Thanks for writing that, Jeanie.

You're absolutely right that I usually know the answer before I post the question. I know it seems silly, but after years of illness, I sometimes question whether I'm right, or if it might be something different here. I'm just sort of getting my legs back under me. Call it a whole string of "senior moments" if you will. (Of course, I've also been known to forget where I live. That's a joke, people, and sometimes it's on me. What can I say?)
I like to know as much as possible about a situation, and not just jump in headlong and make a whole series of mistakes out of ignorance. I hate mistakes, and who doesn't make them in gardening? I know I sure do!
I'm also a person who hates to leave problems alone, and particularly if it's a plant in trouble and I can "fix it". I didn't say that very well, but I hope you follow my meaning. Years like this are pretty hard to fix.

I've found this forum to be absolutely invaluable to a newbie Oklahoman like me. The wealth of information and experience is just spectacular, and I'd like to say right now just how grateful I am to have found you guys. This old dog might learn some new tricks yet. Many thanks!

Pat

Very few of us are really 'masters' of anything, and in gardening we deal with tempermental Oklahoma weather. This year my weather is a little like Dawn's, some years she gets heavy Spring rains like I do, sometimes we get late cold spells and freezing weather late into the season like Jay deals with every year. No matter what kind of problem we have, either another person is having it also or has had it in the past.

If I have a question about flowers, or butterflies, or vent about horn worm, I know that Lisa and Susan will be reading. I have received seeds from Jay, Dawn, George, Dana, Paula, Lynn, Susan, Lisa, and a dozen others. In that way they have become a part of my life and a part of my garden. I value the friends that I have on this forum.

I have not been impressed with the Master Gardener publication that I have seen in Oklahoma, but Oklahoma is a big State and to be a master at gardening in one part of the state does not necessarily make you a master of all. If you came from another state, then I think you can expect to change a lot of things. My gardens in Colorado and Alaska certainly had to be different than Oklahoma, and in Greece I didn't bother since I could buy produce easily from someone else who did all the work and everyday of the week if I wanted to.

If someone has a question, I hope they will post it. If it is too stupid maybe no one will answer, but usually the questions are not stupid and someone else would like to know the same answer.

Over the course of the few years I have been reading and posting to this forum, we have had a few that appeared to be posting just to rile us up, or maybe they had a few too many drinks before they decided to comment. I wish that didn't happen, but it does. None of us have to answer those kinds of postings but we can choose for ourselves. It would be a pretty dead forum if we didn't share information back and forth, and why have an open forum if you can't do that.

I have had small gardens in lots of different places, but I also had a full time job and a family. When I could finally devote all of the time I wanted to devote to a garden, I am sure that I asked some dumb questions. This forum has been kind to me, dumb questions and all, with only a few exceptions.

This forum has been very helpful to me. I don't post as much as I would like, but I try to get on here and read as much as I can. Sometimes it is late at night. I find that this weather really stresses me, and I think it does a lot of other people as well. In a few other boards that I read some people seem to be rather cranky. LOL I am covered with chiggers, I have way more hornworms than I do tomatoes, today the wind picked up a bit and we got about a cupful of rain, and the biggest shade tree in my yard is now split, and may be down by the morning. I moved everything I could out of the way. According to the radar, we have some weather coming this way. If the wind is out of the north, it may take the tree on down. I'm tired of it all and I realize that this post borders on whining, and I just HATE whining. SO- I apologize for whining, and I thank you for listening. LOL
mo

I would say that you cannot really know people by these posts. The advantage to talking in person is there are many different things that can affect how a remark will come across, such as tone, facial expressions, age, personality, laughter etc.

Seems it is very easy to get offended on a forum because of this. I think we all form a mental picture of who we assume we are talking to and would be very surprised if we actually met and it would drastically change these assumptions.

