In Lincoln County we sure can't match your activity, but who can? One question, though, do you think the same phoebe returns to the nest under our porch roof, or one of last years babies?

I've tried knocking the one nest of pillars out of one of the sand plums with hose spray twice so far, but they keep coming back. Guess I've got to spray.

Had to cover new plantings in two of the smaller beds with chicken wire yesterday but the deer may still find a way....

In Pottawatomie county, I'm pretty much all in. May be a little early for peppers, squash, zucchini and cucumbers, but what can I say? After seeing volunteer okra and squash, I decided to go with it. I'm a little concerned about the peppers stunting, but the rest can be replanted if needed.

Doing two separate bioassays on manure and compost. One is manure from a new source. The other is from some onsite compost I had problems with last year. Waiting on the results to decide which way to go.

I'm scaling way back this year on the main garden and only planting about half of it. Rows have been shortened to allow equipment access. The plan is to layer rotted hay, compost or whatever I can come up with and then apply a decent layer of wood chips. I have about 1800 sq ft, I'd like to get up to a foot of material piled on. Not sure if I can come up with the over 60 cubic yards it would take to do that, but I'll do what I can.

Once it dries out enough to get a trailer out there, I have a chance to get several cubic yards of red cedar shavings. I may try mulching squash and zucchini with it and see if it has any affect on pests. The rest will be composted.

My watering system is undergoing one last, I hope, design change. I'm tired of having to revamp and adapt, each year. Plus the added expense!

Yes, right now it looks like I won't have to water ever again, but I know it's coming!

The yard, well let's just say if it ever dries out enough, I'm going to have massive amounts of green to add to the composting effort!

I'm looking into rolling some EMT to use for some larger row hoops to been able to use over my squash and zucchini. Also trying to find some netting in wide enough widths to cover. Hopefully the budget will allow for that one.

I'm open to suggestions on a netting source.

The larger hoops along with shade cloth can be used over bell peppers and tomatoes during the hottest part of the summer.

Well, you know, I am so much further south that my weather is more like the weather in Dallas-Fort Worth than the weather in central OK if that is any consolation. In a year like this when we got hot so ridiculously early, I can get away with things like planting corn and beans early, but it is a two-edged sword, because in 2011 we were hitting temperatures high enough to impede tomato fruitset in early to mid-May. I can live without that kind of early heat. And, ironically, my soil temperatures and air temperatures now are substantially lower than they were in early April so maybe I should have waited----but I didn't, and the result will be early beans and early corn. I have kept a pile of floating row cover piled up right beside the barn's walk-in door so I can grab it and take it to the garden if cold weather threatens, but so far, so good. It is rare we don't have a late freeze in late April or early May, so I don't let down my cold-weather watchfulness until after the first week in May has ended.

I do think it must be the same phoebe or one of her babies because they do keep coming back to the same spot. The one on the porch is raising her babies in a nest right above the porch where the dogs come in and out from the fenced dog yard. One advantage is that no cats go near that area since it is a dog yard, so maybe she is one smart phoebe. With the barn/garage door, it is a east-facing sliding barn door installed when the building was built so we could bring the riding mower out through that door when cars were parked in the three parking bays. Then, above the barn door is a cover that covers a patio area (which can be quickly converted to a carport by sliding the furniture into the corner if hail starts falling), so it is well sheltered. No cats hang out there very much because it is a patio half the time and a carport the other half and they don't like it when we move the furniture around and pull a car into that spot. That phoebe and her nestlings must be used to us coming and going a lot there because there's a walk-in door on that wall right beside the sliding barn door for the riding mower. No phoebes nest on the front porch which is where the cats tend to hang out a lot.

I don't mind the phoebes. Being so rural, we have all kinds of birds from hummingbirds to painted buntings to roadrunners....and even kites, hawks and vultures, plus an occasional sighting of golden or bald eagles. I love the birds as long as they aren't pecking tomatoes.

