May 2017 Planting/Conversation Thread

7 years ago

last modified: 7 years ago

Happy May everyone!

Here's the new month's general planting, problem and conversation thread.

I hope you all made it through the storms, flooding, snow and wind this weekend.

We had wind gusting like crazy, mostly in the upper 40s and sometimes into the lower 50s yesterday. Our highest wind gust was 53 mph. It was a typical windy day here---no internet the entire day long, satellite TV cutting in and out, snapped power poles and broken power lines down in the roads, etc., some houses evacuated due to arcing power lines that could have set them on fire, at least one VFD had to go fight a brush fire undoubtedly started by a power line, at least one building in town lost its roof (just like last week), etc. This was the most prolonged strong wind event here in ages---with winds gusting in the 30s and close to the 40s overnight Sat into Sun, and then all day long Sunday in the 40s and 50s, and finally dropping back into the 30s on Sunday evening. It sounds calmer now, early Monday morning.

I stayed out of the garden (didn't want to be in there in case a big old tree from the woods fell) but did notice that the tomato plants, most of which are about waist-high (though I am short, so waist high on me is not necessarily that tall), took a real beating from the wind gusts.

Our yard is filled with little clumps of green leaves, twigs, small branches and a few large dead branches that came down with the wind. Today I'll rake up and pick up all that and haul it to the compost pile. Of course it is too wet to garden....technically speaking, but I have 4 medium-sized pots, a soil-less mix to fill them, and some flowers to plant in them so at least there's that. It probably is too wet to mow.

I know it is too wet to plant the back garden, which is ready for planting as soon as I can walk on the wet ground back there. I do need to treat the fire ant mounds back there with Come And Get It. Those ants came and got TIm last week when he was rototilling the soil and they came and got me when I was digging up persimmon trees on Friday, so it is time for them to go. The back garden gets all the direct-seeded hot season crops like okra, southern peas, all the C. moschata squash, (both those grown for use as summer squash and winter squash), the roselles, the Armenian cucumbers and most of the muskmelons and watermelons, so there's no big hurry to plant it today or anything, but I'd like to go ahead and get it done before the next rain storm. I guess that's my plan for this week---to plant the back garden. Our chance of rain on Tuesday isn't huge and the amount of rain in the forecast is small, so I think I'll get the planting done sometime between now and Thursday.

Oh, and sending thoughts and prayers to the Canton, and Van Zandt County, TX, area in the aftermath of at least 4 tornadoes that hit them Saturday evening---two EF-3s and two EF-0s based on preliminary investigation. One of the EF-3s. if the NWS investigation confirms a continuous track, was on the ground for approximately 1 hour 40 minutes and 51 miles. There's tons of destruction there, and everyone here in OK can relate to the disruption that causes families and communities. Condolences to the families who lost loved ones. Weather in this part of the country sure can be cruel at times.

What's your report on the weekend weather and your plan for your garden for this week?

Dawn

Featured Answer

Macmex

7 years ago

Yes Bon, I have those two. Grand Asia has become my personal favorite, at least... after it has been stored for a bit. Drop me an e-mail and I'll send you a flyer with the varieties, etc. Folks can also check out Duck Creek Farms and Sandhill Preservation Center, if they're looking for more variety or varieties I do not have.

I've come to the point of saturation on a lot of varietal things. I think a dozen sweet potato varieties is about my limit. My wife adores Red Wine Velvet. I love Grand Asia and Brinkley White. Actually, I enjoy them all... mostly. Many people who contact me want orange flesh and orange skinned taters. I now have a number of them. Some seem truly excellent. It takes me years to really get to know a variety.

Amy, there are a whole lot more flavors and textures out there if you try some other varieties. As in tomatoes, I've concluded that "flavor is in the tongue of the taster." There's no objective way to pin "best" on any particular variety. All of the older varieties continue to exist because someone has thought "This is the best!"

Last summer I finally got around to trying sweet potato greens as a vegetable. Jerreth and I both thought they were wonderful! I'm excited to know that we will never lack greens during the hottest part of our summer!

Dawn, I worked at organizing seeds, am not finished yet. That will be days yet. But it really feels good to be doing it. I know about Internet fatigue. That's partly why I hardly (if at all) got in on the April Gardening Discussion. By the time I dropped by it was so long that I could hardly find time to read through it all, in order to be able to make an intelligent contribution! This month, I got in on the start.

George

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Comments (155)

AmyinOwasso/zone 6b
6 years ago
Nancy and Dawn, I posted a video on Facebook's OK Gardening Network that you need to see.

Rebecca, are you wearing a hat to derby day? I love hats and they make such fancy ones for the derby. You were pretty busy for a part day! I have purchased frozen cilantro, we mostly used it in salad dressings. It was very finely chopped. I have frozen it myself, but if we used it, it was in the salad dressing. I have several silicone molds. I think it's ball that sells one with a lid that is nice for freezing cubes. Alternatively, you can use silicone cup cake cups (which in my opinion work better for freezing things than cup cakes). And the old stand by ice cube trays. I freeze basil in olive oil in all of these things. I freeze grated ginger in water in cubes and chicken broth.
chickencoupe
6 years ago
Rebecca, yer making me tired. Superwoman for real there! I'm def happy for you with the cilantro. Tough to grow.

Amy, I forgot about the herb fest! Someone totalled Bill's truck Wednesday. We would not be able to do the trip. It's still rolling, but not that great. Glad I didn't miss much in the way of herbs, but sure missed you!

Kids and I dug three spots for Roselle, today. I hope 1 cubic foot of worked soil is good enough for them. We had fun playing with many worms, so I bet they'll be fine for the rest of the root zone. Tomorrow we'll make a few more spots for Roselle.

I dug beds for more pole beans earlier this week, but found pea-sized driveway gravel about 6" down. Now, the gravel is throughout. Soil with worms suggests what soil is okay, but I cannot help but worry without experience. I guess I need to build another row somewhere else as back up.

