Sweet potatoes,
potatoes
Moschata varieties of squash, pumpkins and gourds
Garlic, of course.
Some varieties of tomatoes. This is a helpful read.

Peppers!
Okra
Kale
Chard


I list these because I very much like to let some plants go, deliberately neglect them to see how they hold up. This is the range of my limited growing experience.

Thanks chickencoupe. I had a chard plant that refused to die in the heat last summer.

I'm surprised no cowpeas though. I heard they were fairly easy.

You're right! I forgot about those.

Lettuce in cool weather, spinach, also cool weather, beans (timed to bloom before or after heat) Collards. Really hard to kill collards, also cool weather crop. I can kill anything, but Bon's list and these I can get a crop.

Oh, ground cherries and Jeruselem artichokes

We just planted collards, mustard, rutabaga, turnips and snow peas. All total about 3,000 row feet. They are all jumping up.

Our technique was simple. We laid out the planting rows 4 feet apart to allow for tractor cultivating. We placed the seeds in a poor seed bed and walked on them. Now, there is food growing all over that half acre.

Charles, I'm west of Lake Texoma and can grow/have grown almost everything. The one crop that I find most challenging is Rhubarb. It doesn't like our summer heat, and it really doesn't like the wild temperature swings in late winter where it might be 15 degrees at night ad 75 degrees during the day. It also doesn't like those years where it rains all the time and Lake Texoma flows over the spillway 2 or 3 times. I have managed to keep Rhubarb alive for three years now by growing it in large containers, so I might someday manage to remove it from the "most challenging" list.

Easiest for me are warm-season crops like sweet corn, tomatoes, peppers, southern peas (all types: pink eye purple hull, crowder, zipper, cream and lady peas), bush and pole beans (if planted early enough to beat the heat, or in mid- to late-summer for a fall harvest), sweet potatoes, winter squash (particularly all C. moschata types since SVBs rarely kill those plants), all melons (muskmelons, true cantaloupes, Santa Claus melons, frogskin melons and watermelons in particular), cucumbers, Armenian cucumbers, okra and Swiss Chard (which also endures a lot of cold weather and probably is more of a cool-season crop but I grow it in the warm season too, and sometimes lives 18-24 months for me). Lima beans do well some years and not so well in other years. Oddly, they did best for me in 2011 in searing heat and drought.

Cool-season crops are much harder down here in southcentral OK because we often get too hot for them to remain happy during the day while still sometimes getting too cold for them at night. Some years it is quite vexing. Most cool-season crops do better for me as fall garden crops than spring garden crops. Generally in the spring, I am able to get a good to great harvest from Irish potatoes, onions, sugar snap peas (if it doesn't get too hot too fast), broccoli, cabbage, carrots, radishes and lettuce. Garlic, planted in the fall to earliest winter, produces a great harvest in June or July of the following year (largely dependent on weather conditions).

Cool-season crops that do better for me in fall than spring include broccoli (some years, but not all), brussels sprouts, cauliflower, beets, turnips, collard greens and spinach. All of these seem to prefer maturing in autumn's increasingly cooler temperatures. When I grow them in spring, they often bolt before they really have time to even make a harvest.

The hardest adjustment for me when we moved from zone 8 Texas to zone 7b OK was the specific timing of planting in late winter and spring. I kept trying to plant as early here as I did in Fort Worth, figuring how much difference is there between the two areas that sit roughly 80 miles apart? Well, I'd say for most crops, I have to plant 2 weeks later here or plant at the same time but use floating row covers to protect plants on especially cold nights up here. That's the main difference up here is that we stay colder at night, often until May, at least sporadically, and that wreaks havoc on garden plants. If I wait for the cold nights to end before planting, it is too late to plant cool-season crops or half the warm-season ones. On paper, my average last frost date is March 29th. In reality, about 70% of the time, the actual last killing freeze that hits my garden occurs the first week in May. I blame the fact that I am in a low-lying creek hollow in the already low-lying Red River Valley. It has taken me a very long time to learn how to work around the late cold blasts of plant-killing weather.

Timing is everything and I often feel like my whole spring planting season it is just rush, rush, rush to plant everything on time to beat the heat. The key, though, is that when I don't plant early enough to beat the heat, I get poor yields. So, I push hard to plant as early as I reasonably can, protect the plants and young seedlings with floating row cover as necessary, and am deep into harvest time in May. In past years when I planted later, my bigger harvest time was July. Nowadays, the bulk of my harvesting (everything but the really hot-season crops like okra, southern peas, melons and sweet potatoes) is in mid-May through late July. Sometimes I'm harvesting tomatoes before my neighbors have put their plants in the ground. Does that sound insane? Of course it does and of course it is, but it is what I have to do to beat the heat and get a great harvest. Hope this helps,

I suspect the problems you've been having relate more to the timing of your plantings. Timing is everything.

