GGG ~ Glad to hear you are getting some much needed rain. Chilly and wet weather though are miserable. Have missed you Glynnis. How are things going with your house? Diana ~ We like our mild winters but really wouldn't mind more days of temps in the 50's or so. Having maybe 5 at the most is not enough. :-) Last night we were talking about how we really wouldn't want to move somewhere where it gets really cold, we've lived in these tropical climes way too long. The humidity is AWFUL down here, and we wish we didn't have so much of it. It makes you feel sick during the summer months. Not as bad now. ~ I bet you looked sweet with your pony tail and escaping curls. ~ Your weather sounds cold. I was sorry to hear about yet more fires in CA and sorry for those who lost everything. I hope you all get some rain out there soon. Yesterday morning and after lunch I wore myself out laying 'found' shingles as flooring in my potting area. Even though it is NOT a perfect job, I like how it turned out. I used up the stack of shingles. I'm getting ready to plant seeds and to make cuttings from roses and other plants around the property. I was sweating as it was around 85 and the humidity was up there, so I sat and took breaks and drank water. That's it from Plum Cottage for now. FlowerLady

Lee, You're welcome. When you used the word 'panic', I wondered if I should be panicking too. I'm glad to hear the answer is no. : ) It is a great relief that the Euro is backing off a bit on the freezing temperatures. Let's hope that the chances of frost start dropping too. I hope you have a great visit with your parents, and I hope the weather behaves itself so y'all can have a good time together without having to run for shelter. I can handle frost. Freezes worry me, even with row cover, but mostly because all the trees, shrubs, perennials, etc. are emerged and leafed out and I cannot cover the whole yard. My hollies (old and well-established) suffered massive damage when we went to 28 degrees, and normally that wouldn't happen. However, we'd been having a lot of days in the mid-80s or warmer, and nights in the 50s-60s, and the hollies had lots of new growth that wasn't conditioned to sub-freezing temperatures. On the other hand, Johnson Grass growing outside my garden fence and attempting to creep into the garden froze back to the ground. Of course it isn't dead, but at least it has been set back for a while. For future reference, to find row cover and frost blanket fabric in large enough sizes to cover anything you can envision, you can visit the website of Agricultural Solutions. That's where I find my frost blanket. I bought it in 12' widths, but they have it available in many widths---some of which are so huge that they clearly are aimed at commercial farms. Most places have it in only more narrow widths. I like the 12' width because you can cover a row of fairly tall (well, fairly tall for early in the season) plants with it. If you buy a roll they have it folded in half on the roll, which helps keep the shipping charges lower since it is a box a little over 6' long instead of 12' long. The very first row cover fabric I bought around a decade ago was 6' wide which sounds good, but really isn't. I was using it on 4' wide beds, so I couldn't cover a whole bed with it once the plants were any taller than 11-12". I've discovered that with row cover, wider is better, particularly since I grow in raised beds that are mostly 4' wide and often I have some plants that are knee-high to waist-high by the time the last threat of frost has passed in the first week of May. If the strong storms the next few days don't pound our plants into the ground or carry them away with the wind, we all might get to begin the month of May with gardens that are in pretty good shape. I like the idea of cooler temperatures. The longer we stay cool in Spring, the better the cool-season crops will produce, and the better the fruit set on the tomato plants. I did look at my Accuweather forecast the last couple of days since it goes out farther than the NWS forecast on the Norman webpage and farther than our local TV forecast, and it showed my lowest low next week of 43. Today that's been raised to 45. I'm starting to feel a lot better about next week's weather, but that doesn't mean I will become complacent and stop watching the forecast. I'll be watching it like a hawk. Dawn Here is a link that might be useful: One Source for Large Sizes of Row Cover This post was edited by okiedawn on Wed, Apr 23, 14 at 12:09

We darn near blew away. My new trees got uprooted and hanging baskets blew away. My lawn furniture was all over the yard and some even in the lake. I'll finish cleaning up tomorrow. Glad I had my hot tub cover snapped down and I had a tarp over it with shovels & junk on it from working on todays projects. We got a ton of rain. It rained so hard I could not see across the lake. The storm came in so fast. I was out front grabbing the mail and a huge lightning hit somewhere nearby, the hair on my arms stood up and I felt a "ripple feeling" across my skin and hightailed it to the house just as the electric went off for a couple hours. The puppies hung out with me in the powder room (in the center of the house)till the storm finally settled down. I had a bunch of pillows, a candle. 2 flashlights, cellphone, a book & reading glasses, a cherry coke for me and 2 rawhides for the puppies. We were in good shape!

Ive been fighting thrips on my blueberry bushes for 3 years now in South Houston. They reck shop on new growth late in the fall season and thats the growth that produces your flower buds for spring fruit. Ive been using spinosad for 3 years and try not to spray untill after harvest. They seem to peek in Aug and Sept in my area. Ive done alittle research on them and kaolin clay (surround) is suppost to be pretty effective on thrips plus it helps plants deal with heat which is a bonus in my area. I ordered some surround this spring and will start using it after harvest this year. Hopefully I wont have to spray spinosad anymore. I did notice after spraying spinosad it would knock them back for a couple weeks then seemed like they came back even stronger. It does kill beneficials as well. Dont believe every thing you read on those labels. The lady bugs and lace wings were no where to be found after spraying for months! Dont use it unless you have too. I believe it does more harm than good. A healthy population of lace wings and lady bugs I think can possibably keep there numbers in check but Im afraid they are here to stay. The only plants I dont see alot of damage on here from thrips are rabbiteye blueberries, okra and tomatoes. They do hit the rabbiteyes but not very much at all. Bellpepper, black berry, strawberry, Southern High Bush Blueberry all get attacked in a bad way.