Let's see if I can remember what I've done....

I've harvested Sugar Snap peas and Super Sugar Snap peas. The harvest so far is 13 lbs. so many have been blanched and frozen, but we've been eating them fresh too. I also made frowny faces at the powdery mildew showing up on the foliage (which is pretty typical with peas in our humid May weather). I haven't sprayed yet but might spray with a baking soda spray this afternoon. The frowny faces don't help, but spraying might. For what it is worth, the powdery mildew is very heavy on Sugar Snap and not too bad on Super Sugar Snap.

I've harvested a lot of lettuce today and still need to wash it and dry it and weigh it. Lettuce won't last much longer since the heat is cranking up.

I've been hand-picking and destroying (by feeding them to the chickens) both the Colorado potato beetles that appeared on potato plants this week and the cabbage loopers that are on the cabbage and broccoli. I scout daily for them in an effort to remove them manually instead of spraying.

I've weeded the corn bed and the raised beds of carrots, onions and peas but still need to weed the pepper, broccoli and tomato beds in the next day or two. I don't have a big weed problem, but this is the time seed blows in from outside the garden and sprouts in the mulch. I like to pull those weeds out as soon as they're large enough to pull so they don't get a chance to become deeply rooted. I've been pulling endless numbers of tiny elm seedlings that have been sprouting everywhere the last week or two.

I've dirted my potatoes.

I've begged the broccoli and cabbage to just get on with it and form heads so I can harvest them, yank them out of their beds and replace them with okra and southern peas (like black-eyed peas and purplehull pinkeye peas).

I ordered more southern pea seed because I was worried I wouldn't have enough. I ordered from Willhite Seed (in Poolville, Texas) on Saturday and my seed arrived Tuesday. How's that for service?

I've harvested and eaten tomatoes. A fresh tomato doesn't last long at our house in spring. Later, after we're getting a gazillion tomatoes every week, they'll last longer but right now they're lucky to even make it to the house before they are devoured.

I've harvested chives and chamomile.

I've mixed up my own soil-less container mix and have been planting a few containers every day, in sizes ranging from 4-gallons to about 20-25 gallons. These containers are mostly holding either peppers or ornamentals this year, although a few have tomato plants that had been in smaller containers (2 or 3 gallon size) and desperately needed moved up to larger containers. The large containers have a main plant....like a Brugmansia and then several smaller ones underplanted, like maybe a leftover edible pepper plant that wouldn't fit into the crowded garden and also some ornamental peppers and Laura Bush pink and Laura Bush purple petunias (they're native, heat-loving petunias). I've planted about 20 or 25 containers this week, and will continue to plant about 20 or 25 a week until I run out of containers. I think I have about 75 containers left to fill. A lot of them are getting a new color this year because I have so many containers in different colors. I'm using Fusion spray plant for plastics to paint the containers either a dark green, a dark brown or a bright blue (the bright blue containers are right next to my red potting shed, so they really stand out). My routine it so spray the pots one week and let them sit and cure well and then the next I mix up the soil-less mix, put it in the pots, add the plants and then water them. Most years I don't paint a lot of pots, but mine were such a mish-nash of different colors that I wanted to try to unify them a bit more.

I've been watching the corn grow, which is nice because it seemed stalled until this week.

I've weeded some of the cottage border around the veggie beds, but have a long way to go. Some of the 'weeds' are reseeding plants like Laura Bush petunias, Texas hummingbird sage, chamomile, catnip and verbena bonariensis, so instead of yanking them, I've been digging them and moving them to other areas where I want them to grow. I need to do the same thing with some zinnias coming up in a tomato bed which was a zinnia bed last year.

Tim and I have mowed and weedeated the open acreage that isn't wooded, except for areas that have a lot of Indian paintbrush setting seed. We'll mow those areas after the seed has matured, so we'll have even more paintbrush (hopefully) next year.

We've put up deer netting around the granddaughter's little Peter Rabbit garden and weeded it for her. At the age of two, she's not into pulling weeds yet, although she sure likes to behead blooming flowers by pulling the flowers (any flowers) off their stems. The Peter Rabbit garden is 36' long and 16' wide at the wide end and tapers down to 14' wide at the narrow end, with its width being dictated by the driveway that runs alongside it. This was the first time I'd weeded it in a long time, so it took a while, but on the other hand, it didn't have a lot of weeds....just a lot of ground to cover.

I've been deadheading the poppies.

I've been adding flowers here and there wherever I have space to plant a few, planting some marigolds, begonias, celosias and Laura Bush petunias in ornamental and vegetable beds and in containers too.

I've weeded the ornamental shrub/flower beds a bit, but need to do more weeding there.

I've been scouting the pastures for the grasshopper hatch, which seems oddly erratic this year. I have a lot of big ones already (grrrr!) but also am seeing many in the 1/4" to 1/2" range this week. That makes this the ideal time to put out Nolo Bait or Semaspore to kill them and I intend to to that tomorrow. I'd do it today but there's still rain in our forecast for today and tonight, so I'll wait one more day for drier weather. Both the Nolo Bait and Semaspore are most effective on hoppers in the 1/4 to 1/2" size range.

I guess that's all I can remember, but there are other gardening 'things' I've been doing...namely, sitting outside in the cool mornings and evenings and enjoying all the visitors, which include many kinds of birds, bees, butterflies, moths, lady bugs, cottontail rabbits, a couple of deer who come by every day or so and gaze longingly at the plants inside the garden that they are no longer able to eat at will! A couple of nights ago, the dogs and I were treated to the song of the whippoorwill around twilight, and we have oodles of frogs both in the ponds and in the woods, and the baby turtles are hatching out (mama turtles lay the eggs in the soil between our house and the woods) and crawling around the year. They're about the size of a half-dollar and one got lost and found himself wandering aimlessly around the garage one day. There's been a few snakes, but we remove them as they're not welcome in the landscaped area, although they're free to roam around the wild woodlands all they want.

