road from us caught fire. You wouldn't believe how fast living, green trees burned. It was just awful, and it makes me sick to drive past it and see those once gorgeous green trees all brown and black. Nothing like a fire across the road to remind you that it can happen anywhere at anytime, especially with the weather we're having.

There is good news--I harvested about 2 gallons of SunGold tomatoes today and I am going to eat them until I am stuffed like a Thanksgiving Turkey. I also harvested enough summer squash and zucchini to feed all of southern OK, and will harvest beans this evening when it cools off. The coyotes and squirrels are eating a gazillion plums every night, and I eat a gazillion every day. At the rate we're eating plums, I won't have to spend 3 weeks in the kitchen making plum jelly. It isn't that I don't like making jelly--I am just so far behind on everything. And, if you're wondering how we know the coyote or coyotes are eating plums, it is because they leave us big piles of coyote scat in the driveway...both down at the road and at the other end of the driveway where it turns to enter the garage....and those scat piles are full of plum pits, which kinda explains why there's fewer and fewer plums on the tree every morning when I go out. The squirrels are blatantly stealing plums and peaches right in front of me, especially early in the day and then in the evening right before sunset. I just laugh at them. Anything that keeps me out of the kitchen this week is OK with me. Once I start canning, I never seem to stop, so I've been trying to postpone starting. I am getting a lot of veggies put up in the freezer this week, so that's a start on the food preservation. I also am about to start dehydrating cookie sheets full of bite-sized tomatoes. Right now, we're getting more than we can eat.

Every year I look forward to spring so much. Based on past years (except for last year!), it is pretty safe to assume that April, May and June are the "guaranteed" good months with warm temps and plentiful rainfall. Those are the great months for us gardeners. Then, most years, the heat arrives in full force near the end of June and the rainfall tapers off, and we have to just hang on and get through the summer months. Luckily, we have all that May and June rainfall to get us at least partway through July. So, what I'm really irritated about is that the good months of April, May and June aren't so good this year, particularly in terms of rainfall. In early June, I start dreading the big wall of heat that will arrive later in June, but at least I've had a great April, May and early June, right? This year, we don't have that! I won't have to dread the arrival of the real heat late in June, because June temps already are here. At least the nights are still decently cool!

Dawn

Dawn - sometimes it's all I can do - I don't have enough experience to offer great advice yet... that's your department! Commiseration is my bailiwick for now. Grasshopper has not yet become the master. Give me 20 or so years and I won't feel like an idiot offering the Tomato Queen advice.

One thought - would there be any benefit to trying to erect shade/wind break structures now to help preserve plant viability a little longer? For example, before the plants are too far gone, maybe putting out sheets/tarps or whatever you can think of will preserve what little moisture they already have. Get out in front of it, as if this is August and not May. I know this isn't feasible for some of your large swaths, but might be beneficial in some areas of the garden. I know the greenhouse is a hothouse in the summer, but maybe you could rig something for your potted tomatoes with tons of shadecloth and open sides or something. Just an idea!

Mia, Yes, it could be feasible to errect shade structures. I use shade cloth over some plants every summer, but just not in May. It usually is a July or August kind of thing. I'm thinking of spending time putting up the framing for them next week. Putting up shade cloth is one of those things that help in extreme heat, but I hate to do it too early because shading will slow down growth. I usually do it once the temperatures are at the range where fruit set stops occurring on tomato plants, or roughly when the nights are dropping no lower than 72-75 degrees and the days are exceeding 95 degrees. We're already almost there! (That is part of what is so sad.)

I don't have enough shade cloth to cover even all of the tomtoes, but will be able to shade about half of them. I have about 300 square feet of shade cloth, not including the greenhouse shadecloth.

If I could convince OkieTim that we should take the pricey Aluminet shadecloth off the greenhouse and put it over the rows of tomato plants, then I could shade a much larger portion of the garden. I think the shadecloth on the greenhouse is roughly 24' long and 20-22' wide. It isn't like the greenhouse has to be shaded---there's nothing in it but bare tables and empty flats and miscellaeous lawn chairs and tools right now.

