Dear All, thank you very much for your suggestions and tips for growing drought resistant/tolerant vegetables and varieties. I am busy in reading all your posts and simultaneously taking notes on the varieties to order. Its looks i not have all those varieties recommended expect couple of tomatoes. I am going to look at my seed stock filled in 3 big storage boxes before I place order. Jay, Thanks for your suggestion on NuMex chillies. I am going to order couple of varieties, by the way which is your best flavored chilly? I too often see that doughnut hole around our property in radar. I hope growing condition will turn better for this year. I love see my garden looks like jungle! Last year was really bad tomato year, but we have good harvest in the fall from fourth of july and sweet million. I will look for those new tomatoes you and Dwan suggested in seeds catalog and online. I am growing only dixondale this year but I love to hear back from you on your new and drought resistant onions. Thanks for all those points, I still feel a newbie when I read post here, so much to learn! I will keep experimenting with new varieties and note down good performer every year and tally those with climate, I guess may need many year to chose best for my garden... long way to go. Dawn, Wow that is awesome list to try! Growing less water drinking vegetable is to cut down water bill while not sacrificing yield. I also learned that water use efficient (less water drinking) vegetables and/or varieties have more flavor and taste and high nutrient that their counter parts which consume more water. This I also noticed last year with eggplants and chilli. Paula's Mild Jalapeno which was grown under less-frequent-watered-bed has stronger flavor than one that grown in bed which received more water. I try short DTMs and start as early as possible. This is already pushing to start my starts this weekend. I need go thorough each and every variety your suggested. By the way, I have not much success with broccoli and cabbage in the last years. But I am trying again this year with some row cover to check my luck. I will check Willhite and SESE. Yep that is true, most herbs did pretty well last year. Fowler Bush Bean sounds good. Dawn, you are right, I almost forgotten about the wind and hail tolerant variates, you know how much garden trashed by wind and hail last year. Carol and Dorothy, Thank you, I am envy on your rainfall pattern. Even thought you may not be growing drought tolerant varieties, but you always very nice trips and tricks to deal with problems. Dorothy, I am glad to know new salad mix of violets, burnet and swisschard. Carol,I know guys love eggplants, I bought few new types of eggplants from India, please let me know if you want some seeds or I will grow few extra plants for you and share with you later. All these are Indian types (drought resistant), but not sure how they will do here in OK. George, I will try you Fowler Bush Bean as well as Woody Mountain Crazy Bean. How is their flavor of these beans in comparison to blue lake? Yes yard long are must to grow, we had great harvest last year with out much care or watering. Any good recommendation on yard long bean with respect to flavor and production? I glad to know you are belong to SSE We love yard long beans, Priya makes curry and subji with very tender long beans and they also great for still fry. By the way, is there any difference between yard long and asparagus been? By the we not have any problem with large animals but bugs, the only two bugs I am afraid of with are squash bugs and borers. Seedmama, Thanks for offer, if you have extra, I love to have some. Hmm Bean called "Tepary"? you know the meaning my village local slang for "Rough and Tough" Lets grow that one as well. Thanks again for all these wonderful suggestion tips. Cheers -Chandra