Sometimes I get so busy working, I forget to stop and smell the flowers and enjoy the wild critters, so I've been working harder at that this year. And that remimds me, not this week but last week I repainted the lawn furniture, so this week I've been sitting on the newly repainted lawn furniture.

With all the storms around the last 8 or 10 days, I've been distracted...but it also motivated me to clean out and sweep the tornado shelter and restock it with fresh bottled water and food, candles and flashlights with batteries, etc. That's not really a gardening task, but I have trumpet creeper planted so it covers up the shelter (and shades it) so that makes it gardening related. Every week I have to take pruners and trim back the trumpet creeper, which is about to bloom, around the door so it doesn't interfere with opening and closing the door. All you can see of the tornado shelter is the door sitting there in the middle of this big old 'pile' of trumpet creeper vine, and I like that. It looks better than an big old concret rectangle partially sticking up out of the ground.

Dawn

Pulled up broccoli rabe; it was bolting way too fast.

Put down what I hope is the final mulch of straw in most places. Sprayed sneaky bermuda grass sprouts with Roundup.

Counted all my green tomatoes.

Direct sowed cucumbers, squash, melons.

Planted rosemary, oregano and basil starts to their final spots.

Harvested romaine and butter lettuce, spinach, arugula, mesclun, mache, radishes, collards, chard, snowpeas.

Planted second crop of spinach to its summer (shady) spot.

Enjoying fresh salad every day and feeling very frugal ;-)

NEXT WEEK:

Getting ready to do second plantings of other greens to their shady spots. The hot weather later this week will do in my early spring plantings in their sunny spot.

Hoping to get a few more harvestings of snowpeas before they are pulled up and replaced with more pole beans.

May have to replant cukes and some squash. I'm having that funny feeling about the rain doing them in.

Is that all I got done? Oh, mowing, mowing, mowing, pruning, pruning, pruning.

Dawn,

Expand on deadheading your poppies, please. Is it for scattering seed? I have a 100 foot berm we built to halt downhill washing that I have planted with crimson clover first, then red poppies and bachelor buttons. I just let the poppies seed themselves. Am I missing something that might work better?

And trumpet creeper...is there a chance I could get it to grow in fairly heavy shade? I have a cattle panel attached between two trees that would screen my huge compost-pile-made-out-of-straw-bales if I could get something going in the shade and I have thought about trying trumpet creeper. Other than that, wintercreeper is the only other thing I can come up with and it's so-o-o-o slow.

Marcy

still eating lettuce, spinich, chard, collard, radishes already gone.

started digging potatoes for us, family and friends.(got to make room for purple hulls)

Planted about 120 early sun glow corn seed. Tilled up lawn, grass and all and planted the same day, may have one big mess hear. I saw one plant coming up today but was only planted Sunday.

Planted 4 ornamental sweet potatoes.

Mow, mow, weedeat

Larry

I am so jealous at what everyone is harvesting!! I got lettuce to pick, my radishes, a couple leaves of spinach can come off the bunch....other than that, forget it!! Even my peas are not up yet...sniff...sniff.

With all this rain I have weed, mow and lay down plastic for what will be new beds. Plant raspberries, and mulch the front lawn. I should really be thinking of how to mulch all the veggie beds....

Marcy,

I deadhead them so they'll keep producing for a longer period of time. If I deadhead religiously I sometimes have poppies in bloom for about a month longer than I otherwise would. Of course, it gets so hot so early here that sometimes the poppies shut down pretty quickly anyway. Since I am not perfect at deadheading, they reseed prolifically anyway. Some years they only reseed in the same general area where I have them growing. Other years they come up in scattered location as much as 300 or 400' from where they were planted. Sometimes they come up a couple hundred yards down the road, both to the north and south, in the bar ditch or beside the road. Those tiny seeds apparently can travel a great distance on their own.

I have trumpet creeper in heavy shade and it does fine. I honestly think trumpet creeper would grow in concrete. It won't die and you can't kill it, but it will bloom less in shade. I was sort of surprised to find it blooms at all in deep shade for me, but it does.

Ezzirah,

I guess we can assume at this point that the peas aren't going to sprout. Is this your first year gardening? Or, your first year in a new location? The first year is the hardest, and the first couple of years in a new location can be very challenging, but it gets better.

Dawn

Marcy, if by trumpet creeper, you mean orange trumpet vine, I wouldn't put it near a compost pile. We made that mistake and finally had to cut it to the ground and then spray Roundup on sprouts as far as 7-8 ft away in the compost pile. It is just TOO aggressive.

I still had a lot of plants that I needed to get in the ground and finally got most of that done this week .... four pepper plants, an icicle plant, a speedwell, a monarda, a couple of sedums, a dozen portulaca, a moonflower vine and cardinal vine that I started from seed (still have several of those to go). The flowerbeds have a lot of grass coming up in them so I'm trying to stay on top of that and the weeds. I still have several herbs that need to go in pots. I'd hoped to put them in the ground but I've run out of room in my little bag garden. Also I've really been enjoying discovering what's growing and blooming that was planted by the previous owners of our house. There are daylilies, some type of little purple daisy-like flowers, something with a beautiful purple flower that I finally discovered today is a type of sage or salvia (saw one like it in a nursery today). And there are a couple of new foliage plants coming up that I suspect might be calla lilies. I've been a little frustrated that some zinnia seeds I planted twice never did germinate. They're in a flowerbed that has heavy mulch, and I even pulled that back hoping it would make a difference. It's possible the seeds washed out with all the rain we've had, because most of the rain this spring has been the heavy type instead of gentle rain. Like yesterday ... we got over 2 1/2 inches of rain yesterday and it was the gully washer type.