Deer are a whole different story. Woodland comes close enough to my garden that you can barely walk between the edge of the woodland and the north garden fence, so without a fence, the deer could step out of the woods and be in my garden by taking 3 or 4 quick steps. Without a high fence, I wouldn't have a garden.

In our early years, I spent too much time and effort trying to grow lovely ornamental landscaping plants that deer wouldn't eat up around the house, only to learn that if it is hot enough and dry enough, they'll eat anything. So, now I just have evergreen shrubs and groundcover up around the house, and all the pretty ornamentals are in the fenced veggie garden where the deer can't eat them.

I managed to work outside this morning for 45 minutes before the rain came. I hate to complain about the rain, but I'm starting to grow webbed feet down here and all the plants in my garden need to learn how to swim or float or something.

Sill not finished planting here. I have roughly 100 pepper plants still waiting. I still haven't planted my squash, cantaloupe, more okra.

Still raining about every other day so I mow on the off days.

this shoulder has really put a damper on what I need to be doing instead on what I feel like doing.

Is anyone else, other than me, interested in seeing OkieDawn's webbed feet?

well its been raining here in Tulsa about every other day so getting out to do anything has been a chore. I need to mow tonight if I can. Out in the garden I have planted the tomatoes and peppers. Got corn up and the onions seem a bit stalled. Its been pretty cool too. Sowed cukes, cantaloupe and sugar baby melon. Grape vines are doing well and if I can get them netted I should hopefully have some grapes!. Blackberries and raspberries are growing well but not a whole lot of flowers. I need to get better at pruning and supporting them.

I added 2 more trees to my orchard. Western Pride nectarine and a Red Haven peach. My fig that froze is sending up new growth from the roots so thats cool!

Cannas and Musa Basjoo are all growing well and the Crape myrtles are doing well too.

I still have a couple roses to plant, Citrus to re-pot. some zinnia and sunflower seeds to sow. Gladiolus to plant(hope its not too late) Oh and Im daily checking in at lowes for their stuff to go on discount. The store by my house is the only to discount fruit trees right now but soon they all will and I may pick up a cherry tree or 2 if they do.

Plans this summer include expanding the veggie garden because the orchard is slowly taken it over. Build a new greenhouse. Most likely 10x20. Pick up and spread about 10 truck loads of mulch. AlsoI have about 80' of chainlink fence along the south back yard that backs up to a greenbelt. I want to create some new beds along it and plant some bigger evergreen shrubs and stuff to block the view of the people on the other side of the greenbelt and to also make a bit of a wind break. Oh and I have to build a fence around the pool to get my 2 year old and the nieces and nephews from taking an unintentional swim.

took this just the other day. Prior to planting the 2 new trees.

mike

Mike, are your trees all on dwarf rootstock. They are looking good. I have dwarf trees waiting to be put in the ground but hate to do it when it is this wet.

Thanks Sooner

I want to say yes because the tags do say semi dwarf. Most all came from lowes homedepot by way of Berry Family Nursery. Ill be pruning them all to be no taller than about 7' the ones in this picture were all planted last spring. I did a hard winter prune to bring them back down a little. Next year I hope to get some production on them if the weather lets them. So far I have 4 peach, 1 nectarine, 3 plum and 3 apple. In the future i want to get 1 or 2 more apple, a couple cherry and maybe some more interesting things like pluots.

Why am I always behind? My garlic is 3 feet tall. It is gorgeous. The onions... I don't know. I had to improve drainage in that bed, and they are better now than they were, but they could be bigger. I have too many tomato plants, still in solo cups. The herb garden looks pretty good. Something ate the special kale plant I have been babying...it was tiny and there is no sign of it. Maybe the hail got it. Something is eating brassica. The potatoes I planted (late) in straw bales have poked green leaves above the straw. Overwintered spinach is bolting also the kale. Will kale and collards cross? They are both blooming and the bees love them. How long will I have to wait for seeds to ripen? I need the space! My daughter says she is having dirt delivered for my birthday, but DH has been in the hospital, so the beds aren't built. I am scaling back my plans a little. Time to get real, ha.