I am not a prairie gardener for example and know very little about it. I recently learned it is an involved procedure to establish or restore a prairie and read a small bit about it from a single library book I checked out on native grasses by John Greenlee. I got interested in adding some prairie grasses to the cactus and SW natives I'm growing but that is a long way from being an expert.

As far as my gardening methods are concerned, I don't care if anyone else agrees with them or not or if they like my garden. We are all free to do things however personally fits us best and make our own choices. I think a garden is an expression of the person who creates it.

One of my favorite plants is a leafless shrub that never blooms. When I point it out, no one is impressed and look at as a pitiful thing but I don't feel insulted by that, I rather expect it. On the other hand, I hate roses. If I say this, people go on the defense. I don't understand that? What is the difference? Its the roses, not the person I am saying I'm not partial to.

The best a person can do on a forum is take things at face value and assume the other person is who they present themselves to be, except sometimes you run into contradictory statements and start wondering.

A Master Gardener is one who has completed a designated course of study at a county extension agency in cooperation with the land grant university of the students home state. I had to look that up. It doesn't matter to me what a persons credentials are in gardening. If I ask a question and don't like the answer I am a free agent and can walk away and say I wouldn't approach the problem like that if they put a gun to my head and vise versa.

There is one thing I do not like. Horticultural Pissing Contests and Egos (either easily bruised ones or inflated ones) on any forum. I have run into this on other forums. So, I try to just keep it about gardening and offer any answers I can pass on (which anyone can take or leave) and not get too personal.

The only dumb question is the twice or thrice asked question that was already answered or the same question wrapped in a slightly different package which makes you wonder if you wasted your time or what the heck is going on?

Mo, I didn't understand about chiggers when I moved here, never having run into them before. I HATE chiggers. I didn't even know that I needed to toss my clothing in the laundry if I'd gotten into chiggers. I was staying in the same clothes. Yikes!! That was educational, to say the least. Now I've found that I can shower with lye soap from Atwood's or Grandpa's Pine Tar Soap and kill the itch in about 30 minutes. Try it. You might be amazed.

Carol, I totally agree about the Master Gardener thing. Yes, I had the credential in the SF North Bay Area, and it means really nothing at all in OK. All of the regular gals on this forum have more knowledge than I do. I don't know how it works here, but out there, all it meant was that we had enough experience and education to have a bit of knowledge, and that we were willing to donate a set amount of time to writing a column or answering questions in the "ask a master gardener" section of the paper or through the Ag office. That's all it is. Just because I could do it out there does clearly not mean I'm competent in OK. It means I have some basic working knowledge of plants and garden techniques. Period. A whole lot of the people on this forum have been gardening here all their lives, and they are miles ahead of me in knowing what will work and what won't.

Each time I've picked up and moved location, I've had to learn all over again, whether it was from the San Francisco North Bay up to Mt Shasta, or Yakima WA, down to San Bernardino, over to Boulder CO, or back down to the middle of the Sacramento Valley, or Oklahoma, or a few places in between. Each area has it's own unique set of characteristics and challenges for a gardener. We each have to learn as we go, and I don't think we ever stop learning. I hope I don't. I left my big gardening library behind in CA. In fact, I donated it to the local library. Now I'm starting over and building a whole new one, but all the books in the world still can't tell you how to best deal with or manage that one small section that is your own personal garden with its own unique challenges and attributes, as well as what your personal preferences might be for style.

It's one of the things that makes gardening what it is, a very individual thing. Mo, I think we all whine and complain at one time or another, and I seriously doubt that any of us in this forum would ever consider giving up gardening. It's what we do, and who we are. Tomorrow I'm going to track down the voracious hornworm that's trying to hide in my tomato thicket. He can run, but he can't hide forever.

The weather has a lot of us on edge. It's natural. It just happens when times are rugged like this. Try to smile, and then go find some of the soap I mentioned. It can give you a whole new lease on things.