Suzie

I've planted crowders and mung beans.

Harvested spinach, lettuce, onions, peas and asparagus. Blanched and froze asparagus and spinach (which I mixed with some young lambsquarter). Dug some new potatoes for dinner.

Picked a bunch of much older lambsquarter to feed the chickens along with the henbit weeded out of the garden. Also caught some grass with the push mower for the chickens.

Thinned peaches and apples.

Dug up some asparagus seedlings for a neighbor and some iris for another one. Planted a clump of Shasta Daisies that the neighbor who got the asparagus gave me.

Picked a few ripe strawberries from the garden and added them to some I bought.

Thinned the corn, bush beans and radishes.

Picked potato beetle larva and a few beetles. And wondered why there are so few this year. Did all the rain last year interrupt their cycle? Or maybe the dozens of ladybugs are eating the eggs before they hatch.

Smelled the roses and wondered why there is so little blackspot. I was expecting more after all last year's rain. Did it wash the spores off? Whatever, I'm glad as the bushes are too large for me to spray. The shoulders can't take the repeated pumping.

Turned over a rock and found a foot long black snake, still covered in juvenile speckles. Let it go, but tried to kill the 5 footer that I saw disappear into the garden phlox at the edge of the woods. Wasn't succesful. I clamped the flat blade of the spade on the last foot of its tail and watched as it pulled slowly out from under it.

Shoveled out the last of last year's compost and laid it on a tarp, so I could use the space to start over. The chickens will soon be butchered and I need somewhere to compost the litter. Soon as I get the bush beans weeded will spread the compost there. They are in new ground and need the help.
Mowed, weeded and weedeated.

I got my trellises up!
{{gwi:1103357}}

I am continuing to pull wheat out of my strawberry & tomato beds after a bad mulching mishap. :(

I am considering switching to oak leaves, which I have in abundance in my own yard. I have always worried that they may get moldy or something, but other people seem to do it?

I have lots of common herbs (basil, cilantro, parsley, garlic chives, dill), and we wind up using one or more almost daily. Lots of spinach, lots of different lettuces, and some strawberries so far.

I also have a big old mess of mustard greens that I am thinking about cooking tonight.

I made deep footprints in mine!!

Joellen, With mulches of many types, you'll get sprouting. It is just inevitable. Perhaps it is not as common with very clean straw, but with just about any other mulch of natural origin it can and will occur. Weed seeds will blow in from elsewhere year-round too. There is no such thing as a mulch that will prevent all weeds or that will not allow any seeds to sprout. That's why putting a newspaper, cardboard or nonperforated cloth mulch layer between the mulch material and the soil is helpful. It keeps the sprouting plants from rooting deeply into the soil...but only if you quickly pull up weeds as soon as possible after they sprout. If you leave any weed long enough, it will grown down (or up) through cloth mulch fabrics, newspaper or cardboard. This is especially true of grassy type weeds including bermuda grass.

Quailhunter, lol....isn't this sounding just like a repeat of last year?

I expect drying here for the next 4 or 5 days because it will be in the upper 80s and lower 90s and no rain is forecast. I hope you get a lot of drying there too.

Dawn

Dawn, I read your posts very carefully and take your advice seriously...I consider you a huge source of info! As soon as you told me about the cardboard, I ran right out and started pulling wheat and putting it down. I should take a picture of my new strawberry bed. It looks like a lattice woven pie!

However, by then many of the seeds had already worked their way into the soil. Not a few. Thousands. Every stalk of straw/hay that I mulched with had a mature seed head. DOH! Now I know what to look for, lesson learned.

I also swung by the recycling center today and picked up a huge stack of newspapers to start cleaning up the rest of the garden.

Thanks!

Dawn - My first year gardening ever. Not going to sprout? sniff...sniff.... (I am exaggerating, of course)

Ezzirah,

lol lol lol

I'm glad you have your sense of humor because cool-season crops can be so frustrating.

It gets better and better every year, and later you'll look back at your first year and just feel....oh, I don't know....sort of relieved you don't ever have to go through that again! I think you'll also be amazed at how much you learn the first 2 or 3 years and at how quickly it all begins to make sense to you.

If it will make you feel better, I need to go outside and pick peas and I've been putting it off because our temps are in the mid-80s and the Heat Index was 92 this afternoon and I thought that was 'too hot' to harvest peas. So there those poor little pea people sit roasting in the hot sun and I'm sitting here in the cool house.

I'll go outside in another hour and pick 'em, but I'm getting tired of them and ready to move on to something else. They have powdery mildew and look awful but I'm not going to treat them because our high temps are going into the 90s this weekend and the peas will pout and stomp their little feet and say "we aren't going to put up with this anymore!" and that will be the end of them.

My best gardening book tells me that our peas ought to mature before daytime highs begin exceeding 75 degrees. Ha! In fact, my response to that is ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!That would be about 3 weeks after they sprout! So, once we're hitting the 90s the peas are way out of their comfort zone and start begging to be released from their earthly world. I comply and send them to compost heaven, and then I plant pole beans to replace them.

Did you dig around to see if you had unsprouted pea seed in the ground or if it had rotted away?

Dawn

Ezzirah,

Spring peas are the bane of the southern gardener's existence. You KNOW when you put them in the ground, your chances of having a great crop are 50/50 at best. They are the Three Bears story of the garden. It can't be too hot, it can't be too cold, it has to be ju-u-u-ust right. I secretly believe the only reason peas are planted every spring is because we are all suffering so badly from cabin fever that we just HAVE to get out there and PLANT something. I really don't know why I plant every year and I think that every year as I put the seed in the ground, but I do it anyway.