I'm kinda tired of digging. If everything I seeded and planted grows, I'm in for a real nightmare of production for which I have little experience. Nice problem to have though?

bon
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Hazel, It has been a good week to be productive. I've been spending as much time as possible in the garden and have the aches and pains to prove it. My body always objects when I switch over from indoor winter laziness to outdoor hard labor. This week I'm paying the price for abandoning the garden last summer/fall to work on the kitchen remodel. All around the edges of the garden, persistent pain-in-the-neck plants crept into the garden despite the heavy mulch, so I've been digging out lots of bermuda and Johnson grass. It takes forever, but I'm determined to dig up all I can find and get it out of there before it can make headway and take back more garden space. I'm about 2/3rds of the way through the front garden and ought to have it back under full control in another week. Then I'll tackle the back garden. 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As it is, I have snakes in the compost piles all the time, so my actual compost piles never get turned once in the warm season because I don't want to stir up the snakes. I don't even want to see the snakes, and I'm careful to only load/unload compost nowadays with a compost scoop or shovel. I used to wear leather gloves and use my hands to lift compost from the wheelbarrow and drop it onto garden beds, but picking up a snake (non-venomous, but still.....) one day broke me of that habit. Most people here in my area (and by most, I guess I mean everyone but us) piles up brush and downed trees and burn them. We don't. We just find a place on the edge of the woods far from the house and make huge brush piles as if we were going to burn them, and then we never burn. We just let them sit there and decompose. I've done the same thing to fill in eroded areas where rain runoff has cut ravines and gullies. I just fill them in with brush and let it decompose in place. Add more to that year after year and the materials decompose and fill in the eroded areas gradually and then plants grow in the enriched soil and you stop the runoff from carrying off topsoil. It is a long, slow process, but we have healed a lot of badly eroded areas that way. It is sort of like building a hugelkultur for Mother Nature. After enough of the woody material breaks down, you end up with nice rich soil that supports native plants. Long before you even get the growth of the new plants, the piles of brush themselves hold the soil in place and stop the soil erosion almost right away. I'd rather be outside working than inside any and every day of the week. For a very long time, Tim worked evenings so I didn't even have to stop working outside until dark since I was the only one home. I was happy if dinner was just a bowl of cereal or a cold sandwich. 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I started the new Week 3 thread for this week, but had to come here to the Week 2 thread to catch up on everything I missed yesterday. Amy, That is too funny about blondes....and so true. I'm really bad about hurting myself with very sharp tools, so I have to make a conscious effort to remember to be careful when handling them. I almost cut off a finger once with some really sharp loping shears, and the only stitches I've ever had to get in my life followed an accident in the garden caused by my own klutizness. I don't seem to be getting any less accident-prone as I get older either. Kim, Congrats on the shed! I know it will be a big time saver. I have a shed, but have stedfastly refused to use it the last couple of years. A neighbor tore down a very old country home (unoccupied for decades) on their property a few years ago and apparently the wild things that had been living in it moved into my potting shed. 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A fence covered with Heavenly Blue morning glories in bloom with stop traffic in the summer time, or people see the morning glories, honk their horn and wave as they go by or give the morning glories and I a thumbs up. I vary the fence-climbing flowers from year to year so that I don't get stuck in a rut. This year, I've pulled all the morning glory volunteers that sprout (which is a lot) and planted moonflowers along the fenceline after we put up the new fence on the southern edge of the garden. I feel bad about weeding out all the morning glories, but I want a solid wall of moonflowers on the new fence. I'm toying with planting either Grandpa Ott's or Heavenly Blue morning glories along the eastern fence line. I'd rather grow southern peas on that fence line, and that has been my plan all along, but I could grow the Red Ripper and Yellow Ripper peas on the northern fence line and let the eastern fence have some pretty flowers. I need to make a decision this week and get them all planted somewhere. I've been waiting for rain, and I think this week we might actually finally get some rainfall down here. Our typical May rainfall is a little over 5", and our official rainfall for May so far is 0.38". All the green is shading towards brown already. Squash bugs are there already, Hazel, because they likely overwintered in some sort of garden debris---mulch, a brush pile, a nearby woodland, a compost pile, etc. The only way to keep them from establishing a permanent population on your property is to kill every single one you see. I spend an inordinate amount of time trying to find and kill them all every summer, but it is essential. If you kill them all, they won't show up as early the next year because they'll have to migrate in from elsewhere. The further away other gardens and/or farms that grow cucurbits are from you and your garden, the later in summer it will be when the squash bugs show up. May is usually when they do show up, so I'm not surprised you're seeing them. I'm kinda surprised I haven't seen any yet, but I am not complaining. I do check the plants for them daily as my only chance of controlling them is to go all ballistic and kill, kill, kill them from the first moment I see them. Nothing gives me more pleasure than finding squash bug eggs and destroying them before they even hatch because that's just that many fewer bugs to deal with later on. Congrats on the SunGolds! Aren't they the best? Once you taste fully ripened SunGolds it is easy to understand why their flavor is legendary. Nancy, I'm surprised that morning glories and moonflower vines don't handle full sun there. They tolerate it here, even tolerating high temperatures as high as 110-112 as long as the plants are well-watered and well-mulched. Perhaps it is your humidity there. Normally, we are dry in summer in our county, so high humidity and the diseases that often accompany it are not an issue here in summer. I've never grown moonflower vines or morning glories in part shade, largely because until recent years, we haven't had shade except at the west end of the garden.....and I don't want to make the shade problem worse by growing vines on the west fence. As long as the tomatoes you're growing are not the green-when-ripe type, you'll find them as they mature because their colors will become more apparent as they ripen. When dense foliage can make it hard to find green tomatoes, I don't care. I know the green tomatoes are there even if I don't see them all, and the foliage keeps our wickedly intense sunlight from sunscalding the fruit. Even with the green-when-ripe varieties, they don't stay solid green as they mature. Most of them develop an amber or yellow color on a least a portion of the fruit, so they're not as hard to spot as one would think they might be. I grow as much as possible in full sun, and am working to keep the shade out of my garden....if moonflowers and morning glories couldn't tolerate full sun in our climate, I wouldn't even grow them. They love it. If y'all are having trouble with them in full sun, it likely is not the heat or the light---it is the humidity and the plant diseases that accompany high humidity. Dawn
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Melissa
6 years ago
I think I am going to try succession planting this year
too. Part of me feels like it’s not
going to be as hot this year and our growing season will last longer and
produce more. But, then I bring myself
back down to reality and think, “oh but wait, it’s Oklahoma, it can flip in an
instant!” Do ya’ll put stock into the
Farmer’s Almanac and their weather predictions?
I was checking it out and it says that September and October will be
warmer than normal and slightly rainier.
Isn’t this somewhat similar to what we had last year with the warmer
temps?

Alright, gotta get Annie’s salsa recipe printed. I think I am going to start laminating my
recipes for this recipe book I’ve been planning for YEARS now. As soon as the house projects are done, I am
going to spend some evening time on the cookbook. I want to put all my favorite recipes in
there. I want to laminate it not just to
protect it but for my youngest daughter, so when she makes a recipe she can
check it off with a dry erase marker.
This will help her so she doesn’t miss an ingredient or a step.

Dawn, that’s terrible about your fence. You know, some people just have absolutely no
respect for other’s property. I don’t
understand it and like you said, it’ll drive you nuts trying to figure it
out. When we live in Fairland, our
neighbor’s dog got out while her Dad was checking on their house. It ran right for my daughter and started
biting at her legs while she was running.
I marched right over to their house and informed him that the dog tried
to bite my daughter. Had I not been out
there it might have. I love dogs, but I
will not hesitate to kick one if it has intention of harming my child. Anyway, the neighbor then put up no
trespassing signs along the property line facing OUR house. I was so irritated, disgusted, and
furious. Those neighbors were the reason
why I lost my love of living in that house.
They were very disrespectful. Not
to mention, my other neighbor (they were the good ones) informed me that the
“bad” neighbor had installed video cameras and had them turned towards my
house. Isn’t that illegal or
something?! Needless to say, when the
time came, I was more than happy to move.