Pat

This forum is helpful to ALL of us. Yes. We can choose to agree or disagree with the information posted here, probably based on our own experiences with various gardening conditions and plant materials. We don't ALL have to like the same plants. For instance, I love hybrid tea roses, but can't grow them worth a flip. They always get black spot and, usually, thrips. I absolutely hate trees, such as Silver Maples (brittle), Mimosas (messy), Bradford Pears (over-used); shrubs, such as Rose of Sharon (messy), Butterfly Bushes (prone to spider mite), Privet (large and labor-intensive), Euonymous (ALWAYS gets scale); vines, such as Pyracantha (gets Fireblight), Trumpet vine or Wild Honeysuckle (will take over world), Wisteria (will, also, take over world), English Ivy (will rip the siding right off your house); reeds and grasses such as Bamboo (spreads and spreads and next to impossible to get rid of), Pampas Grass (over-used), Purple Fountain Grass (over-used Annual); Ground Covers such as, the mint family (agressive), Houttuynia (agressive), Vinca (boring) and I REALLY hate Marigolds (ALWAYS get spider mite) and Brussels Sprouts (disgusting taste), Mustard Greens (ditto taste). Now, this does NOT mean that I am right and anyone who likes these plants is wrong. It is based on my personal opinion and personal experience with some of this shinnery.
I like English gardens, both formal and cottage, BUT I also love the natural SW or Prairie look of Cacti, Succulents and Grasses, and good thing, because of the weather trend we are experiencing, I have every intention of removing anything that limps along this Summer and replacing it with these heat and drought-tolerant "sluggers"! I disagree with you, Cactusgarden, in saying you are not an expert on this type of planting, as apparently, you have done a lot of research in this area and are a great help to we who are so discouraged by our gardening attempts in these unbelievable conditions! Pat, see? I had no idea that lye soap or Pine Tar soap would ease chigger bites. I've learned something new. I DO know, however, ice will relieve stings, as I discovered when stung by a scorpion several years ago. Nasty pain!
Yes. This forum is a lot of help, whether it be from the educated in universities, extensive book research, experience or just old home remedies learned from Grandmothers. I, for one, am grateful, and at 73 yrs. of age agree, you NEVER quit learning, and oh yeah, I will NEVER quit gardening as long as I am able!

Jeanie

Hey, Jeanie, I managed to stumble on the lye soap thing sort of accidentally. I was standing in line at the hardware store where they had a display on the counter, and reading the label while I was waiting. The clerk was an older fellow, like us, and he said he knows of a lot of people who use it for bites and poison oak. I figured it was worth a try, and it was more than worth it. The one I use is Grandma's Lye Soap and it's made in Tulsa. I see that there's a link on the label, so I'll post it here.
Before that, or as an alternative, I use Grandpa's Pine Tar Soap, but it usually has to be ordered online.

Being totally ignorant of things like chiggers, I had no idea at all that the little beggars get into your clothing and stay there, or where they can get into clothing! I won't get graphic about it, but I'm sure you all know what I mean. I thought I could just treat the bites and go on about my business. Boy, did I ever get a rude awakening! Now, if my skin begins to light up like fire because I've gotten into a bunch of them, I head straight for the shower and all my clothing is dropped into the laundry hamper. A good vigorous scrub with the soap takes the itch away and the whole chigger experience is immediately reduced to something tolerable. They don't seem to get ugly and hang on for weeks the way they'd do without it. It's amazing.

I think quite a few places are carrying the soap now. Atwood's and Ace Hardware come to mind, and I'm sure there are others. I've bought several extra bars and sent them to my mother in CA and sister in CT, to use on other bites and poison oak.

Going back to the earlier topic, I agree that I'm always learning, learning, and hopefully more learning. There's something new every day. I don't think we can ever get too old for that. At least, I most certainly hope not! When the day comes that I'm not interested in learning anything or discovering anything new, I hope they nail the box shut, because I'm done.