Dawn

Thanks everyone (Bon, Amy, Johnny, Dawn).

Dawn, you said that if you wait until the cold nights end you can't even plant "half the warm-season ones". What specific vegetables fall into that half?

Also, you've surely already tried this, but why doesn't shade cloth extend things sufficiently? Sounds like protecting from the heat is more problematic than protecting from the late frost.

Specifically in my garden it is beans and tomatoes for sure. They absolutely need to go into the ground at the end of March in my garden in order for both of them to grow, bloom and produce fruit before the temperatures get too hot for the blooms to form tomatoes or beans. That's a huge problem since we often get those late killing freezes through early May. That's why I use floating row covers. (I barely used them at all this year, but our last freeze was earlier than average and we didn't get those late cold nights.) The later I plant them after the end of March, the less likely I am to get a good harvest. When I don't get beans or tomato pants in the ground until late April or earliest May, my harvest can be 25% or less than what it is when I plant early. Since I am always trying to grow as much as possible, harvest-wise, it kills me to plant late because I know that, unless we get an abnormally cool spring, we won't have a good harvest. As a case in point, in 2011 (remember that horrible year!), I was frantically trying to get my planting done in early April because we had a week-long fire-training course scheduled to be held at Lake Murray, and it was going to fall during my prime planting week---the week leading up to Easter. I didn't get nearly as much planted as I wanted before that week, and that week turned hot with highs in the 90s. There I was, with tiny bean seedlings newly emerged and roasting in 90+ degree heat, and not even half my tomato plants in the ground. We then started hitting the mid- to upper 90s in May. The only tomatoes and beans I got were from blooms that were on the plants before or shortly after Easter. Not every year is that bad, but it is amazing to me that we often have days in the 90s when nights are still continuing to drop down occasionally to the 30s. Nothing is harder on a garden than having temperatures get too hot too quickly. That did not happen this year, but we had over 2' of rain in May and another 15" or so in June, so heat wasn't our issue but standing water (for over two months) in the garden was. Still, most years heat/drought are a much bigger challenge than rainfall. Usually our rainfall challenge is that not enough of it falls in summer.

Sweet corn is almost as challenging. My corn has to be planted (I do three succession plantings, each about 2 weeks apart) beginning in late March and continuing through late April, though mid-March through mid-April is even better in the years when soil temperatures allow Otherwise, if temperatures start hitting 100 in June, as they do some years, then I get pull kernel formation and poor tip fill.

Some plants aren't really bothered by the temperatures and I can plant them later with little fear that it will harm them. Squash is that way. Unfortunately, the later you plant the summer squash, the less time it has available to grow, bloom and produce before squash bugs and squash vine borers arrive, so I like to plant it as early as possible to get ahead of them. I always plant winter squash late on purpose because high temperatures will not interfere in the blooms setting fruit until it is incredibly hot (like in the 105-110 degree range), but I am careful to only plant C. moschata varieties because they are tolerant of squash bug damage and highly resistant to squash vine borer damage.

With peppers, I am very careful not to plant them too early, though I probably do plant them early by most people's standards. With peppers, if they are exposed to cold soil and cold air temperatures early in their lives, they often can remain stunted and produce poorly for months, so if I plant early, they each get a 2-liter bottle of water placed on their north side. The bottle absorbs sunlight and heat during the day, and releases heat as it cools at night, keeping the young plants warm. Sweet bell peppers, which I need to have at the harvest stage in late May through early July when the tomatoes are ripe for salsa-making, drop blooms like tomatoes do when temperatures are in the 90s, so I like to plant them early. I'll plant a handful of jalapeno pepper plants early in order to have jalapenos for salsa when the tomatoes are ready too, but otherwise I hold most of my hot peppers in the greenhouse a couple more weeks and wait for the cool nights to pass.

I never plant the true hot-season crops too early (sweet potatoes, winter squash, okra, southern peas) because they don't like cool soil or cool nights and won't grow well in them.

Every year, I find myself in a frantic race to "beat the heat". Realistically speaking, maybe 2 or 3 years out of 10 we don't get too hot too early, but it is hard to guess which years that will happen, so I always push hard to plant earlier rather than later.