And by the way, I love your planting style. I try to do the neatly and appropriately
spaced planting thing but it just doesn’t seem right. I love the full packed beds with beautiful
blooms alternating and the contrast of the different plants. I planted some hosta the other day spaced out
appropriately, but I do not like it. I
need to throw some other bushy smaller plants in there to make it look more
“homey”.

Bon, that was nice of the neighbor who mowed. And, you have me laughing at the “grumpy old
fart brigade” story. So sorry for his
loss, but am glad you finally have peace in your backyard. That’s the one thing that I LOVE about where
I live right now is that I can go outside in my backyard and just be. Sometimes, I just sit in my lawn chair and
just watch the trees, sky, birds, and anything else that flies around the
yard. Isn’t nature just grand?!?!

I bought a couple patio tomato plants for my youngest
daughter to take care of. They aren’t
really growing. What’s up with
that?! I don’t know why. They are green and look really healthy. Just no new growth. Maybe the weather?

Amy……I love your saying, “what the French toast” lol.

Wow on the peppers, George!! Oh, and um….can I come pet your
dogs?! Lol They look so fluffy and
friendly.
Nancy RW (zone 7)
6 years ago
Amy--hahahaha. Gotta go get me one!
AmyinOwasso/zone 6b
6 years ago
Bon, I have twice grown roselle in 5 gal buckets. It is an easy going plant. When I put it in a raised bed it made a trunk as big as my arm and was 5x5. You're good.
Nancy RW (zone 7)
6 years ago
You're ALL making me tired! But did get the shop bed done! Yay! So green outside it's hurting my eyes.
chickencoupe
6 years ago
Thanks Amy! Go Nancy! Yeah, nothing going dormant here. So lush and green and I seriously need to break out the machete, then the weedeater and lawnmower.
amunk01
6 years ago
last modified: 6 years ago
I don't know how Dawn gets so much done with pagers going off all the time. But its amazing the service you and your family have givien to your community. I think its wonderful! Fence update? Sounded like a real nightmare Dawn!

Rebecca I had to water containers too and a few flats of random stuff I haven't found a spot for yet. I still have stuff from the SF I need to find a home for!

Bon I don't know how you get so much done either! My back hurts just thinking about it lol

Amy let's have your favorite cilantro dressing recipe! I have a ton growing but didn't know I could freeze it! And never remember to make salad dressing with it!

Am I don't something wrong or harvesting my sugar snaps at the wrong time because they are so tough and stringy this year.. I swear they were sugar snap peas, but maybe not? They are only good when they are so so tiny, it's ridiculous.. I think I'm going to rip them out after we eat some of the shoots.. I'd rather have cucumbers or something I can actually eat. Lame.

I noticed something ate all the tops off of the Bush beans I tried to sneak in the back bed unprotected.. silly me. I replanted and now have to come up with some type of little fence around the strip of them. Does anyone do bean teepees? I've never tried them but have some Dragon tongue (sound right?) pole beans to plant. Thought about making a couple teepees.

I cleared a spot and planted 18 more tomato plants today. And Kim's eggplants she gave me. Seminole and red Greek squash got planted too. I wonder if that red Greek will be any good. It's basically a butternut. Has any one tried it from baker creek?

GEORGE those yellow peppers look amazing! I love growing peppers but I've started to limit myself on the super hots. I usually just blend all my excess hot peppers up together in the food processor when I get overrun and freeze it in ice cube trays. Only half full per cube if there are a lot of super hots in like bhut jolokia or even a ton of habs. Then I fill up ball jars and give the pepper cubes as Christmas presents to my sisters and my mom. You can literally toss one in any dish to give it a kick and some extra flavor! Sometimes I add garlic to the blend too. They are a big hit. I always get an update when someone runs out if their "stash". Lol

Nancy sounds like you got quite a bit done too. I was trying to visualise your beds while you were listing them. I love how green it finally is outside! Green is definitely me favorite color.
Rebecca (7a)
6 years ago
last modified: 6 years ago
Amy, no, no hat. This is a pretty easygoing group, no one really goes all out for this. Besides, the only one I own is a Hendrick Motorsports ball cap that I wear for gardening. Don't think anyone wants to see that, lol. My aunt had a great new caterer, I had a glass of really good Sauvignon Blanc, and I won $18. So a good day all the way around, but I need a muscle relaxer now.

Cilantro is stupid easy for me to grow. I don't know how, but I just scatter seed and it comes up. I'm struggling with thyme and tarragon this year, though.
jlhart76
6 years ago
Quick PSA: I brought rose of sharon to the fling for 2 people. They were ID'd by people either in here or the facebook page, and I figured they were right since I have several and the leaves looked right. I noticed that the bush I thought was rose of sharon has berries on it, and when I googled it mulberry leaves look an awful lot like rose of sharon to me. So if it is in fact mulberry that I brought, sorry! If i figure out which ones are rose of sharon, I'll gladly bring more next year.
AmyinOwasso/zone 6b
6 years ago
Rebecca, Thyme hates me. Some times I get decent stands of cilantro and sometimes not. Lemon cilantro is coming up well this year. I have a whole pinterest board for hats and scarves, just because. The derby hats are an excuse for big elaborate hats, apparently. I have a 30 year old felt hat. Probably couldn't get the dust off to wear it.

Alexis, I will look for the dressing recipe. I think it's from a copy cat cook book.
AmyinOwasso/zone 6b
6 years ago
Bon, I'm sorry about the truck! That's terrible. Sure glad you didn't come all this way for the few plants they had.

Alexis, I think your peas could have been mislabeled somehow, they sound like not edible pod peas.
hazelinok
6 years ago
I just read a couple of posts above--the first two in front of this one.

Jen, should I wait a bit until I plant the Rose of Sharon? I haven't planted it yet. It's on my porch. I don't need a mulberry tree, although I love mulberries. There's a mulberry tree just a few minutes walk from my house. (thanks for bringing it btw)

I've finally succeeded in growing cilantro! And thyme wasn't an issue for me. For some reason. In fact, I need to pull out one of the plants as they are too close. They are two years old.

I was happy to spend a couple of hours in my garden today. I built a 3 tomato cages (only 7 to go!)

BrandyBoy not Early Girl is setting fruit. They are all making blooms, though.

What in the freaking world?! Why can't I grow green beans?! So, I've noticed that the green beans seem stalled once again. I'm staring at them, thinking that bed must have some herbicide residue in it from something. Then I noticed all the ants and then I turned over the leaves and really looked. The plants are coated in aphids. So much that the leaves are crumbling. Not a ladybug to be seen. Sigh. So, I will pull these up and replant bean seeds. Should I spray the top of the soil with something before planting? Seriously, everyone in the world can grow green beans except me. It's always something.