Dawn has harvested pounds, was it Susan that just hoped for enough for a good stir fry, and I have harvested a whopping 24 ozs of snow peas that made a couple of great asian salad meals. You weighers made me curious and I now know I am never going to weigh again. It's too depressing. Of course, if I would just weigh tomatoes, I would quit altogether, because I would be overwhelmed with dealing with that many pounds of tomatoes!!

So, the point of this rambling is that you SHOULD NOT measure the success of your gardening by PEAS......

Marcy

Hi Y'all,

I AM NOT BRAGGING, but I do deserve this year's harvest to make up for all the years I got no peas because we got too hot too early.

I am exhausted. I just spent a couple of hours picking peas, from about 6:45 or so until dark. I kept picking and picking and picking. I just want to say these are now the sorriest-looking pea plants I've ever seen, with powdery mildew all over and with yellowing, browning foliage at the bottom....and now they really look like crap because I stripped them of peas today....

I picked right at 10 lbs. Ten lbs. in one day. Wow. Yellow Cat was not amused. He rolled on the catmint. He rolled on the catnip. He ate catmint. He ate catnip. He chased rabbits. He chased birds. He chased butterflies. He kept coming back to me and falling at my feet and rolling around. He was like a little kid who kept saying "Aren't you finished yet?" We finally had to come inside when it got too dark to see.

I've never picked 10 lbs. of snap peas in one day, and I'll have my work cut out for me processing them tomorrow.

That brings this year's pea harvest to 23 lbs., all of them harvested since the last week in April. I think the poor old plants might produce another pound or two before they stop producing. It depends. We're supposed to be 88 degrees tomorrow and 90-something on Sunday and that might stop them in their tracks.

Ezzirah, Most years I don't even bother planting peas because we usually get too hot too early down here in southern OK, but I was feeling cocky this year because it was abnormally cool and wet last year and my broccoli did quite well. I'd say if I planted them every year, I'd likely only get a harvest at all about 1 year in four and a great harvest about 1 year out of 8 or 9 years. I just got lucky and had a great year this year with the peas.

Marcy, I've never weighed stuff before. In fact, in the past I have scoffed at people who do that, ESPECIALLY if they weigh their tomatoes by plant or by variety and keep track of it so they can say...Plant #1 was an Indian Stripe and it produced 47 tomatoes weighing a total of 39 lbs. or whatever. I would never have time for that.

However, I hope to keep track of total tomato production.

The weighing came about because of Rosalind Creasy's MEN article about how much she raised (in lbs. and in $$) in a 100 s.f. bed in California. That made us all wonder how much we really harvest? What is it worth? So, some of us are trying to keep records.

You're right about the tomato harvest being scarey. It never ceases to amaze me just how many tomatoes I have to cook down to make sauce. No one would believe it if they haven't done it themselves. I've had people watch me and see how many I put in a stockpot to begin with, and then they're shocked at how few jars of finished product you get. You know, I've had people excitedly show me something like 6 tomatoes and they're all excited and want to make tomato sauce or spaghetti sauce or something, and I'm sort of like....well, you know, you'll need a few more tomatoes because they really cook down to nothing. I hate having to say that. So, I want to be able to quantify the harvest and say I raised X number of lbs. of tomatoes. That's assuming I don't get tired of weighing and say "I don't have time for this...."

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: Rosalind Creasy's 100 S.F. Garden Production

That is a lot of peas Dawn. I think I jinxed myself this year by saying that I had never had trouble with peas. LOL Really, I never have had, but this year I planted way too late and I finally saw the first bloom on them today. They have just not been the strong plants that I normally have either. I'll be lucky to get any before the weather gets too hot. They are in some very wet ground right now.

Carol,

I am sorry you're having a bad pea year. I hope that means you'll have a great year with something else. That's how it works for me--there's never a great year for everything. It is always one thing does very well and another thing doesn't do well at all and then most everything else is somewhere in the middle.

It is a ridiculous amount of peas, isn't it? I will have a lot of washing, sorting and blanching to do today but I will get a lot put up in the freezer and I'll keep a couple of pounds for fresh eating the next couple of days.

I expect that about Tues. or Wed. I'll yank out the peas and replace them with pole beans.

I cannot believe it is already almost June.

Dawn

Nothing, it was the last week of school and very stormy. Today I will plant 2 Juliet tomatoes because over the years I have found that they produce well regardless of weather or anything else, and I also find they freeze and dry really well. All my other tomatoes I started by wintersowing for the first time. I tend to plant tomatoes late, so they are just blooming away but no fruit yet.

Today I will harvest most of my lettuce, which is all over the place. I am not a neat gardener.

Betty,

I think it is nice to have a neat garden (NOT that I have a neat one) if it matters to a person to be neat, but I don't know that a neat garden produces a higher amount than a more unruly garden.

We have a friend here whose daughter tills up her garden plot, plants her plants, and never weeds....she just lets the weeds and grasses reclaim the space. You know what? Her tomatoes grow well and produce as well as anyone else's and seem to have less disease and pest issues. So, for whatever reason, her really messy garden produces perfectly fine. Seems odd, doesn't it?

Dawn

All this discussion reminds me to ask any of you if you have read Barbara Kinsolver's book, "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle"?
It's a great book. Cliff's notes version, she and her family moved from Tucson to Tennessee where her husband had an old farm. They moved for the lifestyle change and to see if they could actually feed themselves. They worked their way up to it and finally dedicated one year to eating only what they could raise.

Anyway, it's a great book with lots of sidebar information and recipe ideas. I have passed the book around to my girls and their families to try to give them a gentle push towards growing some of their own food and thinking local.

It's a great book to read in winter when you're stuck inside.

