Thanks Ruthie!! Yes, I am an old southern girl and I grew up with a mother who did lots of canning, but my job was to wash the veggies and once I was done with that, I scampered outside as fast as I could!!! LOL!!! I wish now I had payed more attention!!! But I intend to pay alot of attention here and know with ya'lls help, I will learn alot!!! I am so glad I listened to Ruthie and finally made my way over here!!!

I'm a ;quirky, homey style kitchen fan myself. At one time I might have been all about "tear it out and make it fresh and new" but now I am getting very sentimental in my old age and I like the older style. Still, it is nice to have some updates like counter space, etc. In my row house they put a tiny half bath in the kitchen and it went from being spacious to very small and also a little bit awkward. We call it the "one butt" kitchen and there is basically one usable space you can stand in and get any work done. I call it the "power position." I'm looking for a new house right now and I am bound and determined to get something with room for two butts! My friend and her SO came to visit/stay with me last month and she said, "Lpink, please in your next house get a bigger kitchen! You know you will love having that!" I also hate that my kitchen is separated from the dining room and living room by a narrow hallway with the stairwell for upstairs and the basement in it so no chance of it ever opening up. Fine for just me but I hate that too when I have company, I have to disappear into the kitchen and they are left alone. Thankfully now I have an SO who can entertain them! But I would be in 7th heaven if I had a closed off kitchen and then remodeled to open it up with a breakfast bar. That's another thing I have wanted for a long time, a breakfast counter/bar for casual snacks, etc. Or at the very least, something I could slide the food out onto from the kitchen into the eating area! I don't like folks having to come directly into my kitchen, they will find out how disorganized I am and what a messy cook I am and find all the scraped off burned bits, etc.! :) Anyway, I digress! Welcome to the forum Cindy! For sure you will find many kindred spirits here. Can't wait to hear more about the meals you make in your new kitchen and about your garden!

Welcome from the Shenandoah Valley of northwestern Virginia! So glad you have joined us. Your princess quilt is adorable. I recently did a princess quilt--they are a lot of fun.

Nina, In most parts of Oklahoma the summer weather, particularly the heat but the sunshine as well, is brutally hard on raspberries, especially in the hotter and drier years. They'll do best in afternoon shade, and you're going to be growing them in afternoon sun, which is even more challenging. First, to address the zone 7 issue. Many plants that are said to be hardy in zone 7 may be cold hardy in zone 7 in some parts of the country---but zone 7 is not the same everywhere. All that being in zone 7 tells you is what the range of your average minimum temperatures is----so zone 7 in Oregon could be quite different from zone 7 in Oklahoma or Texas or Long Island, NY. Even though all those diverse areas have minimum low temperatures in the same range (0-10 degrees Fahrenheit), they have different climates overall. The zone maps commonly used are only reliable as a reference for cold hardiness, not hot hardiness. So, keep that in mind when choosing plants. In our climate, the AHS Heat Zone Map is a more reliable indicator of whether a given type of plant can thrive here, but even it is based on the plants being kept in moist soil at all times, which is incredibly hard to do in our heat, particularly in containers. Even letting a plant get too dry once can make it underperform compared to its AHS Heat Zone rating. Blackberries are more commonly grown in Oklahoma because they tolerate our erratic weather better than raspberry plants do. Often, with raspberries, a little warm spell in winter or late spring causes them to break dormancy and leaf out, and then when we have a return to colder spring weather, the new foliage and canes can indeed suffer freeze damage. That may be what happened with your plants. Since the damage isn't spreading, that's my best guess about what happened. If it were spreading and if you are in an area that has received plentiful spring rainfall, I'd be thinking it might be a fungal disease. Since it seems more likely that it is cold damage, you have two choices: you can go ahead and prune off the damaged canes since it is likely the scorched leaves aren't conducting photosynthesis and therefore aren't helping the plant, or you can wait a couple of weeks and see if the old leaves fall off and are replaced by new ones. With regard to the soil-less mix being well-draining, that may be an issue as well. In Oklahoma, it can be really hard to keep containerized plants moist enough in July's and August's extreme heat. In our hottest, driest summers I have had to water tomato plants grown in 10-20 gallon containers up to 4 times a day to keep the soil evenly moist. It is hard to keep plants moist on summer days when the high temperature exceeds 100-110 degrees, especially if that weather goes on for many weeks. I find it easiest to keep them on a drip irrigation system with a timer, but you still have to adjust your timer as the summer weather can fluctuate from flooding rains to no rain at all for long periods. I'll link the OSU Fact Sheet on Growing Blackberries and Raspberries in Oklahoma for you, but be advised it mostly is about how to grow blackberries since growing raspberries in our state is not recommended by OSU. Some people do grow raspberries here but it takes an extraordinary amount of effort and attention to detail, as well as some luck and cooperation from the weather, and raspberry production tends to be lower than blackberry production. Dawn Growing Blackberries & Raspberries In Oklahoma