I was unable to go to Dale's garden tour today. However, I raised enough funds to cover all of my son's mission trip fees except a $100. Bad and good.

The boy is at the prom tonight. Honestly, I think it's more expensive for a boy than a girl now-a-days. Since when did tux rental cost so much?

Hope everyone is enjoying the beautiful weekend. Where is the colder than normal May?

OH! my broccoli is starting to look like broccoli. I'm so excited.
AmyinOwasso/zone 6b
6 years ago
It WAS copy cat recipe for "Houston's Honey Lime Vinaigrette"

1/3 cup vegetable oil

1/4 cup rice vinegar

1/4 cup honey

2 T Dijon mustard

1 T chopped fresh cilantro

2 1/2 t fresh lime juice

1 t sesame oil

1 1/2 t minced red bell pepper

1 t minced onion

1/4 t ground black pepper

Pinch of salt

Combine in a microwave safe bowl

Heat in microwave on high 1 to 1 1/2 minutes. Remove and whisk for 1 minute to emulsify. It should thicken as it cools. Cover and chill for 2 hours before serving.
Nancy RW (zone 7)
6 years ago
That is so funny, Jennifer! It's one of the 2-3 things I haven't planted yet. Looked like a rose of Sharon to me. . . I'll check in the morning, but 95% sure it's RofS. Now you've got me all disappointed! I thought, Wow, I've never had a mulberry bush/tree. LOL Meanwhile, my other one's finally getting some height on it thanks to its cage. I also haven't planted my devil's claw. Wasn't sure which bed to put it in, now I've decided.

Here's the shop bed, Alexis. . . doesn't look as long as it is. Garry helped me today a lot, by hauling the dirt over and mixing with the compost and mulched leaves. Which was awfully nice of him since he thought I was nuts for building another bed. In fact, looking at this photo, I thought, really, you thought it was 32 feet long? So I just now walked back over and maybe it's only 24 feet long. I was thinking the timbers were 8'--but they're probably 6'. So it's probably 24 feet long and about 7-8' at the widest point. A nice-sized bed. . . and another everything bed. When we finished, it was about 4:30 and my really sunny bed doesn't look all that sunny, huh! Gonna have to monitor the sunlight tomorrow. . . still, it's sunnier than most of the others. Have any of you ever bought one of those little digital sun monitors? That might be a fun thing to get.
jlhart76
6 years ago
Sorry to disappoint! If you're near OKC you're welcome to stop by and dig up whatever looks like RoS or mulberry to you. Otherwise, husband is going to war against the buggers. I can't help on whether you should plant it or not, I can't tell the difference so I'm not the one to ask. I guess you could always dig it up later.
jlhart76
6 years ago
Ok, I have to laugh. I was looking up devil's claw, trying to figure out where to plant, and found this gem of a suggestion: avoid planting a garden in areas with bermuda grass. Sooo....what is left?
Nancy RW (zone 7)
6 years ago
Yum! I must try that dressing! Thank you for sharing it.

And my eyes popped out with those yellow peppers, George--are they always so prolific in producing? And. . . the dogs appear to be relaxing in snow! When was the snow? Let's see, what year was that? 2011 maybe? And you said they're very large. . . they look kinda like great Pyrenees. . .?

Waiting impatiently for tomatoes, which are big and healthy with lots of blooms, and potatoes, and onions. When onions begin getting bigger and start showing out of the ground, do I need to cover them with more dirt or are they okay to grow like that? And Garry cannot figure out, for the life of him, how the cabbages make heads and why they just keep growing more and more leaves. (Cute.) He's going to be so excited when that happens!

Laughed, HJ--that's what I said to GDW today--"My broccoli is looking like broccoli should!" He noted that the biggest two grew, took a sharp left and grew for a few inches, then a sharp right and are now growing up. He wondered why. . . I said cuz they got the crap beat out of them at first. Cold and rainy and windy. :)

Bon. . . someone totaled Bill's truck? You mean like as in accident? What??

Still thankful for the great plants you all brought to the SF. . . I am so tickled about the spider wort, Bruce. I put it into the prayer garden. Compromised on the sun situation; they'll get some morning sun and I think they'll do well there, heavily dappled afternoon sun for the most part. And I got the honeysuckle separated out and got it planted, too. Garry was confused, because the spider wort is planted right next to the spider flowers! LOL

I put a whole bunch of stuff in the long 3' wide full sun carport bed. It was supposed to be temporary, and now have to move stuff as everything's getting kinda bigger. LOL It's another everything bed right now. . . this is what's in it: 1 potato plant, 1 cabbage, 3 broccoli, a few verbena, sage, basil, half a dozen Mexican sunflowers--I didn't know how big they'd get. . . nicotiana, bachelor buttons, seed onions (I don't know why I didn't throw them out 2 months ago!); celosia, dill, moss rose, what look to be marigolds, though know I didn't plant marigolds, but do distinctly remember whatever those are by seed where they are; milkweed (!), hyacinth beans. Yikes, where will I re-home all these guys! I think I'll toss the potato, and keep yanking out morning glories.

Got my eggplants into the hugelkultur bed, along with a few more peppers and last tomatoes, put a couple of the figs in it just for kicks, and leftover bee balm,, rosemary, comfrey, chamomile at the edges --since that area isn't fenced yet, put the herbs on the outside as a kind of safety net for the peppers and tomatoes,

So I'm down to only having to plant the figs, Rose of Sharon

Still trying to decide where to put the other 2 little figs, Kim. Do deer like figs. . . well I checked online. Some said no--some said yes; I know I never say, deer won't bother something; sure as one says that, deer bother it. But so far I've found the deer around here haven't cottoned to my herbs, bee balm, cleome and really, most of the other stuff. But then I've planted most of the plants with deer in mind. except a hosta, daylilies and roses of Sharon. Those, I know deer consider fine cuisine (so I have day lilies protected, though don't know why. The monster orange ones take up SO much space, I think I might find someone to take one of the two really big clumps. I think I'll just have to get some more 8' high fencing for the new rose of Sharon and put it down with the other.

Wasn't it a wonderful day for working and for plants to be growing!
Nancy RW (zone 7)
6 years ago
Hahaha, Jennifer! Good one! Too too funny!
wotanhl
6 years ago
It's funny hearing about the plants that work for them and the ones that don't. I have no trouble with tarragon or cilantro, but Thyme absolutely hates me, What in the heck am I doing wrong?
AmyinOwasso/zone 6b
6 years ago
Thyme hates me, too, wotanhl. Always the first to get spider mites. I think I have trouble keeping the correct level of moisture.

Bermuda is such a mild mannered name for the thug that it is.

That bed looks nice, Nancy.