The wind will have to be calm one of these days so we could put up shade cloth. Otherwise, it is a three ring circus to attempt to do it on a windy day.

Last year I mostly shaded pepper plants because they just couldn't take those temps over 105-110. It helped, but I probably did it too late in the summer to help them enough. This year, I planted the peppers where they are in the shade from 3 pm onward. I am hoping that will be enough shade for them. Most years it would be, but last year it wasn't.

Most of my container plantings of tomatoes and peppers are lined up on the east side of the barn, so they begin moving from sunlight to shade between about 1 and 2 p.m. I think they will be OK. When I sited them, I was trying to put them where they needed to be for the worst summer weather. In the Peter rabbit garden, I already have shade cloth over the 4 tomato plants in the 200-gallon galvanized stock tank. They are at about their maximum production now since they were planted into that container in February. The plants in the Peter Rabbit Garden will be lucky to make it past June because there is an unmowed cow pasture next door, just over the barbed wire fence and by late June or early July there are hordes of spider mites and grasshoppers moving from that pasture into the PRG. It is my least favorite thing about the PRG and you cannot stop those hordes of spider mites. There are millions or billions of them. I just use the PRG as a fall through spring garden and don't expect much from it in summer, except snakes. It fills up with snakes in the summer. I don't know why. Maybe they are coming there to eat the grasshoppers.

The wind is blowing like crazy here, and I know it is much worse in western OK. On a day like today, I daydream about moving to San Diego, or Alaska.....but I'd never leave this place. We have the best neighbors in the world living all around us and I love living here. It is just the wacky weather I hate.

Dawn

It sounds like you've moved to southwest Oklahoma. But even we've had rain! Not a whole lot of rain, but we've been above our average all year. If it doesn't rain any more this month, we'll be back under, but I'm used to that.

It is really really windy here, though. I think the highest gust we've had so far is 46 mph, but it seems to be trying really hard to outdo itself. I think it needs to stop. Sustained wind of 32 mph is bad enough.

Leslie

Dawn,
I feel for all of you who haven't received any moisture. We really need some now but so far this year is so far ahead of the 3 previous I'm still tickled. The temperature roller coaster has made it hard on the transplants I've done of the last 2 weeks. I have put the cages up as I've transplanted them. Then I have pulled a plastic trash bag over the outside for some wind protection and have had to put large pieces of shade cloth over the tops of the cages of the larger plants for 7-10 days to keep the direct overhead sun off of them. Otherwise they wilt terribly. We've had a fair amount of wind but not like last year. Looks like we may have several more seasonal days ahead. We hit 96 here today. But supposed to be mid 80's tomorrow. This should allow for some fruit set on the tomato plants. Hope everyone receives moisture and temp relief soon. They are predicting large hail for this weekend up to grape fruit size. They usually don't predict hail like that this far in advance. So I will be watching the sky this weekend. Jay

Leslie, Because we had great rain in Jan, Feb and Mar, we might be just about at average for the year-to-date, statistically speaking. It is just that the March rainfall is long gone, the ponds are empty and the ground is cracking badly. You know--typical Oklahoma July or August stuff, only in May. I am so happy y'all have had all that rain you've received this year. Every time I see a storm near your area on the radar, I hope it is raining at your house. You and Jay both get precious little rain in an average year, and far too little rain in a bad year. Y'all both deserve some good rainfall.

Jay, I hate to hear that grapefruit sized hail is in your forecast. I sure hope it doesn't happen.

You sure have done a lot of hard work to get your plants off to a great start. I keep telling myself that gardening shouldn't be as hard as the weather here makes it be!

I've started rereading "The Worst Hard Time" for the umpteenth time. By the time I'm 50 or 60 pages deep in the book, I am so astonished at how awful the Dust Bowl days were that I realize this year's weather surely could be worse. I reread it every summer to help me keep the current summer in perspective.

The infernal wind is supposed to gust into the 30s all night tonight. I think at this point the wind is harder on the plants than the lack of rain or the heat. At the rate drought-stressed trees are dropping healthy, green limbs in the woods, we aren't going to have much of a woodland left.