Marcy

Marcy,

I think I've read it about a dozen times now. I reread it constantly. I love this book and raved about it endlessly either last year or the year before....whenever I was on only my 2nd or third reading of it. To a certain extent, it inspired me to expand my veggie and fruit growing beyond what I had done for years....which was basically to grow stuff and eat fresh and put up a little for winter. After I read this book, I became consumed with growing more, more, more and preserving as much as possible. I also try to buy/eat locally as much as possible, which is easier than it used to be.

They have an 'Animal, Vegetable, Miracle' website too that I have linked here before. I'll link it again. It features some book excerpts, recipes, lots of farm photos (including some of their lambs), and letters and photos from folks inspired by the book.

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: Animal, Vegetable, Miracle website

Well, now you just need your own beef, pork, and catfish farm, Dawn, and you'll have it covered.....or maybe you do already???

My peas are still looking okay, no mildew, still flowering, but somehow I have a feeling it will all come to an abrupt end next week. I have one pea that is about big enuff, the seeds need to swell up a bit more, and I can grab it quick, and hopefully savor it. Did anyone see Barbara on OK Gardening today? She was making a stir fry of Sugar Snaps, sliced radishes, fennel, onions, and some herbs I don't recall right now. I was dozing off and on for a sec, and thinking how I wouldn't have enuff peas to make that nice recipe, but at least I got to look at how appealing it was on the tube.

I have been potting up numerous seedlings of Salvia 'Lady in Red', Esperanza yellow flowering and Esperanza red flowering, Silene regia, and my yard now looks like a private nursery. I have one container of Asclepias hirtella to go, some Silphium laciniatum, a Giant Milkweed (Calatropis gigantea), a Brugmansia (only got one seedling each of the last 2), some Celphalanthus occidentalis (Buttonbush), and that will be about it for the seedlings. I need to pot up to larger pots several other seedlings that grew quicker and now need bigger homes, or to go into the garden.

I finished up pruning or cutting back the plants and vines that were damaged by the hail. Things that fared well in the storm include most of the seedlings surprisingly, potted plants like Lantana, Pentas, Nicotiana, Turtlehead, Salvias, Tomatoes, and in-ground Clematis, Campanulas, Basil, Goldenrod, Zizia, Coneflowers, Persicaria, Cosmos sulphureous, Solomon's Seal variegated, Spigelia marilandica. Had to cut the Hops vine completely to the ground, and other badly damaged plants were Hydrangeas, Azaleas, Monarda, Honeysuckle, Rose, Senna hebecarpa, Elderberry, Pipevines, Hostas of course, Arums, False Nettle, Fennel (but I got eggs yesterday and today), strawberries, Blueberries (just the fruit, not the plant), Wild Indigo, Butterfly Bushs, Hibiscus, Rudbeckia, Jack in the Pulpits, Solomon's Seal plain green. So had a lot of pruning to get done.

That's about all I've gotten done. Daughter's baby shower is tomorrow so probably won't get much done til Monday. Forgot to tell you, I have a new pond. Yep, and it was free! Kenna came over, grabbed my shovel and proceeded to dig where I couldn't see what was happening - supposed to be a surprise for Nanny. When she got done digging, she grabbed the hose, and a few minutes later announced that I could check out my "surprise". She had dug a hole under the pine tree and filled it with water for a pond for Nanny! Aren't grandkids wonderful!!!

Susan

Susan,

If we liked wild game, we could live off the wild pigs, rabbits and deer that live here. At least we have our own laying hens so we have farm-fresh eggs. Our land is mostly wooded, and what isn't wooded is already full of gardens, house, etc. There's no room for meat animals, and I probably would name them and keep them alive forever so they'd just be big, expensive pets. I can kill a plant, but I can't kill an animal. I was working in the garden at twilight and here came Flopsy. Mopsy and Cottontail, rounding the corner of the garden fence and hopping and chasing one another and just....you know....playing. It was the cutest thing in the world. Then they saw me at the garden gate, froze and took off like the Keystone Kops---in a dead panic, running all over one another in their haste to get away. You'd better believe I made sure the garden gate was securely closed! They sure were cute though. They were pretty small and I wondered if Mama Cottontail was hanging around watching her children.

We used to have catfish and other fish in our pond, but then the spring quit running in the drought of 2003 and it changed from a year-round pond to a seasonal pond, so no fish there any more.

It sounds like you were busy pruning all right...I bet that was a huge amount of work. Did Kenna's pond hold water for long? That is just so darling. Grandkids are wonderful and here you are about to have another one.

My peas were blooming their heads off today and I just looked at those poor pitiful plants and shook my head. You can tell all the energy went into making those peas I've been harvesting and they're about spent. I harvested all the lettuce because it is getting ready to send up seed stalks. The pea plants in our granddaughter's "Peter Rabbit" garden are still producing though so we might have peas a bit longer. We're going to be in the 90s a lot next week, so I'm afraid the cool season is about to come to a crashing halt. I had a serious talke with the broccoli today and told it go get busy before the heat burns it up.

You know, the spring weather has been so erratic. I wonder what in the world summer has in store for us?

Enjoy the baby shower tomorrow!

Dawn

I have mowed the lawn, moved a huge mother wort to the backyard after it grew too large for the front yard. i have been pulling up ivy and want to replace it with foam flowers. that is a job. i moved the rocks that line my large bed in front 5 feet out so i could have a larger bed. if i had my way my entire yard would be flowers, herbs, and veggies. i bought an heirloom tomato plant, the kind that George thinks is the best and put it along side of my other tomato plants. next year i hope to have enough seeds to not have to buy tomato plants.

now i have to put ground corn on the lawn and liquid molasses, which i have to figure out how to dilute. and i got two bales of hay to put in the veggie garden as i am also trying to make the soil higher in that corner so it won't flood.