Somebody call Dawn and make sure the human variety of thug hasn't gotten her! I'm sure she did herself in putting up the fence.
Okiedawn OK Zone 7
Original Author
6 years ago
last modified: 6 years ago
We're okay. Stopped working to each lunch. The new fence is finished and looks awesome. It is tall and sturdy and solid. Took a whole lot longer than we thought, required multiple trips to the store for more stuff, and we had too many interruptions. The only bad thing is that the new stretch of fencing along the south side of the garden makes the fence on the east, north and west sides look even more pitiful by comparison. Oh well, someday we'll get those done.

I hope whoever drove/wrecked into our fence (and I have my suspicions) feels guilty every time he (or she) drives by and sees the new fence because he (or she) will know it is their fault the fence had to be replaced.

I'll catch up on the rest of this thread later because I'm so far behind. We have a fire dept. thing this afternoon.
Okiedawn OK Zone 7
Original Author
6 years ago
I know I'll never catch up on this thread, but I'll run backwards and try.

Thyme prefers extremely well-drained soil, high heat and low humidity. If you grow it in a raised bed and mulch it with gravel or builder's sand, it usually does better than if grown at grade level and mulched with organic matter. Or, if you really have trouble keeping it from waterlogging or rotting in wet ground, you can grow it the way I do---in pots filled with a mix of sand, decomposed granite and gravel. It doesn't need watering all that often. If you have high humidity in Spring and Summer, that could be the problem, and it might do better for you indoors in a sunny window.

Jen, Devil's claw is a native plant here and even grows in native pastures with a wide mix of native grasses of all kinds (but most of them are clumping, not running like bermuda grass) and all kinds of forbs. Mine often pop up near either the asparagus where the soil is really rich or at the low end of the garden, in poor sandy soil that rarely gets irrigated, in anything from half-day sun to full sun. It is not picky about much of anything. Apparently livestock eat it, because my original devil's claw plant appeared in the garden the year Fred gave me a lot of cow mature from his barn to add to my garden---probably in 2000.

H/J, I said last week I wasn't really buying in to the idea of a cold May. Our high temp here hit 86 yesterday and 87 today, and the nights are staying in the 60s, so I guess the cool May for my area evaporated along with all the rain that didn't manage to fall here last week or the week before that either. Tim and I both remind ourselves all the time that weather forecast models are just professional guesses, and our human forecasters surely find themselves analyzing models, at times, that don't make sense to them either. One of our local TV mets is really good about explaining what the models are showing and why, at times, he doesn't agree with them. He's taught me not to automatically believe those long-range forecasts.

Tux rental was sky-high in 2000, 2001 and 2002 when Chris attended proms so I cannot even imagine how high it is now. I still think the girls (at least the ones he took to prom) spend even more than the boys do---not just on their dresses, shoes, accessories, etc., but also on hair, makeup, nails, etc. I always felt relieved we had a son and not a daughter when prom time rolled around because those girls were spending money like there was no tomorrow. Several moms have shared funny stories since then about how, when their daughters got out of college and started to work and live on their own and pay for all their own stuff, they suddenly became much more budget-conscious than they were back when Mom and Dad were paying for everything. I think that is true with sons as well.

I don't have a green bean answer for you, but aphids tend to be more attracted to stressed plants than non-stressed plants. With all the strong wind, heavy at times rainfall, up and down temperatures, etc., why wouldn't the bean plants (and everything else) be stressed. Normally, if you just apply a sharp stream of water (I use a spray nozzle attached to the hose), you can wash the aphids right off the plants. Do it every day for a few days in a row and they tend to disperse and go elsewhere. I don't know if spraying the soil with anything would help. Just watch your new bean plants as they sprout and spray them with neem oil or insecticidal soap when aphids first appear. Nipping them in the bud early really helps.

Amy, I agree with you about Alexis' peas. I cannot help thinking maybe they are not an edible podded pea (maybe they are green English peas, and not a true edible podded pea like Sugar Snap, Super Sugar Snap, Sugar Ann, Sugar Daddy, Cascadia, etc.

Alexis, I don't get anything done. That is the entire problem. This weekend we didn't even get the mowing done, nor the tree-trimming that we were supposed to do in mid-April in an effort to save the northern and western edges of the garden from a rapidly-encroaching woodland. If we don't get those trees trimmed back this coming weekend, my entire garden is going to disappear into shade, which would be unbearable. While the woodland has been encroaching on the garden more and more each year, it has gone totally bonkers since 2015, when we got almost 79" of rainfall, compared to average annual rainfall around 39". We used to have about 20' from the northern garden fence line to the edge of the adjacent woods. We kept about 10' of that mowed so that people, cats, dogs, chickens, etc. could walk between the woodland and the garden fence in a relatively snake-free wide path. Then, the woodland slowly advanced southward. In 2010, we still had that 10' wide mowed path, but the woodland sort of loomed over it. Now the woodland is up to the fence, hanging over the top of it, and making it impossible to plant anything there. Even if I cut back specific limbs, the roots are all moving in underground. So, by the time we trim trees (if we even get to trim them) this coming weekend, we'll be a month behind.

I didn't even go to the fire station with Tim today for the monthly meeting/training/annual driver qualification on the fire trucks. I stayed home and dug up any remaining Johnson grass roots I could find along the south and half the east fence line. I didn't have any fun doing it, but looking at a fenceline that is clear of invading Johnson grass is something that makes me happy.

So, when I ignore all y'all's requests for sketches, photos, etc., understand it in the context of my life. I have too much to do, not enough time to do it, tons of area to mow, weedeat, mulch, weedeat, etc. and I lost my best yard helper. When Tim was promoted to Asst. Chief, which I think was in either December of January, his workweek changed from 4 10-hour days, to 5 8-hour days. That hurts a lot because having one extra day off a week to mow usually meant he spent one whole day mowing and weedeating, and now that extra day is gone. It looks like if the mowing is going to get done at all in May, I'll be doing the mowing myself. With the woodland encroaching on everything, the coyote only showing up when I am home alone, and me having to take on all the maintenance on 14.4 acres alone, I feel like we are not making any progress here----we are losing ground previously gained through regular mowing, weedeating and pruning. Every day I go outside with a vague plan of what needs to be done on that day (it is easy, as it is the same general list I've had each day for the past two weeks since I always run behind and, especially this year, cannot catch up). All it takes is for the pager to go off one day, and the whole day's plan can be totally destroyed. Normally by May, the winter fire season has ended and the summer fire season has not begun. I generally can at last get the planting done, and get off to a good start on weeding and mulching. This year, that is sort of true, but for some odd reason, we keep having tons more medical calls and tons more motor vehicle accidents than usual, so the pagers just keep going off and going off and going off. I feel like we totally failed as firefighters this weekend. Oh, Tim ran on all the calls, and I went with him to work a motorcycle wreck with injurieds yesterday---we did that. However, we missed one firefighter's funeral (not one of our own firefighters, but we had planned to go to it anyway as we do for all the firefighter funerals we can) and then we missed a fundraiser designed to help another firefighter who has cancer. We absolutely intended to go to that, and talked about it, but when the fence thing happened, all our good intentions died.

