Jeanie, I know the red clay pot look well (unfortunately). Our little weekly newspaper arrived and here's what they are showing for rainfall from our local co-op weather observer: Precip Total For March So Far: 0.26" Ave. Precip for March: 3.31" Precip Total for 2011 So Far: 2.25" Ave. Rainfall Thru End of March: 6.91" As y'all can see, we have a little bit of a rain deficit occurring. Paula, I'm not surprised at the survey results. I feel the same way. It is sort of playing the odds. Even if we have hail or tornadoes, what are the odds they'll hit any given person's property? Fairly small. If we have widespread drought, it hits everyone. If we have wind-driven, uncontrolled wildfires, they too hit everyone in their pathway. Why not take a chance on rain/hail/tornadoes instead, knowing the odds might be more in your favor when it comes to avoiding "trouble". Poor western OK where the drought is already "Extreme". Their wheat crop isn't going to produce (I'm not even sure if it sprouted) and what in the world will they feed the livestock? The agricultural producers in SW OK are being slammed by Extreme Drought in spring which, if they're like SC OK, is usually their best season for good rainfall. I am trying to decide what to put in the ground, what to put in containers, and what to give up on before I even start. It is hard to decide. I know from previous experience that there is no way I can water enough to keep the whole garden in production in a droughty summer, especially if the drought begins in spring and we're already very dry before the traditional summer dry season starts. I think it likely I'm going to push pretty hard to have most all of the garden planted by the end of March, unless I see something in the forecast that stops me. That will give my garden April and May to produce and possibly all of June if water rationing doesn't kick in or something. By July, I doubt I could keep watering enough to make a difference and watering at that point just doesn't seem to do enough good. I am formulating my drought strategy now, and will post a thread about it sometime this weekend, but know for sure it will involve planting peppers in containers with water-retaining granules because I gotta have my peppers! Tomatoes probably will get closer than usual spacing because with limited moisture, they won't get as big as usual. I know how to adapt for drought, but just need to think about the steps I'll take and in what order I'll do them. I probably would have started fewer tomatoes or maybe not even have started the second round if I'd realized earlier that drought looms large on the horizon. Paula, I may have more to give away instead of less because I may put fewer in the ground. : ) If I plant in the ground too early and all mine freeze, on the other hand, I might have to use my back-ups for myself and wouldn't have as many to bring to the fling. Life is so complicated when the weather doesn't cooperate. Lisa, I am not ashamed to say that last summer I openly wished for a "strong tropical storm" or a "weak hurricane" to hit the Texas coast and send a big plume of moisture towards OK. I couldn't help myself. We were so hot and dry, and the Rio Grande Valley area of Texas already had flooded repeatedly....so I wasn't really wishing it on them, but figured they were already getting hit anyway. Sure enough, in early September we had residual moisture reach us from the Texas Gulf Coast/Mexican border area and we had 9" of rain that month, so it worked for us! At least maybe this year your peonies won't get slammed by rain and hail. We can always find something about a drought to appreciate (no mud!) but I'd still rather not have drought. As irritating as drought is to all of us gardeners, think about what it does to the farmers, ranchers and orchardists. It can deeply affect their livelihood. It is incredible the way our weather swings back and forth like a pendulum from drought to flood and back to drought again. That's one of the worst things to think about---how drought usually ends with flooding. The old saying "It takes a flood to end a drought" has proven true in our years here in Oklahoma. Dawn

Yes, it will take quite a bit of time and multiple rainfall events for deeper soil moisture to recover. One good event will probably bring the shallow rooted stuff like grass back to life, but the trees are going to need more than that. I'm really hoping for something this weekend here in central OK. I don't even care if it comes with hail at this point, as long as it's wet. Unfortunately current guidance seems to suggest that storms might form right over us and move east, which is bad news from a rain standpoint. For storm chasing, on the other hand... ;)

I was really hoping the D-4 category would be some other part of SW OK, but we got less than a tenth of an inch from those storms last week so I'm not surprised it's here. I'm barely over the line into D-4, so I guess it could be worse. Grandfield hasn't had a tenth of an inch of rain in 167 days! Leslie

Gamebird, That's a lot of rain. You're so lucky! Of course, it is not the best timing for your melons, but there's really nothing you can do about that. We had 0.7" overnight, which wasn't much but is, of course, better than nothing. I hope the melons are OK. Maybe they weren't close enough to ripening to burst, but then again, 3.5" is an awful lot of rain. Dawn