The plants at home are beautiful, Fennel, bee balm, lemon balm, irises, daylilies are huge and fragrant. The volunteers are just getting a good start like marigolds, hyacinth bean vine, and zinnias. The only things I planted this year at home are peas and onions. A few brassicas which did not do well. the garden in town is coming along really nice and we have 20 tomatoes in so far. 70 plus potato plants. I have a baby morning dove that will not leave the yard again. She must have gotten blown out of the nest Sunday. The birds are really enjoying the tall grass back there.

okoutdoorsman, I felt the same way when squash and muskmelons started sprouting near the compost pile----why wait any longer if the conditions were warm enough for them to sprout on their own?

The best netting I know of is very costly. If it was less expensive, I'd already have bought a big roll of it. As it is, I just cannot justify spending the kind of money it would take to buy a roll to use to cover the garden. It is called ProTeknet. I suppose spending that kind of money might make sense for a commercial grower whose income depends on getting a good harvest, but it is sort of pricey for a home gardener. Having said that, if Santa Claus brought me a roll of it for Christmas and left it sitting under the tree with a big red bow on it, I'd be thrilled.

I'll link it below. Look at how small the netting holes are! You could keep out almost everything. I wonder what size hailstone it would tolerate?

Other than that, I've seen some less expensive netting in smaller lengths and widths at Territorial Seed Company, both in their catalog and on their website.

I've toyed with the idea of hunting down some decent quality mosquito netting and trying it over plants but haven't done it yet.

Some people use tulle over low tunnels to exclude pests like cabbage white moths and squash vine borers, although you do have to lift the tulle to hand-pollinate the squash flowers. I don't know if tulle, available by the bolt online for pretty good prices or at places that sell hobby and sewing items, is strong enough for our ever-present wind and wild weather.

I'm sitting here watching The Weather Channel where Hwy 27 in west Texas has 6" of hail on it. It looked like lumpy snow. Some parts of Texas have had hail up to the size of tea cups. I hope they keep all that yucky stuff there. I don't even know if my DeWitt Ultimate Supreme thermal blanket row cover stuff would stop hail that size.

Proteknet at JSS

Busy1, Most of my pepper plants still are in the greenhouse. I've been trying to keep them outside in the sun as much as possible, but moved them back indoors today with the threat of hail in our forecast. I only have a few Mucho Nacho pepper plants in the ground...and, oh, about 100 volunteer ornamental peppers that popped up in the asparagus bed where I've never grown ornamental pepper plants. I'm wondering if a squirrel buried some dried ornamental peppers in that bed in the fall.

We caught up on the mowing yesterday, but the grass was still really wet and the mower clogged up a few times. Still, Tim brought me a lot of grass clippings and I used them to add more mulch to the garden pathways. Then, while mowing the grass near the edge of woods, Tim hit something and got a flat tire. Apparently it wasn't fun for him to push the riding mower uphill to the barn after that. So, a tire repair will be needed before we can mow again. That's okay. With three days of rain in the forecast, we weren't going to get to mow again this week anyway.

Cochise, I don't think y'all want to see those webbed feet. I do have some really cute rain boots that are yellow and are covered with little chickens. They're just about too cute to wear outside in our nasty clay mud. I've mostly been working in black, thick-soled, steel-toed work boots. They won't win any fashion prizes, but I'm hope they keep my feet from turning into duck feet.

Mike, You've been really busy and your trees look terrific. You must have a pretty good sized yard to have room for an orchard, garden, greenhouse and a pool for the kids. I loved having a pool when our son and nieces and nephews were kids, but don't miss it now at this house. Pool maintenance gets old after a few years and you know I'd rather be in the garden.

Amy, This year it would be the late snow and the constant rain and perpetual threat of severe weather that you'd blame for being behind. This is the first year in ages that I feel like I am ahead. Usually I am behind and struggling to catch up all throughout April and May.

Kale and collards are both Brassica olaracea and will cross (as will broccoli, brussels sprouts, kohlrabi, cabbage but not Siberian kale, which is B. napus). I don't know how long the seeds will take to dry and be ready. George probably could tell you that.