Usually, when I come in at night, I'm too tired to get on here and read or type, so I tend to do it early in the morning when Tim's alarm goes off at 5 and wakes me up. Then, I still can be outdoors by sunrise or shortly thereafter. Part of the morning routine is to feed the cats and dogs, clean the litter boxes, throw a load of laundry into the washer, unload the dishwasher, and (if Chris is at work) uncover the tropical bird cages and feed/water the 7 tropical birds, all of whom have their own mixes and dietary preferances. Then I go outside and open up three poultry coops, set free all the poultry, fill up their feeders, clean and fill their waterers, etc. Then I fill the wild wild bird feeders and the hummingbird feeders. THEN I grab my own breakfast and head for the garden. By the time I get to the garden, I'm already tired.

One day last week I completely forgot to take my fire radio to the garden with me. That rarely happens because I do try to always carry it. Naturally, I missed a fire call, and when I noticed a CAD message dispatching us to it on my phone (which wasn't in the garden with me either--it was inside on the charger) I immediately texted Fran to ask her if she was at the fire, and she told me no, that her driveway was being reconstructed along the bar ditch/tin horn so she was trapped at home. Later in the day, she and I both were listening and available to go, but then that one wasn't big enough or serious enough for them to need us.

This week I'd like to have a week where the pager doesn't go off at all and where I get no CAD messages on my phone. I just want to feel like I have a chance of catching up. Forget being ahead like I was a few weeks ago, I just want to not be behind.

My garden is rushing headlong into summer, dragging me along behind it, and I cannot catch up.

At the grocery store this weekend, I bought Mrs. Wage's Zesty Bread and Butter Mix, canning jars and labels. Tim sort of raised his eyebrows and said "Already?" and I told him yes. I may be behind on everything else, but I refuse to get off to a late start with the canning.

Rebecca, I've had to water a lot in the last week, but that is largely because the rain just keeps missing us. I consider watering containers to be a routine task unless tons of rain is falling. It seems like they almost always need to be watered.

I don't freeze cilantro. We seems to taste a bitterness in frozen cilantro that's not there in fresh cilantro. Dried/dehydrated cilantro seems to work okay though. YMMV.

Bon, Roselle doesn't seem real picky, but it sure can put roots out a long way--I usually cannot pull up the plants after they freeze because they are such huge monsters with widely spread roots that often go outward 3-5' and downward at least half as much as that. I either have to saw them off at the ground with a pruning saw and then dig up the roots at the end of winter after they are half rotted, or dig up the whole plant with a shovel after it freezes.

Bon, I'm sorry about the truck. That just sucks. I love our old truck, but it is 20 years old now and has very high mileage, so I know we will have to replace it one of these days. It is hard to live in a rural area with lots of gardening and lots of animals without a truck.

Bon, We have a dolly---actually two--one regular one and one extra heavy duty. I use them a lot. Even with the two of them together, you couldn't fit the generator on them. It is very large and very heavy. I'm guessing 300-400 lbs. and real short and real boxy. It has two front tires and a handle on the opposite end so you can wheel it around, but those tires are not ATV tires---they are great just to move it within the garage or to wheel it out of the garage to park somewhere as long as you keep it on pavement, but not really great for going uphill on a gravel driveway. I managed to do it though.

My entire garden is ahead of itself in terms of producing, and I cannot seem to catch up with it. Oh well, tomorrow's a new day.

Good night everyone. Time for bed so I can rest well before Tim's alarm goes off. I keep waiting for someone to invent an alarm that will wake up the person who needs to get up, but will let the other party sleep. It just isn't happening.

Dawn
hazelinok
6 years ago
Everyone seems to be very busy with their gardens and other stuff. I'll never catch up on reading.

So very excited to see that most of the tomatoes now have teeny tiny fruit. Peppers still look a little haggard.

Saw something that looked suspiciously like early blight on one of the potato plants.

Stuff looks good and some looks bad. Beans. There's a lot to do and my garden is messy. It's not neat and tidy like some of yours. We'll probably just focus on growing the food and finishing the new coop. Leave the prettying up for next year. Not that it's ugly...it's just messy. The future beds/pathways are full of weeds/grass. I can't wait to finish it...and build the cute fence. Always something to look forward to.

So, once broccoli starts forming the heads (the part that we eat), how long does it take to finish? Mine just started. Hoping for enough time to get full heads (or whatever they're called.),

Another question. I would like to allow a second pecan tree to grow, so I've staked out a couple of trees so that Tom/Ethan won't mow over them. Would a pecan tree about 20 ft from my garden (catty corner) at the north east side cause problems with too much shade?
Rebecca (7a)
6 years ago
Lettuce is slowly dying/rotting away/starting to bolt. Guess I'm going to harvest all I can, and slowly start planting the heat tolerant types I bought for the summer. That was certainly fast. Rain didn't help at all, nor did my overseeding it.
Dale Spoonemore
6 years ago
@hazel My broccoli started to form a head last week and suddenly bolted on me over night. I'm going to cut the bolted stem down in hopes of spurring new side shoots of growth. We'll see what happens!
chickencoupe
6 years ago
Hazel, pecans are one of the last to leaf out and I find that extremely useful. I like to plant the cool crops in their shady spots, by the time it starts warming up its leaves are budding out and keeping them cool, but they received sun before that.

There is something to do with proper placement regarding wind, tho. Initially, they buffer the wind like a bush would. Later, the wind swoops down over them. I have a couple young trees that are doing this onto my garden. Still trying to understand this confusion. They were helpful until they reached about 12 foot tall.

Everything I read suggests placing a buffer before and after, like putting understory bushes before and after - not unlike a forest.

This is really mind boggling when considering placement in an urban environment.

bon
chickencoupe
6 years ago
Dawn, those ATV wheels make all the difference, for sure. I understand your frustration and hope you are resting well right now. There are times when I just keep moving and my motto is "Do what is essential and a little bit more" or "Clean up what you use and just a little bit more." I don't get the gratification of seeing a job fully complete, but I know I won't get entirely behind and I can keep going until the fortuitous event occurs catching me up, like a free afternoon or something.