My friend, Fred, who is gardening strong as his 92nd birthday approaches, always pushed me to plant beans and corn in mid-March like he did in my earliest years here, but I didn't like watching crops freeze and then having to replant, so I usually waited until late March. That's worked pretty well for me. He gardens on a slightly higher elevation and doesn't always get those last couple of cold nights that my garden gets. You have to study your location year i and year out and see when it gets too hot for various crops, as well as when it gets warm enough to plant them, and modify your plants annually from there. It has taken me a long time to figure out what works for me in my specific location, and it has taken lots of trial and error.

I agree with most everything already posted. I would mention that hot peppers are definitely a "feel good crop" for me. No matter the heat, my hot peppers almost always pull through and bury me in a deluge of pods from the end of August until frost.

I don't know why, but most years, when I start my peppers early and inside, they languish and refuse to grow beyond 3 or 4 leaves until I plant them outside. I am inclined to start them later, when I can put them outside on warm days until ready for transplant. Frank's Thai Hot is one which I am positive could be direct seeded and still produce a timely crop. I need to grow it in the coming year, having skipped it for two years. This is a pepper which Carol grows almost every year for pepper flakes.

I tend to plant my okra late. Next year I want to try to do a large planting, and earlier. It is always so GOOD to have lots of the stuff and, it never fails.

George
Tahlequah, OK

George,

When do you intend to plant your okra next year?

Johnny

I can plant okra as late as June and still be harvesting it no later than early August if the weather cooperates. I'm not sure if that is what George means by 'late', but to me, anything later than early June means having to wait too long for the harvest to begin. I'd still rather plant it in May and be harvesting by early to mid-July. Some people plant their okra in April, but I don't because of those recurring cold nights through the first week in May. So, maybe I am already planting it late compared to lots of folks when I plant in May or June.

Yes, I planted it on June 14 this year. In large part this was because of the rains and cool spells we were experiencing. But it's also true that I simply get too busy and don't get around to it. This year it was a combination of weather and business. Whenever I broke free to be able to plant... it was raining. I'd like to get okra in by mid May.

Having said that, my June 14 planting is beautiful and producing very well right now. I will even get a little seed.

Johnny, you planted rutabagas the other day. Where I grew up we always planted them the middle of July for a fall harvest. When will yours be ready?

George,

We planted them this time of year to see how deep into the winter they will last. Sometimes our Winters are fairly gentle through December. We hope to harvest the root in December but we will rob some leaves before then.

Johnny

More info

Is the shortcoming of shade cloth that although it will protect from the direct searing sunlight it just won't lower temperatures very much? I have a friend who gardens N of Decatur, TX, just S of where Dawn lives actually, and after she built a "shade house" last year (just a sturdy frame actually, on which she suspends shade cloth) she said it made all the difference in the world. Saved tons of watering too she said.

Bump

Don't bump.

Sorry, Okiedawn passed away last fall and I was trying to save some of her posts.

Thanks Amy. I saved it too. Last year was the first year I used shade cloth over my tomato trellis and it was magnificent. They were already in a good position with afternoon partial shade. They never stopped producing in August for me.

I'm glad Bon!

Amy, I am glad you bumped, I like to read Dawn's old post.

Was well worth it. I just got a greenhouse and that information was "new" to me, in that I had no memory of it. Sure wish Dawn had done a book...

Oh no! Dawn passed away?? How? I never met her but she lived through her posts here. Was bigger than life it seems

Sorry Amy. I didn’t know what “Bump” meant, and then thought maybe it was a signal that the this thread should be deleted/bumped.

I‘m grieved Dawn passed away. Yes, a book by her would’ve been tremendous.

Okietexan, it was ovarian cancer.

We miss her. I called her my garden guru. Someone last summer said they were amazed at my gardening knowledge. I thought, yeah, me, Dawn and the internet.

Y’all, WE are her book.

They are not removing her posts are they?

Nope.

My main concern about this website, is that it keeps getting harder and harder to find.

Uh-oh. What exactly do you mean? Search function is poor? I think I remember a view that let me simply rummage through all old posts, though it was time consuming to find what you want.

I google the info

I put in okiedawn onions for example. It usually works great

I'm glad that works. I have had times that I struggle to find the Forum. I have bookmarked it and can get here but if I don't use the bookmark, I have a hard time finding the Forum. Houz wants to shunt me off to discussions about housewares and decorations.

Me too George. One day it took over 30 minutes to find my way in. And then it was by using my trick google