I hope that your DH is okay and is recovering well. Hospitals are no fun.

Getting real is not what I do best in the garden. Pretending everything is fine and that my unreal plans all will work out is what I do best. I always have enough seeds and plants for 4 gardens because I always think I'll find a way to squeeze them in.

Kim, It sounds so nice at home with everything doing so well. I was just digging up fennel and bronze fennel volunteers this morning to take to the Spring Fling and an impatient Swallowtail was flitting around the larger fennel and dill plants waiting for me to just go away. I hope your little baby dove is okay. I love hearing the mourning doves cooing. It reminds me of being a child and spending a week every summer with my grandparents on their ranch and, later on, at their place in a little country town. Now I get to hear mourning doves every day and I love it. I feed them cracked corn every day to ensure they stick around.

I hope all the crazy weather (especially that hail) out there today and tonight has totally missed your place(s).

I think I forgot to tell y'all that the snap peas starting to bloom about the same times as the snap beans. I think the peas were embarassed that the beans were getting ahead of them. The hollyhocks are huge thanks to all the rainfall and are getting ready to bloom. I worked very hard out in the garden today trying to do all the work I could before the bad weather arrived and then the morning thunderstorms missed us by staying slightly to our north and the afternoon thunderstorms didn't happen. We still have bad weather in the forecast for overnight, but it won't hurt my feelings any if it misses us. We don't need rain. Oh, and the tall verbena (Verbena bonariensis) has buds and will bloom probably about Friday or Saturday. It is early, but that's kind of typical of this year.

Dawn

What's happening in my yard? Raindrops keep falling on my wet ground.

The potatoes and onions look pretty good and part of my peas are about a foot high. Two tomato plants looked sick for a day, but have new growth so I guess they are going to make it. Lower branches are yellow though, so I think they came close to giving up. I still have more to plant, but will probably just wait until next week.

I have a Clematis, bleeding heart, and columbine in bloom, but not much else. I bought a few bedding plants but don't have them in the ground yet. The peppers were not growing much so I put them back under lights and they are doing better. Guess they will be planted in May instead of April. I still have lots of work to do. It has not been a normal planting year for me.

Report from NE rural Norman -all doing well. Tomatoes that were planted late March have BLOOMS! Carrots germinated well. Peppers doing well too as is the crab-grass in that raised bed. But all of these are under frost cover tunnels. Onions - not so much but that's due to "planter error". The wild-plum thicket is showing signs of a good harvest, although not the best it's seen. Potatoes are doing great. Saw hummers a week ago and got the feeders out...seen several since. Also had to remove some new nests for other birds under the back patio cover ...they were just being built too close to bad areas...Momma birds let us know their "dislike"!

My garden? Mud. Mostly mud.

I love reading all these reports. It helps so much to see what everyone is experiencing. Oklahoma is such a diverse state and no too gardens are the same.

Stockergal, Last year at this time, we'd had maybe 5" of rain for the whole year to date. By the end of May we'd had less than 7" and in early June we went into Extreme Drought and were very close to Exceptional Drought. Then, miraculously, rain started falling and it hasn't stopped. This year is an entirely different year. We'd had about 12" of rain year-to-date before I went to sleep last night, and it rained overnight so undoubtedly there will be more rain in the rain gauge this morning. Our rainfall already was above average so now it will be even more above average. I can tell you that the garden this year is so much happier than it was last year, and so am I. However, despite months of nearly constant and very consistent rainfall, the U. S. Drought Monitor still classifies us as "Abnormally Dry", which I guess just shows how long it can take to recover from Extreme Drought. It does make me laugh when I stomp around in the mud and never-ending puddles in my boots and think about that "Abnormally Dry" classification. However, I do know the difference between abnormally dry soil over the long-term and the temporary blessing (albeit a mixed blessing) of having mud and puddles. They can co-exist, even though it seems odd that they do.

Carol, Yellow leaves indicate stress (as we all know so well). Ha, ha, ha. I wonder why all our tomato plants don't have yellow leaves all the time. Growing here certainly is stressful. I'm glad your plants appear to have overcome whatever was stressing them, and I am betting it is all that excess water.