Right now I'm mowing about ten minutes a day which seems futile amidst the spring/summer growth, but it's better than nothing. It just doesn't feel like it.

bon
chickencoupe
6 years ago
Potatoes - Is everyone's potatoes going gangbuster? A few of my potato plants are more than three foot tall. I'm assuming this is normal, but they only recently began to flower. The thing is, I used sand this year. First, I trenched them at the bottom of the sand where they can root into the nutritious clay. When they reached grade level, I began hilling them until I just didn't have any more sand to hill with. There may be 5-6 foot of stem on some of these.
Nancy RW (zone 7)
6 years ago
last modified: 6 years ago
I've never grown broccoli before, Dale. . and am flabbergasted that the lanky and spindly things I grew from seed, knowing they were a lost cause, suddenly took off, so ended up with 8 of them. . .and sure hope I can get some before they bolt. This veggie stuff is new to me (except for tomatoes, peppers and potatoes). and have made the mistake so many do, planting too close together. I read Dawn's tip about cutting off the top head, and mine are just getting ready to head out. I'm having a rip-roaring good time loving the cabbages, too, which just today I noticed look like they're coming together. Garry still doesn't believe that the broccoli will make a head, and cabbage will form into a ball. . . I'm having the best time with that.

Jennifer Hazel, same with me. Some stuff looks great, some not. And my situation is opposite yours. . . I've got some peppers that look like they have obviously been through some bad times, but are suddenly turning green with lots of tiny new growth and also several little tiny peppers on them. What troopers! LOL The rest haven't been through that trauma (because I kept them on the grow cart longer, and delayed putting them out when the weather turned cold and windy) and are big and healthy but still with a very few little peppers. My tomatoes, on the other hand, for the most part look great with blossoms, but no tomatoes yet.

I'm surprised by my fascination with peppers, but it's real. Peppers are FUN. Have any of you every checked out or ordered from http://www.chileplants.com/ ? Looks delicious to me. . . I'll probably cave soon and order something from them.

My new granddaughter from near Tulsa (new to me, not new--she's near 30) and family came up today and I sent her home with lots of stuff--she's like many of you who have smaller children. . . too much to do to focus on gardening for now, because of their chickens--and a few goats, and school and life, and lots of relatives near them. (I on the other hand don't have another life--I am SO lucky! Well, church. And painting. And cooking. And quilting. LOL) They're the ones who have the chickens, but now have put up fences so they can have a few veggies and plants/flowers), and have built a large pen for them, too, so they can keep them in when they're getting in trouble free-ranging. Good for them. . . they sort of got carried away with their chicken farming, as I'm sure many of you chicken people can relate, too, and so right how have about 50 of them. . . including banties. So now I promised to send her detailed emails on the plants I send home with her today, and details for the ones she can take home next time since she doesn't have internet right now. And probably will be handing off stuff like crazy this year to anyone who happens by. . .

Dawn, I can't begin to imagine your work day. My gardens are so minuscule compared to yours, and I can't keep up with THEM. I have no chickens to feed, just 1 dog and cat, no exotic birds to babysit, no obligations to a job or fire department. I really can't fathom the workload. And my city friends back in Mpls and old friends in Wyoming, by the same token, can't fathom how busy I am and how hard I work, now being "retired." I am not busier than ever since retiring, but am JUST as busy, without job stress, but still self-imposed demands, and work a lot harder, of course, physically.

So great to be working on what one loves. We don't have to spend money on clothes or much gas, or eating out, or raising children, or, well, really on much of anything. I was SO poor as a single mother of two boys, and later, just as a single person, I managed to spend every $$ I made but never more--never used credit car unless a true emergency. Had the little sense to have my 401(k) and made okay money from the time I was 45 or so. The money I did spend was always on painting supplies, gardening, and eating out at great restaurants, none of which I regret. And so now, while our income is very limited, it's more than adequate, as GDW ended up about the same way. And I hope all my friends can land in a great spot, too.

Haven't heard anything from Kim. . . . are you okay? I hope you're just working really hard and are busy. . .

To all of you raising youngsters, it's the toughest and most important job any of us will ever have. I am cheering you on. . . and can't imagine how you still find time to garden, especially if you have a job or are home-schooling. Kudos to you.
chickencoupe
6 years ago
Nancy, I dunno why but I realized I should have planted habajero peppers. We'd NEVER eat them and trying to harvest would probably be a nightmare but my son wanted them. I said no, but now I'm thinking I should have. He helps in the garden and if was excited about growing these, then I should have because it's fun!
bon
Nancy RW (zone 7)
6 years ago
Agree, Bon! Maybe you could order a plant online even at this late date. And ditto--I've got some hot ones growing out there, have no idea what I'm gonna do with 'em!
chickencoupe
6 years ago
I see some are 85-95 dtm. I might have time to start some from seed.
Nancy RW (zone 7)
6 years ago
Proms: Here's where the "Back in MY time. . " comes in, but to my credit, I think, I've never ranted about it. (Until now, apparently. LOL) It's fake. Not real. Worth nothing important in life or life's memories. It's all about peer pressure and keeping up with the Joneses', which is usually very important to teens. The one thing I've noted that is better about many of them now is that one doesn't HAVE to have a date to attend one in many places. THAT was the big deal when I was a teen. HAD to have a suitable date.

My mother spent about six months creating my senior prom dress. It was one of the most beautiful dresses I've ever seen, if unorthodox. It was an amazing fabric, peau de soie, "a soft, satin-weave cloth of silk or rayon, grainy and having a dull luster," embossed with a slightly darker floral pattern-- and the ugliest color ever, for a prom dress. It was a medium-pale ugly olive green. Princess style. . modest. Sleeveless with a lowered neckline, fitted to the waist and the flowing out fully to the floor. Kind of a classic sort of look. Simple but classic. And then she took countless hours sewing in seed pearls in all the tiny embossed flowers. I had little pearls all over. Back then, even, it was a kind of peer pressure thing. I have always always hated that and have always rebelled against it. But back then, although I was thrilled to skip the prom when I was a junior because the music all-state conflicted and I chose the music all-state hands down (because I auditioned and won first chair french horn in the orchestra or band, whichever I chose), for my senior one, I actually was going with a guy that I liked. The dress was a stunning design, and to this day I cannot believe my mother's vision. And the "ugly" color made it even more special. It was easily the most stunning dress there and to this day, I've never seen, a queenly, and formidable gown.

Didn't cost that much to make, as fabric and hand-sewing back then was so much cheaper than store bought.

Having said that, the only beautiful memory about that prom was the dress my mother made.

And although no one wore the same formal twice, to first the prom and then to the even bigger "Class Day," honors afternoon just before school ended, I did, in spades.

Back then, we did formals, tuxes, corsages and boutonnieres, and that was it. And tuxes back then were not expensive.So the only real stress, was to have a "suitable" date. Still, even then, it was fake and stupid, and frankly, I wasn't all that thrilled about any of it. Nails? Hair stuff? Nope. Well maybe some did. Not me. I had my hair done for my senior pictures, got home, looked in the mirror, and ripped it all out, combed it and had the pictures. So sure wasn't gonna spend money on a prom "do." I did use make-up--lots of mascara. . .probably some foundation. . . can't remember, and lipstick.