Susan,
Don't feel too lonely. My sugar snaps are really growing now. But afraid with the onset of heat they might not ever even set one pea. Just about ready to flower. But we hit 92 yesterday with high, hot, dry, SW winds and low humidity. Dried things out quickly. So imagine they are close to being finished. They have backed off the 5-7 days of 90's now and saying a few days in the low to mid 80's. Which will be nice. Give things at least a little bit of a chance. The tomatoes I have set out look great. Those in the frames are jumping out the top. Need to get everything off the light stand and outside hardening off. Glad I didn't have all of my sweet potatoes planted yesterday. Thinking of potting some of them up for 7-10 days and then transplanting to the garden. Put a few more out last evening now with the cool days coming to see if they can maybe get adjusted and a little root system established before the heat hits again. Hate to lose all of them. Jay

I picked 3# of sugar snaps this am, which brings my yearly total so far to 10#. In years past have picked over 5 gallons in one day, but doesn't look like that will happen this year. The late tall Super Sugar Snaps are just now setting on and it's supposed to be in high 80's all week.

Broccoli heads are filling out fast though.

The chickens got a lot more weeds as I spent over an hour pulling weeds, mostly lambsquarter, just for them.

Dorothy, Most of my sugar snap harvest came last week...ten pounds in one day....but I am hoping the weather will allow the current blooms to form some more peas before the heat burns up the plants. We're up to 23 lbs. and may hit 30 before it all ends (I really need to pick them again today), but wouldn't have had many at all if the heat had arrived the first week in May, and that is (as you well know) what's so frustrating about snap peas.

My broccoli heads are filling out fast just like yours. On Wed. or Thurs. they were tiny, and some are now almost full-sized. The cabbage did the same thing...went from 'not even close' to 'almost there' in a very short while.

Now, back to the snaps....I wanted to price them at the grocery story to see if all the time spent picking them and agonizing over the harvest/lack of harvest was 'worth it'. At our local Wal-Mart they were more expensive ($4.58 per pound) than they were at a gourmet specialty market, Central Market in Southlake, Tx, where they were $3.99 per pound, and in neither case were they organic. I couldn't even find organic sugar snap peas in a store. So, for me, I'm getting a good return on the seeds I planted this year....but some years it gets too hot too soon and I get virtually nothing.

Our forecast has changed slightly...from forecast highs in the low 90s to the upper 80s, but I don't know if it will make much difference this late in the snap pea season.

I bet by the end of the week we'll be up to our earlobes in broccoli though!

Dawn

My tomatos are producing green tomatos like crazy right now and I am utterly thrilled with these two varieties - Rutgers and Jet Star. Potted up the Supersweet 100 yesterday to be planted in the big pot when I get more potting soil.

Am thinking about taking a cutting next month of the Jet Star and restarting for a fall production since it is in a 5-gal pot that it will quickly outgrow. Tomatos grow so quickly from cuttings, that I wondered to myself, now why would I plant seed, when I can just take a cutting. Probably not practical for gardening on a larger scale, but for me, why not?

Today I need to try to plant out my honeysuckle, Verbesina alternifolia, and Ironweed.

Yesterday, I potted up my Salvia elegans 'Golden Delicious' which has flowers already (out of season. Such a gorgeous plant. Potted up my Silene regia seedlings, doing the "hunk o' seedlings" method. Still have Asclepias hirtella, Rattlepod, Desmodium canadense, and a few others to go, but the bulk of it is behind me finally! Now, to watch them grow and give my babies away to folks that butterfly garden or want to butterfly garden.

Pulled weeds - mostly crab and bermuda, watered pots (a daily or 2X daily job right especially with small pots.

I didn't grow that many varieties from seed, but nearly all of my seeds produced heavily this year. This will be the last year I do this at this level anyway.

Jay, I am in good company with the few peas I will get. I noticed 4 pods yesterday, but still flowering and not yet showing signs of death yet.......yet.......but soon, verrrry soon.

What, by the way, is Jay's favorite and best producing Tomato? I really need to know this, ya know?

Susan

Susan,

For me, Rutgers and Jet Star both produce all summer and all fall and I don't replace them with new plants for fall because there's no reason to do that....if they stay healthy. So, even though you certainly can take a cutting and start a new plant to replace them, it isn't necessary.

Mostly this week I'll be focusing on harvesting and putting up the cool-season crops. I haven't weighed them yet but I just harvested 9 heads of white cabbbage and might make sauerkraut with them, or maybe freezer slaw...or both. I also have harvested strawberries, tomatoes, lettuce, green beans, yellow crookneck squash and new potatoes this week so far. I need to harvest more snap peas. I'm getting behind.

Other than harvesting/putting up the cool-season crops that are producing now as well as harvesting a few warm-season crops, I'm spending today weeding, mulching and tucking in flowers, herbs and veggies to replace those I'm taking out. This will be one of the busiest weeks of the year for me. The end of May is a crazy time with cool stuff reaching harvest size and early warm stuff being harvested too.

I have a lot of herbs to hang and dry. Hopefully I'll get that done today.

I can't wait to see if Jay can narrow it down to one favorite....he might be able to list 10 or 15 favorites.

Dawn

Susan,

For me, Rutgers and Jet Star both produce all summer and all fall and I don't replace them with new plants for fall because there's no reason to do that....if they stay healthy. So, even though you certainly can take a cutting and start a new plant to replace them, it isn't necessary.

Mostly this week I'll be focusing on harvesting and putting up the cool-season crops. I haven't weighed them yet but I just harvested 9 heads of white cabbbage and might make sauerkraut with them, or maybe freezer slaw...or both. I also have harvested strawberries, tomatoes, lettuce, green beans, yellow crookneck squash and new potatoes this week so far. I need to harvest more snap peas. I'm getting behind.