Paula, It sounds like your garden is off to such a marvelous start! I can't wait to see you and your family and your garden this weekend. I hate that the birds have chosen that method of expressing their displeasure when we humans come close to one of our own human-designated areas that they've chosen to occupy. I would have moved those improperly placed nests too. The birds that make me crazy are the blue jays. They come voluntarily, on their own, and sit on my garden fence and then dive bomb at me and the cats. Really? I think the garden, the cats and I all were there first. I try to placate the blue jays by giving them a handful of peanuts in the shell far, far away from the garden. That works to some extent, except that then the squirrels and blue jays go to war over the peanuts. At least the jays aren't in the garden swooping down and trying to peck our heads to drive us away from their garden though.

It looks like a rainy, dreary day is in store for us here today. I think I might go shopping just to get out for a few hours. I hate being stuck inside on dreary days.

Dawn

Yeah. We were just downgraded (or is it upgraded?) to severe drought from moderate drought. That ain't the case in my garden. Not at all. But when I hear Lisa crying for rain, I guess that'd be why. I'll count my blessing and cuss when i cannot grab the weeds to pull them because it's too wet.

I suppose it is an upgrade but that's just a guess....since the situation is progressing in a to a higher level. I hate to hear y'all have progressed to severe. That is not a good sign, particularly in what is normally the wet season.

With gardeners, we tend to think of the upper few inches of the soil where we are trying to work the soil, weed, plant, etc. Drought monitoring involves moisture at deeper levels. That's why we gardeners can feel like our gardens are incredibly muddy while the U. S. Drought Monitor shows we are abnormally dry or in one of the drought stages. Your soil type matters too. Our mesonet station has a very different type of soil than what we have, so I have to take those soil moisture measurements with a grain of salt because mine are likely very different from theirs.

I tried going shopping and it wasn't fun. I wasn't in the mood to shop for clothes or shoes or anything. It was foggy and misty and icky and chilly so shopping for plants outdoors (I didn't buy any) wasn't fun either. We went to the feed store and bought hen scratch and some sunflower seeds for the cardinals and then stopped at the gas station and at Wal-Mart where we picked up some items to repair the lawnmower's flat tire. That is the extent of our exciting shopping trip. When I cannot be outside working in the lawn and garden in spring, it drives me crazy---but not crazy enough to be out there in the mud and puddles and today's weather. It feels like March today. Maybe that is to make up for some of those March or early April days when it felt like late May.

hey dawn. We have just under an acre. The pool is very nice especially after a hot day mowing. Kids love it too but you are right about the maintenance.

Just spotted a couple of bell peppers! I think this is the earliest I have had them set fruit...

Mike, An acre is a nice size. We have 14.4. We wanted about 5, but no one was selling nice land in that small of an amount at the time we were looking. Everything was mostly big farms and ranches that they didn't want to subdivide. So, 14 acres it is. Most of it is wooded. Otherwise, we'd be insane from attempting to keep up on the mowing.

Pool maintenance can take all the fun out of having a pool. In Fort Worth, we thought we'd get smart and hire a pool service. They assured us they would not kill the landscaping around our pool when they treated the water. They promised. They lied. They killed plants every week. After each incident, we'd call them and they'd apologize profusely and swear it wouldn't happen again. After 4 weeks of seeing new plant deaths every week, we cancelled the pool service and did all the upkeep ourselves. Our plants lived.

When we moved here, our son was in his mid-teens and we thought about putting in a pool, but didn't. He was old enough that he could go to the lake or to the local swimming hole on the river with his friends. We don't miss having a pool now, but when he was younger and we had one, it was a great place for all of us and our friends to gather. We had fun making a million memories in and around the pool....cookouts, pool parties, neighborhood friends coming over to swim in the afternoons.....just a simple, relaxing time. I hope you and your family enjoy yours as much as we used to enjoy ours.