Pat

Here is a link that might be useful: Lye Soap web site

I'll have to check out Ace's the next time I'm in there for the Lye soap. I'm old and thin-skinned, so bites and scratches can make me miserable. Thanks for the info, Pat.........

Jeanie

When you can identify the bite site like a mosquito or bee, I like to use ammonia.

Know what you mean, Jeanie. My skin tears worse than paper if I get near anything at all. It also bruises so badly that I look like I've been in a war zone about half the time. Ah, the joys of getting old!

Pat

Now that you mention it, Soonergrandmom, I think I have read that Ammonia is good for fire ant stings, also. OK, lye soap, Ammonia. Does this not only relieve the itching but draw out the venom and kill the imbedded bugs, too?

Jeanie

I don't know because I have never tried it on chiggers. Mosquito bites don't normal bother me too badly unless they are on my hands, but my grandson is allergic to them and has a real problem so I am always on the lookout for something that helps him and I noticed that one of the "so called medications" was just ammonia. I have used it a few times for myself and recently put it on the sting spot when my husband was bitten by a wasp. For the first time EVER, he had no reaction to the sting. I suspect that it just neutralizes the venom, but I don't know.

Excessive bruising can sometimes be eliminated or reduced by increasing vitamin C in your diet. Does the situation get any better when you are gorging on tomatoes in summer? LOL Anyway, synthetic sources of vitimin C are very inexpensive so it might not hurt to try.

I am not one to fill my body with pills just to make sure I get enough of something. I much prefer to eat good food, so we use a lot of whole grains and fresh vegetables. My husband is a veggie lover and will eat anything I put on the table. I have friends whose husbands have to eat meat with every meal, but we have never been like that. That doesn't mean that we don't eat meat, but it is not unusual for us to have a meatless meal either.

Instead of taking vitamins, I watch for symptoms of deficiencies. Vitamin C seems to help bruising and helps you through an infection. If we have cramping muscles we think of both calcium and potassium, but in summer mostly potassium because of the fluid lost through perspiration. If you begin to crave ice, and want to eat it instead of just cool your drink with it, try increasing your iron intake, etc. We like to make corrections with food as much as possible, but will use vitamins and minerals if we seem to need more.

To both Jeanie and Carol:

Jeanie, the soap seems to draw out or stop the continuing action of the chigger bites so that, as a rule, they don't blister up and itch like crazy. They just pretty much go away, and that pleases me enormously. Try it. I'm fairly positive you'll be impressed with the result.

Carol, I know what you mean about the vitamins. I have to be particularly careful because I have dangerous imbalances. Potassium is the worst one. I have way too much of it, and my Dr checks the levels every 90 days to make sure it's staying somewhat under control. I can't even eat raisins or bananas!
Vitamin C is truly wonderful stuff. I know my diet stinks, even though I do try to eat fresh veggies and I rarely ever eat red meat. I just don't eat enough of anything to keep a normal person alive. Oh, well ., I've done it for years and I appear to still be here. I just wish I could take some potassium for the awful muscle cramping that hits me nearly every day, but it's positively forbidden. My poor Dr would have a fit if I suggested it, and I'm not willing to encourage kidney failure just to stop the cramps. What's the old saying? "Getting old ain't for sissies" ?? Truer words were never said.

ps: I'm an old follower of Adele Davis from way back when.

Pat

I take a one-a-day with iron, a V. C and an aspirin every day and have for years, well except I started purchasing the one-a-day with iron recently on advice from Dr.'s office, plus all the "old folks' diseases" pres.'s. Every AM, a handful of pills, and I REALLY hate that, but just trying to ward off strokes and heart disease. I'm not a big meat-eater, either. Love veggies and fruits!
Guess I had better get a jug of Ammonia and keep on hand. You know? I haven't seen a single mosquito this year, and that's a "good thing".....

Jeanie

I appear here only as part of a court ordered therapy to interact with " normal" people.