Susan, Some drooping of tomatoes is normal in this excessive heat and the varieties that have the wilty gene will wilt even more than normal tomatoes which do not have the mutated gene or genes. When I see droopy tomatoes I check the soil by sticking my finger into it, and if the soil is dry, I water right then. With all plants, there is a certain wilt point that they reach where they've gone from being stressed to being practically dead, and if they are allowed to wilt beyond that point, they do not recover. When I talk about keeping tomato plants slightly dry to keep them producing better and to keep the fruits' flavor from being watered down, I always try to phrase it carefully so I make it clear I let them "almost wilt". I try to keep that "almost wilting" stage from going to the "wilting" stage since there's a wilt point of no return. I cannot really describe how you know when looking at a tomato plant that it is at that 'wilt point' of no return, but I know it when I see it. I hope your Rutgers is the determinate one and not the indeterminate one. Sometimes they're not labeled correctly and the labels can be confusing. In my garden, the indeterminate one, Rutgers Select (which is the original Rutgers introduced in the 1920s) gets 6-8' tall and Rutgers VFA which is the determinate (or semi-indeterminate) one gets about 5' tall. Both are heavy producers. Stacey, The Tumbling Toms are in 16" hanging baskets and their roots already completely fill the baskets. It kind of makes me wish I'd gone with 20 to 24" hanging baskets. Even with just the 16" basket, the plants are very heavy and it takes a strong support to hold them. I wasn't sure if I would have anything strong enough to support a larger basket. They are great producers and early producers. Today I harvested 3 or 4 dozen Tumbling Tom yellow fruit and about 8 Tumbling Tom Red. I did notice when raising them from seed that the yellow ones were much more vigorous growers, even as seedlings, than the red ones, and that has remained true in terms of productivity. I don't know if the reds will catch up with the yellows or if the yellows are just genetically stronger. Dawn

Carol after I was able to look everything over in the daylight most of it looks ok. Lost one bean plant of a variety I only had 4 plants of. I was hoping to increase the seeds of it. The one variety I only have one plant of survived. Really I was fortunate with the hail and wind. The highest clocked gust in the storm last night was 30 mph. Tuesday night the highest gust was close to 60 mph. Last night 6 miles south of me a site clocked a gust at 80 mph. Again part of the same storm my moisture came out of. This morning I did a line locate 17 miles SW of Elkhart where the wind and rain combination snapped off 6 power poles in a row. We have a gas transmission line close to one of the poles so had to locate it so they would hit a gas geyser while setting a new pole. And this afternoon I traveled through an area 20 miles plus SW that was wiped out with golf ball sized hail again part of the same system. After hearing and seeing the damage that occurred elsewhere from that same system I'm very thankful and grateful for the moisture and the lack of severe damage. You could tell by looking when the cloud was headed this way and then the cold air coming off it that hail was in it. It seems the hail damage seemed to be heaviest on the north side of the system and the wind the highest on the south side. I'm not sure why. The middle of the system basically hit us. We received another tenth today. Have chances over the next 5-6 days of receiving more. I hope more comes. The good thing is a lot of area that was in severe drought status received some very beneficial rains. I saw an area this evening that received what I did last night and had another large one this evening. The highway was covered with water and the fields are rivers. It is hard to believe that just two weeks ago I was line locating in that area and it was bone dry. Carol I'll try to take your quota for a while. I can still use more. My garden will be in great shape as I have kept it deep watered well most of the summer. The other areas can sure use more. We need to build our subsoil moisture back up. Scott I have finished the pecans I purchased from you. My doctor said I should eat lots of nuts along with the other things I've been eating. They were so good I snacked on them till they were all gone. Tried buying some out of the store a few weeks ago and after eating yours they are like eating a store bought tomato. Would like to buy some more if possible this fall/winter. Jay

Hi folks...thanks so much for the continued support and feedback. I must tell you, my dear wife who is not in to gardening at all like I am basically convinced me not to give in just yet. There is yet another option of which I do not look forward to which involves clearing trees and constructing greenhouses....I just don't know where I'm going to find the energy for all that (lol). gardenman, yes I have always pretty much used oak leaves for mulch. I've not had any of the ingredients tested but I am near 100% certain that the Black Kow is free of herbicide. A few of my container plants which had Black Kow mixed in were inside my little greenhouse for around 3 weeks and they were fine but when I placed them outside it only took about four or five days to exhibit the leaf distortions. However it plays out this spring, I'm not going to pull any plants. I planned on letting things continue so that I can see the end results. And there are some positives going on. The plants continue to grow and set fruit at an excellent rate with some plants approaching 4 feet tall. And don't hold me to this, but I must confess that it does appear that some new foliage has developed without the distortions. Fingers crossed.... Jay