Dawn

A bell pepper already? Oh man, I'm jealous. I've had so much trouble getting those started. I'm definitely buying some as soon as the weather heats up.

okoutdrsman, my peppers are still in cups and inside under lights. Our latest nights have been 42-45 degrees. I had the peppers out for a few days but when it started getting cool again, I just returned them to the light shelves. I would normally be putting them in the ground, but this year they just need to grow a little more, then I will have to harden them off again. Peppers are one of my favorite things to grow, but they do surely start off slow. I hope to finish planting my tomatoes next week and also let my peppers get some outside time.

I don't have many pepper plants in the ground yet, but that's because I timed my seed sowing aimed at putting pepper plants in the ground in early May for the most part. I did start Mucho Nacho jalapeno seeds early along with the first round of tomato plants on Super Bowl Sunday so those plants were a nice size and went into the ground last week. That's the only pepper plants in the ground so far. Most of my other pepper plants are smaller than I'd like in terms of transplanting them into the ground, so I'm not in a big hurry to do so. It stays cloudy, cool, rainy, misty and foggy most days so I don't think the pepper plants would be making any more growth in the ground than they're making in the greenhouse in their cups. If we ever get more than 1 day of sunshine a week, I expect the peppers will begin making more rapid growth and then I'd be tempted to put them in the ground.

I probably got ahead of myself on peppers. I have been known to do that on occasion. Sometimes it pays off, sometimes I come out looking pretty silly!

So far they have been doing well in the ground. Just hope we get some sun in the next day or so. This damp clammy weather isn't ideal!

There are probably several things that have gone in the ground a little early. My reasoning (excuse) is to get as much done as I can, so I can concentrate on soil amendment on what I call my main garden. Now with all the rainy, damp weather, I can't even get to the trailer to haul material.

I have another site, I'm hoping to get started amending. It's about 45' x 165', and consists of deep sand in the south 1/3 and then sand on top of red clay in the middle 1/3. The north 1/3 is pretty much red clay. The sand I pulled out of the east fence row did little to help the north 1/3 since I didn't have compost or anything to add at the time. Eventually this garden site will be converted to a small vineyard and orchard, so I've thought about a series of green manure crops instead of trying to haul and spread rotten hay, wood chips or whatever I can come up with.

I called and got my name on the Master Gardener class mailing list and plan on getting my application in the day they start taking applications. The one here is Pott county starts in January and is first come first serve. I figure, my chances are pretty good of getting in.

wow dawn thats quite a bit of land. Honestly i would love it. Our house was built in the 70's and at that time was WAY out in the country. Now we are surrounded by typical suburban neighborhoods with teeny tiny lots. Funny story. the neighborhood behind us apparently didnt like looking at our huge lot with a big barn and pool so they came and planted a row of pine trees about 6' off our back fence. I love it. they did me a favor LOL.

My parents just bought a little over an acre that backs up to 1300 acres of indian land so they dont have to worry about neighbors which is nice.

mike

We do love it, but we stay out of the woods in summer because of the high snake population. Tim grew up next to a heavily wooded area (which now is a housing development) in Pennsylvania and he loves our woodland because it reminds him of that. We also looked at a 60-acre plot of land directly adjacent to the Red River and a 5-acre plot adjacent to the SW corner of the property we ended up buying. I think we ended up right where we were supposed to be.

Our house, the barn-style detached garage/shop, my potting shed and the greenhouse all are pretty close to our southern property line. If our wonderful neighbors to our south ever sell their place (I am hoping they don't as he grew up on it and our land was once part of his family farm), I just hope it is to someone who doesn't bulldoze their woodland. Our two homes are over 100 yards apart and woodland prevents us from being able to see each other, so we have the illusion of not having anyone remotely close to us, except for the ranch across the road, which has the only house you can see from our house, yard, garden, etc. It makes our place feel even more rural than it already is. We have only great neighbors here on all sides of us and are so fortunate in that respect, but you know how it is....people get old, sometimes they sell the rural place and move to town, or the kids inherit the land and sell it. I just hope our "good neighbor" luck holds forever.