PHJ . . . . normal people??? who ever said that a bunch of gardeners are normal?
(Sorry about that. I couldn't resist.)

Jeanie, I got to thinking about what you said, and realized what I've been doing. Yes, it's true that I do tend to post questions when I already know the answer, or already know ONE possible answer. Maybe there are other answers better than mine. I'll never know unless I ask. I guess I do it because I want to see what other information might be out there, and to get a new discussion going. So it's true. I'm guilty. My bad. :-(

Pat

"I'm not really a career person. I'm a gardener, basically." -- George Harrison

Keith

We always used meat tenderizer for stings. Just make a paste with water.

I agree. I had a pediatrician explain it to me this way, light years ago. When it's a bite, and particularly that of something like a yellowjacket, the venom is protein soluble. Meat tenderizer is pure protein, and therefore it neutralizes the bite. It won't work for everything, but it certainly does work on a lot of them.
A paste made of baking soda and water is another old remedy, and I've even seen a Dr take a benadry capsule, break it open, and rub the powder directly on to a sting..
I had never found anything that would work on chigger bites until I found the soaps. And boy, had I tried a lot of different remedies. Some were commercial products and some were country remedies, like painting the bites with nail polish. None of them did much for me until I began using the soap and then the problem went away.
If you can just imagine, traveling through Kansas one year, we stopped at a nice grassy park area and threw down a blanket to take a nap in the shade, being totally unaware that the grass was infested with chiggers. Holy Toledo. The remainder of the trip was . . . . . interesting. Unique, you might say.

Pat

Re Jeanie's remark that she hates brussels sprouts and mustard. Did anyone happen to see the Nova program a while back where they answered the question of why some people can't stand broccoli and other brassicas as well as asparagus. I've said for years that there must be a genetic component. IF these foods tasted as good to everybody as they do to me than everybody would LOVE them. Turns out that's exactly what is going on. These foods all have a compound that is percieved as bitter by people ONLY if they have a gene that "reads" that compound. No gene=no bitterness. And since everyone gets two copies of each gene, one from each parent, there are three possibilities. No gene, one gene or two genes. The people who get a bitterness-tasting from both parents REALY hate these foods. I evidently don't have the gene and neither do my daughter and granddaughters. My daughter once said, "Behave or you won't get Brussels Sprouts for dinner," to her 6 yr old at a soccer match, much to the surprise of her sprout hating friend. But the girls all love them and are disappointed that Nana (me) can't grow them.

Re chiggers, I used to get them badly but it has been years since I've had more than one or two a summer. My son (whose Ohio wife gets covered if she comes during the summer) says it is because I eat so much garlic. Maybe. I also use a multi with high b complex which I have read helps. For DIL I sent her to the bathtub and dumped in a half cup or more of bleach. And washed her clothes on hot water.

Dorothy, The same is true of cilantro, and some people just CAN'T like it. They even have a website named I Hate Cilantro that has thousands of people signed up. I am one of many who hate it.

There are also people that can taste red dye and it has a strong bitter flavor. I always loved the strong cinnamon flavor of Red Hots candy, but couldn't stand the candy because of the bitter taste. Every one laughed at me because it wasn't bitter to them. When people started making Red Velvet Cake, I thought it was awful. One of my children had to do a school experiment and he brought home some things to test on his parents. He put a drop of red dye in my mouth and it was gross. I was ready to choke him and didn't know what he had given me.

About that same time I was having some serious stomach and intestinal problems and was really beginning to think I had something very serious like cancer. I became seriously ill one night. It was a hot summer night and my husband drove me home, but I was freezing, got in a bed with stacks of cover, was shaking so badly that my husband was begging me to go to the emergency room. I finally got in a VERY hot tub of water and after about 10 minutes, I stopped shaking and started to warm up, but I was still sick. That little evening was the turning point for me because the only thing I had consumed was a small cup of pink lemonade. I only had a small amount but didn't eat anything with it.