Although it was a quiet day in our county (knock on wood), there were wildfires around us, and some especially big ones in Texas. I don't know exactly where it is coming from, but it is fairly smokey outside tonight. I assume the smoke is being blown here from Texas by the strong winds.

Dawn

I'm hating our weather, too. 108 two days this week, over 100 all week with 4%, yes, 4% humidity. Spider mites and white flies from hell and the tomatoes won't set because it's TOO dry and HOT!
It's not even June and I'm sick of summer.
My husband will be job hunting soon and, as much as I love OK, I'm starting to vote for high altitude. I'm not tolerating much heat any more and would love to live somewhere with cooler summers for a change.
Tracy

Dawn, its for you...
{{gwi:1100956}}

Dawn thanks. There are times when you wonder if it is worth it. I had 9 seeds of a scarce variety of bean. I planted them in a bed that I had left mulch on for the last few years. Pulled it back and planted. But left a little old mulch close by. Of the first 3 that sprouted something ate 2/3 of the way through 2 stems and ate the leaves of the 3rd one. So cleaned the mulch away. Had five plants last night. Thought they should be wet enough to make it through the day. By the time I got home all but one looked bad. Two of them revived after I watered them well. Hopefully I can save the 3 to build seed from.

Then after dark I decided to fix spaghetti. I went out to the garden and pulled two volunteer garlic plants. Not the biggest of the volunteer plants but 2 which I would have to remove before long. One had a scape. I also pulled 5 onions that are just starting to bulb. I cut them up and put them in the spaghetti sauce. And then I remembered why I garden. The best sauce I've had for almost a year. Nothing like the flavor of fresh garlic and onions. I noticed this evening they are saying 86 tomorrow but have raised the 88 for Friday to 96. Hopefully it won't get that hot. Everything made it through the day except the 2 beans I mentioned above. But know the plants are stressing some although they don't show it yet. I probably wouldn't have fed the tomatoes any N if I hadn't steamed the leaves off some in the WOW's and felt I needed to grow some foliage back. The wind is blowing hard now. Jay

Tracy, I was wondering how you were doing out there in all that heat and with all those wildfires around both in your state and surrounding ones.

I cannot blame you for thinking of a high altitude location with better summer weather. Who could blame you after all those years in Arizona?

As bad as spider mites have been here since April, I cannot imagine what they would be like there. I've never had a big whitefly problem here, but am seeing quite a lot this year. It's always something, but this year it is everything.

Chandra, That's a beautiful photo. Is it your canning closet? My canning closet is a lot smaller and not nearly so full but I hope to fill it up this spring and summer.

Jay, Your temperatures are getting ridiculous awfully early!

Sorry about the beans. I know how frustrating that can be.

Your spaghetti sauce story is a good reminder about why we all do what we do. When any of us are eating from the garden, we have the freshest, best ingredients for our meals. You can't beat that!

The wind here was in the 20s and up to 30 mph all night long. I am so tired of the wind. It is carrying huge numbers of clouds overhead, so someone north of us has moisture headed their way. All we're gonna have here is higher humidity so we will feel real sticky today.

Dawn

Chandra,

I use cardboard, from broken down boxes, to place under mulching materials. It helps suppress weeds and conserve moisture. Like Dawn, I don't care how it looks. But, if it's covered up, it "doesn't look." No one sees it.

Dawn,
the problem with my corn is that instead of at least 300 plants, I have about a dozen. That's all that germinated before the dryness hit. I suspect the rest of it died in the ground.

I'm getting more sold on potatoes all the time. Last year they produced well, when everything else failed. This year, they're looking okay. Azul Toro has IMPRESSIVE plants. Can't wait to see the harvest.

George

George, Oh man, I hope this isn't a corn crop you needed in order to replenish your seed stock. That's just terrible. In the world of "why did this happen", the corn seed sown in heavier clay that had some moisture, but not a lot, was slow to germinate and grow and those plants still are only about 4 or 5" tall despite being about a month old. Meanwhile, the variety sown into very dry sandy soil a couple of weeks later is about 8-10" tall. I would have expected the opposite result because corn usually germinates fine in my dense clay but struggles in the band of sandy soil. This is a crazy, backwards, mixed-up year.