Other than harvesting/putting up the cool-season crops that are producing now as well as harvesting a few warm-season crops, I'm spending today weeding, mulching and tucking in flowers, herbs and veggies to replace those I'm taking out. This will be one of the busiest weeks of the year for me. The end of May is a crazy time with cool stuff reaching harvest size and early warm stuff being harvested too.

I have a lot of herbs to hang and dry. Hopefully I'll get that done today.

I can't wait to see if Jay can narrow it down to one favorite....he might be able to list 10 or 15 favorites.

Dawn

I was only going to take cuttings in the event that the plants fail in the hot weather because I am growing them in 5 gal. containers. In that event, I have replacements to continue the journey.

I decided to plant the bigger container with the Supersweet 100 cuz I think we will use more of the cherry types than the regular maters. It seems I have to think around all the possibilities when gardening on this small scale.

Checked the sugar snap peas today and they are still looking okay, with pods ripening. I cannot yet feel the actual "pea" inside, so will not pick til then. I have read that they can be rather tasteless until the seed begins to swell up.

I may yet have a Lime Green Salad, Victorian Dwarf, and a Burpee something or other, so we'll see how they go.

Susan

Susan, yes edible podded pea pods don't have much flavor. It is the peas inside that are sweet. The pods mostly just crunchy. But if you let them go too far, the peas inside turn bitter. With your small amount you probably won't miss picking any, but I always do, try to eat them and end up spitting them out.

Dorothy,

When I find overly mature peas that I've missed I pick 'em but then I feed them to the chickens because, like you, I've learned I can't handle their bitterness.

Yesterday I picked 5 lbs. 13 oz. more, so we're up to 28 lbs. 13 oz. and still have blooms and peas setting and maturing. I'm pretty sure the heat is shutting down production though, which is OK. We're eating them fresh as much as we can, and freezing plenty too. I'll start harvesting broccoli today. I planted three varieties hoping to spread out the harvest a bit and not have so much to harvest and put up at one time, and also to spread the harvest out longer so we'd have fresh broccoli longer. We'll see if it works.

Susn, When the peas hit that 'just right' stage, they are supremely sweet and yummy. If picked too early or too late, I don't care for the taste at all, but the chickens like those.

Dawn

Unfortunately, I don't have chickens, but maybe some of the birds will eat them???

Other than the pine tar incident, when I came home early this morning from my DD's house, the tomatoes were all perky looking from the overnight rain, I guess. So far, so good.

Don't think I'll get to plant anything today, but I can do some potting up of seedlings.

I need to plant my Turk's Cap, Wingstem (Verbesina alternifolia), Phlox 'Wanda', my precious Asclepias variegata or Redring Milkweed (nearly extirpated in the wild and difficult to propagate, we are trying to re-establish it by garden cultivation), Honeysuckle 'Blanche Sandman', Spicebush, Lavendar 'Silver Anouk'. I am fast running out of time to do this.

You are running out of time, so you'd better hurry up. (Just teasing you.) After that new grandbaby arrives, you'll likely be too busy oohing and aahing and enjoying her.....and helping her family adjust to the new little one. I suppose Kenna is getting really excited about the impending arrival of her sibling?

I wish we'd gotten rain. It is hot and dry and windy here this week so I had to water my garden. It is amazing how clay stays so wet for so long and than...bam!....when it dries, it really dries!

Dawn

Sorry I am late back to the thread, life got in the way. I planted some peas was too late, some are only a half a foot high, what I was thinking I have no idea. I may wait on peas until I get more experienced. :)

For now I am watching things grow and watering, looking for bugs and getting ready for the fall garden. One mistake I made in the spring was the lack of planning, note taking and timing was off. I am determined not to make that mistake in the fall....Like the spring I made a calendar of when to seed what, so we shall see. My lettuce is coming up all over, however. I think I accidentally burnt my flat leaf parsley with this MG spray (never use the spray stuff that is not premixed, comes out too heavy or not at all)

I am waiting for my chipoini (sp?) onions, ground cherries, and cut celery to come in the mail from Johnny's.

Weeding, puttering around in general, more weeding (darn wheat straw)!

What is everyone planting in Oklahoma NOW?

Most of my greens are bolting, and I think it's time to start something new in their spots.

Hello, Everyone, I haven't visited here in awhile because I got waylaid by Facebook. Last weekend I planted a bunch of marigolds with the already-planted tomatoes - something I always forget to do. I went to Atwoods to get plants and found that everything was 1/2 price but also that everything was very much picked over and that apparently the staff had stopped watering the poor things. So I picked through and found marigolds, some dahlias, and a couple of heuchera. I was also looking for okra seeds and could not find any. Has anyone else noticed that the stores that sell seed packets stop stocking them way too early? I looked everywhere in Stillwater for hyacinth bean seeds a couple of weeks ago and finally had to pick some up at TLC in OKC when I was there visiting my mom.

I know, Dawn, I'm so late planting out things because I've been so busy potting up and potting up things in containers, plus trying to help Jess. The girl has to be monitored all the time cuz she just doesn't listen when the doc says "bed rest".

I went to Lowe's today to pick up some Sta-Green potting soil that is on sale (3 huge bags). I wanted the one without moisture control, but this was all they had, so I bought it anyway. Not all plants like to be planted with those moisture thingies, ya know? Also picked up a roll of window screening so I can make my containers for the caterpillars, some Deep Woods Off, and 2 paint buckets (5 gal.) and a 20 gallon plastic rope handle container for $6. I now have a container to move the Jet Star to and for the SuperSweet 100. I think Andria's container is more than 20 gallon when I look at them - it appears to be more like 30 gallons. I think I will put those containers in a spot that gets some shade from the hot western sun, too, rather than all day sun where they are now. I won't be able to move these larger containers when they are planted, so trying to think ahead. I tried to stay away from buying any plants - I have ENOUGH! Got to get my drill charged now so I can make lots of holes in the container. But, it is so darned hot today, with very little breeze, that I will wait til tomorrow morning to plant them.