We seriously started watching all of the food labels from food that looked red, but sometimes I would not even think of checking something. I would usually have severe problems for 2-3 hours. I discovered that I was not alone and that it had become so serious for some, that a major University had a study going on it. Children seem especially suseptable to it.

So while I don't think I was allergic to the dye at a young age, the natural response of my body kept me from consuming much of it. But the allergy did come, and it hit with gusto. So it is easy for me to understand that some people just CAN'T like some things.

I love brussel sprouts with Greek salad dressing on them.

But, but, I LOVE broccoli, asparagus and spinach! I just hate the taste of Brussels sprouts, mustard and collards.........
Oh well, at least I have several remedies for bites and stings, now. While we are on the subject, do gnats bite? I get these really itchy little bumps when I work outside, and not a mosquito in sight. I'm so busy and sweaty that I don't notice the bumps until I've gone inside. I'm sure they are flying insects because most of the bumps are on exposed skin on the upper torso.

Jeanie

Jeanie, there actually is a biting gnat that we used to have in the Sacramento Valley. It was a seasonal thing, and used to drive people crazy. They'd get in your hair, and ears, and everywhere. When I had to work outside, which was almost daily, I used to tie on a kerchief that was sprayed with DEET to try to keep them off my head. After nearly 3 years of fighting the mosquitos (there was a t-shirt with a huge mosquito and the logo 'official Colusa Co, bird' on it) and the biting gnats, I became so sensitive to DEET that I can't use anything at all that contains even a tiny bit of it. It makes me instantly and horribly ill.
Maybe I can do some searching and find out what they actually are. I had wondered if they were around here this year, and had hoped they were not.

Pat

I like Brassicas as long as they are cooked. I like asparagus any way it can be served. I HATE HATE HATE cilantro. I can sometimes taste red dye but only if I'm concentrating. Black food color is gross. I'm especially sensitive to spicy foods. I can handle some heat but it gets to be too much very quickly. The type of heat seems to make a difference too. Wasabi/horseradish is easiest for me but curry and chiles are a big nono!

It is so interesting how different people taste things differently.

I've always found it strange that cilantro is such a nasty tasting food to some people, because it is wonderful tasting to me. But, I know it's a genetic thing. I never knew some people can taste red dye but I'm not surprised.
I come to this forum because I love the people and really miss OK. This forum is full of wonderful, kind, knowledgable people. It seems to have a certain mix I haven't found elsewhere. So, been though I don't live in OK currently, I frequent this forum and it makes me feel at home.

Hey, Tracy,
Drop in ANY time! We love to hear from you. There really ARE a lot of nice people on this forum. They make you feel like family......

Jeanie

If you think we act like family on here, then you must come to observe us at a Spring Fling. LOL

The Spring Fling is our Family Reunion!

Since I am fairly new to the Garden Forums, or any Forum, for that matter, this would have been my first year for the opportunity to attend, but it happened on the day that I had to attend a dear, elderly friend's funeral. Hopefully 2012 will be better. Dawna (Wolflover) highly recommends it. It will be good to put faces with names.
Jeanie

When in Mexico a Huesteco Indian friend of mine visited the lowlands and brought back a kind of legume called Hualpoy. It looks like a big round chick pea. He said that it is delicious but that about one in five people can't stand it because, to them, it tastes extremely bitter. His wife cooked up a pot and we all got a bowl. I tasted mine and found it to be delicious. Everyone thought it was delicious, except one of his sons. That son nearly fell out of his chair when he tasted his first spoonful. It taste BITTER to him!

George

Where and when is the Spring Fling? Chandra asked me why I wasn't there, and I wasn't a member when the last one took place. If it's close enough, I'd love to be there.

Pat

Pat, You may find this hard to believe, but most years we have the Spring Fling in the Spring. Bwah, hah, ha!!!

Last year it was at P-mac's acreage north of Lake Thunderbird the end of April.