Like you, we had a simply incredible potato crop last year despite the weather. We harvested hundreds and hundreds of pounds of potatoes. This year's crop will be smaller because the ones in the main bed rotted, but we'll get a really large crop from the ones in the Peter Rabbit Garden. I never thought of potatoes as a heavy producer in our climate, but am finding that as long as I can put them in soil that drains well enough, the heat will not prevent them from producing well.

Dawn

This sky is taunting me today. It keeps clouding up and looking really dark then clearing again.

My plants are looking pretty decent still, the tomatoes look great, but I wish it would rain. I have been shading the two plants that get the most sun because they were looking shrimpy and the leaves were rolling up. I just cut an old car-window sunshade in half and attached them on top of the cages with clothespins. I take them off when it's really windy (like today) or might rain. It looks pretty redneck, but the plants seem to like the extra shade.

Reading this thread makes me pine for the warmth in Oklahoma. Here in the Rockies the highs are in the low 70s and the thermometer still dipped to about 40 this morning. Last weekend moisture came as a "wintry mix" of snow and light drizzle and left fresh snow on the mountain peaks. Going out in the morning and evening still requires a light jacket. The good news is the columbines are in beautiful bloom. . . .I could never get them to grow as they should in OK.

spademilllane - Put the bean pot on and expect company because we are all coming to Colorado to get away from the heat.

We still have friends in Denver from when we lived there years ago. A few years ago, they rented a cabin up in the mountains and we all went there for a few days vacation arriving on July 5th. We drove through snow to get there, and wore jackets in the evening and early morning the entire time. The guys caught trout and we cooked it as soon as they brought it back. We had a fun time.

Hi Robert! I'd gladly trade weather with you today. At our house, the low temp since midnight is 74 and the high temp so far is 93. Enjoy the columbines! I miss seeing you here and hope all is going well for you. Our lawn, which we have not watered, is sort of brown and sort of green in a sort of paisley pattern. It is going to be a long, hot miserable summer.

Carol, Sounds like a great idea to me! I'll bring cornbread muffins to go with that pot of beans.

Dawn

I can't really complain here. There have been a few days where small showers formed right over us or the storms trained over just the right spot to give us a decent amount. But despite the favorable rainfall, I'm still not getting great yields. I still don't have a ripe tomato yet, though several plants are close. I've picked a few handfuls of green beans but it's not even enough for a full meal between me and DH. The squash isn't even close to ready yet, though I did plant it a bit later than you did, Dawn. I've picked maybe 15 squash bugs off the summer squash already and loads of eggs, so that's getting old. About half my lettuce has bolted, and I'm sure the rest will any day now. I've already ripped out the peas and will probably plant more bush beans this weekend.

Worst of all, my morning (all day) sickness has really limited how much time I can spend out there, so I'm losing the battle with the weeds. Ugh. But, hey, at least the rain is going right. I have run the drip irrigation a few times already though, mainly for the small seedlings because the top few inches dry out so fast.

I still have peas doing OK on one trellis, but the other needs to be removed. We have had all of the green beans we wanted to eat every day for a week or more, but now they have gotten ahead of us and I have a bag full I need to freeze. I will can some when the main crop of beans start, but that hasn't happened yet. I cut my first head of broccoli yesterday. They are in various stages of growth so the cutting may go on for awhile.

I have been stretching soaker hose, and digging trenches along the cattle panels to make watering a little easier since it has been necessary this week. Our forecast shows isolated thunder storms for Mon-Thu, so maybe some of them will come our way.

So far everything has done fine except for the Chinese cabbage that the bugs feasted on. I will prepare better for them next year, but the Harlequin bugs were a surprise for me this Spring. The first year they have ever been a problem. I'm beginning to see a little leaf damage on the broccoli but since it will be ready soon, I'm not too worried about it. I'm just sharing with the bugs I guess.