I thought I was going to faint when I was at Lowe's due to the heat. I cannot tolerate much heat anymore. And, I'm a little nervous that my small potted plants are going to dry out too fast in this heat. I am going to definitely have to water this evening, risking disease, etc., cuz I just didn't get it done this morning - too many errands to run.....sigh......

I was in heaven this morning when I ate that first sugar snap pea and it was so lip-smackin' good, I don't think the rest will make it into the house for that stir-fry.

Dawn, I have some really bad cracks in the clay soil right now cuz it's gotten so hot. Gotta get out there and water the milkweed seedling patch quickly, or they will bite the dust, literally.

Susan

Joellen, The things most gardeners are planting here now (or should be) are the true heatlovers like sweet potatoes, melons, winter squash or succession plantings of summer squash, black-eyed peas and other southern peas, okra and succession plantings of green beans. For almost everything else it is getting pretty hot. You still could transplant tomatoes and peppers now but may not harvest much from them until fall....it just depends. Last summer we had sporadic cooler-than-average and wetter-than-average rainy spells every week or two and in weather like that you can do a lot of succession plantings of any warm-season crop. To me, this summer already feels hotter and drier than last summer, so I think the trend is going to be back towards a hot, dry summer, at least in my part of OK, which is southcentral OK.

Hi OKPrairie, Long time no see. I hope things are going well there. I'm in agreement with you that many stores seem to be yanking their seed stock earlier and earlier. A lot of the ones here in southern OK get their seed stock out of the store around mid-May. I was at Wal-Mart this morning and noticed the big seed displays were gone, although a small seed rack was sitting on the aisle with the canning supplies.

Susan, Do you think Jess gets her hardheadedness about bed rest from her dad? (Cause I'd never say she got it from her mom!) I hope she behaves herself and takes care of herself now in this heat because heat is even hard on healthy pregnant women, and she's had so many complications all along. Have the miagraines stopped?

I know what you mean about the heat and humidity today. It felt awful when I was out harvesting broccoli this morning....and that was around 9 a.m. It's pretty bad when you feel 'too hot' that early in the day.

Our clay is cracking here too. We just took the dogs down to "the big pond" to swim so they could cool off and they couldn't swim....the water was barely up to the low part of their chests so they just waded. Many of you have had a lot of rain the last 7-10 days but all that recent rain missed us. The 'd' word (drought) is dancing around in my head, and I'd love to be wrong.

I always eat the first few peas in the garden too. And, really, on the first few days when there's only a few, you might as well eat them outside because there's not really enough to cook in a batch. Every time I eat a home-grown fruit or veggie, they are so good that I swear I'll never eat store-bought produce again....but then, even with as much as I do grow, I can't grow everything, so I can't stick to that pledge. I wish I could grow all we could eat of everything we like!

It is odd....last week our pastures around here looked lovely and lush and green because of the rain that fell earlier in the month. Now, after a little over a week with no rain, everything is drying out and browning quickly and looks completely different. We sure did go from lush and lovely to dry and brown almost overnight. It doesn't help that our average temps this last week have been about 10 degrees above average.

There's tons of stuff in bloom, but the pests are showing up in great numbers, including small grasshoppers (so I've been out spreading Semaspore for their dining pleasure), squash bugs, cucumber beetles, etc. Oh, and chiggers and skeeters.

Dawn

Dawn, I just want to thank you again for being so helpful. You are amazing! I'd love to see pics of your garden some day!

I planted bush beans and zucchini this week, but that's all I have room for now. I have 14 tomato plants this year in my new garden space. It needs a lot of amending, and I don't expect too much this year. I have tons of blooms on the tomatoes and a few small green ones. We're growing Crimson Cushion Beefsteak, Cherokee Purple, Sweet100, Dr Wyche Yellow, and Amish Paste.
We've picked a good deal of lettuce and radishes over the last several weeks and it looks like my Wando peas are about quit on me altogether. I got out of them more than I expected, though. 8 plants grown on some tomato cages. Overall, I may end up with a pound if lucky. Still producing though, we'll see.
My new garden space is 18' by 16' and about half is devoted entirely to the tomatoes. It's very sandy soil, amended with compost, manure, bone meal, blood meal, and shredded leaves. My previous gardening space,a couple of flower beds, there was a bad nematode problem that made it frustrating to grow some heirloom tomatoes and most okra I planted last year. The new garden space is about 15 feet away from those flower beds. So far though everything seems very healthy. We'll see.
So instead of okra, I used some space to try growing watermelons, vertically with the big tomato cages and pantyhose slings. I have Yellow Sugar Lump and Blacktail Mountain, both from Sandhill Preservation. Can these be grown vertically with success? They seemed in description to be like small to medium. They love this heat so far.

I wish I had more carrots to pick, but I had a poor germination rate and the survivors don't seem healthy. It was old seed though.

My Blue Greasy Grit pole beans are loving the sun, too it seems. Planted about 20 in a narrow, tall tepee made of bamboo and hog wire. It's ugly. Gets sun though

Thai peppers are finally taking off. No blooms, but I got them in late. Bad germination on peppers this year. Plus my cat pulled about 75% of them out of their starter cups. The only survivors were two Thai peppers.

I dry lots of herbs, too that I keep in some different flower beds. I've dried enough oregano, dill and thyme to last a year. I did last year and I'm just now using the last of that. I had some tarragon in there for about 4 years, but it petered out me after numerous harvests. Plus I have chives, Jay's garlic, and sage in the nematode beds. I've dug a couple of the garlic bulbs and inspected for damage. Zero! Take that nematodes!

Good Night
Dale OKC