Fast forward to my son's prom. (My other son, Russell, had died just before HIS first prom, junior year, just a year earlier, and we were still reeling.) Oh my GOSH. Tuxes, limos. . .BIG darned deal. I was so ticked off. I could hardly make ends meet. . . but even though other son Wade was working, managed to cough up enough $$ to get him through that. But his senior year, when letter jackets had to be bought, and senior pictures, and class rings, and the next prom, I threw a fit, much to Wade's embarrassment and mortification. I got the pictures, and chipped in big-time for the prom but said NO WAY to the letter jacket (and he was voted the football MVP) and NO WAY to the class ring. His football teammates were so embarrassed for him, THEY chipped in and bought him the letter jacket.

I risked getting sent to jail or being reported as an abusive parent. . . LOL. . . not really, but certainly was being judged by other parents, I'm sure, and Wade was not happy about it. We've talked about it since and he has thanked me. . . and is very much LIKE me now with his own kids.

Now, ladies and teenagers, having spent all the money they can think of to spend, have decided that their toenails and fingernails are very necessary expenses--and EYEBROWS. And hair coloring and extensions, and ad infinitum.

The whole thing is just so so so so WRONG.

How did things get so out-of-hand and crazy!

The key is to not give a fig about the Joneses. To try to imprint upon our kids that we don't WANT to be like their peers, to try to teach them that all that stuff is nonsense. A tough row to hoe, with our kids. But so very important.

And that was probably only half a rant!
chickencoupe
6 years ago
Yeah, my kids came home crying having been playing with some distant neighbor kids. After the third time, I laid it down for them (and I wasn't nice about "them"). Friends are like rare gems, I told them. They weren't it. Our small "city" is horrid with so-called "class prejudice", discrimination, bigotry and misogyny. The irony is what they consider "class" isn't even remotely on the same page as the rest of the state, much less the country. But whatever floats their boat.

Tulsa wasn't that way. I LOVE and miss Tulsa, but I like our quiet life in the rural area. And the dirt. Good dirt, here. hehe

bon
Okiedawn OK Zone 7
Original Author
6 years ago
Hazel, Pecan trees get huge. It is the pecan tree to the west of my garden that is driving me nuts now. I knew it eventually would happen because that pecan tree was probably 30' tall when we planted the garden roughly 25' east of the pecan tree in 1999. Still, the garden location was the best spot available, soil-wise, since it had a band of sandy soil at the western and northern edges. Everywhere else we considered was all clay, or reserved for the future building site of the detached garage, etc. So, here we are in 2017 and we've lost approximately 2000 square feet of former gardening space to the pecan tree's shade. The problem has worsened drastically since we had two incredibly rainy rainy years in 2015 and 2016. For a while, I enjoyed the late afternoon shade and planted strategically to take advantage of it. Well, since the pecan tree is fully leafed out, I've noticed this year its' shade is going about 20' further east than it used to (as recently as last year), and some parts of the garden, including fully 50% of my current tomato plants now are in the shade by 2 or 3 pm instead of 4 or 5 pm. I'm not willing to give up half of the garden space I have left to the shade. So, while it isn't that the pecan tree will get cut down, we are going to have to do some heavy pruning----limbing it up by removing large lower limbs to let more light come through. I can't imagine we'd ever remove the tree, as it was one of only 2 trees on the upland (non-woodland) part of our property when we built the house, but there are times I look at it and think that, ultimately, either the tree will have to go or the garden will have to be moved. After spending almost two decades turning dense red clay into great soil, I'm not inclined to move the garden, especially after we just spent much of the last three days installing the Great Wall of China along the garden's southern edge, and that fence is built to last forever. The tree should be worried. So, all of that is to say that I wouldn't plant a pecan tree within 50' of a garden, even if it is to the northeast. It is the rest of the woodland to the north of my garden that now is causing problems for the whole northern side of the garden. Again, we knew someday this would become an issue and now it has. Having a pecan tree northest of your garden isn't as bad as having it northwest, but over the years, the shade it creates will creep towards your garden and much more quickly than you think. So will the roots, and the roots are a huge problem. I dig up tons and tons of tree roots out of my garden every single year. It is a neverending task.

The appearance of Early Blight on potatoes would not surprise me at all. I saw one leaf with it on one potato plant this weekend, and quickly removed that leaf, put it in the trash can, and washed my hands before touching anything else. We've had high moisture and high humidity along with rainfall and the temperatures in the right range for EB to develop. My plan for this morning, once the dew dries off the plants, is to spray all tomato and potato plants with chlorathalonil (Daconil). I hate using it, but haven't found organic fungicides to be nearly as effective (in the one year that I felt like Serenade worked well, we only had 19" of rain for the entire year, so in retrospect I think the dryness kept the EB from happening more so than the Serenade did). Your plant foliage only has to have moisture on it for roughly 15 minutes for fungi to start growing, or at least for the fungi that causes Early Blight to start growing, so if the spores are available in or around your garden, or come in on the air or in water, the EB starts up very quickly and very easily.

Keep in mind that fungicides need to thoroughly coat every inch of the plant, including upper and lower parts of each and every leaf in order to be effective. The fungicide does not kill the fungi. Nope. It just coats the leaves so the fungi cannot attach. Miss a spot on a plant, and the fungi will find that spot and attach there, start growing and then start spreading.EB can kill plants. It will not necessarily kill them, but even if they survive it, they put a lot of energy into fighing it and that can interfere with their production. Some plants will outlive the EB and will look like crap for months and produce heavily again the fall after they put on a lot of new foliage. Others won't. I wouldn't worry much about EB on potato plants except for the fact that if you let it grow on them, then it is sporulating and sending airborne spores out to infect everything else.

Broccoli has good years here, and it has bad years. The sudden onset of heat, like what happened here in OK after the cool/rainy weather stopped can trigger it. Once brassica bolting starts, there isn't much you can do to stop it. Keep in mind: (a) you can eat the broccoli heads (including the yellow flowers) after it bolts, and (b) you may get side shoots. Some varieties bolt more easily than others, and some produce side shoots better than others. Summer Purple and Piricicaba are two varieties that just produce shoots constantly and never produce a big head, and are less likely to bolt as long as you keep cutting off the shoots before they get very old. I run my garden like the large production/canning garden it is, so normally I don't leave the plants and wait for the side shoots. I feel like a person gets relatively few side shoots relative to the space the broccoli is filling after the main heads are harvested. So, I usually harvest the main heads, remove the plants in the mornings, and then after lunch, I add compost to the soil in the former broccoli bed and plant beans or southern peas there that afternoon. I call it 'moving on', as in...the main harvest from these plants is done, so I'm moving on to the next thing. It always is my goal after I harvest in the morning, to plant the space with the succession crop in the afternoon so that I have no empty/wasted garden space. That's just me, though. For people who aren't preserving a lot of the food for eating year-round and who mostly just harvest for fresh eating, there's no harm in leaving the plants a few weeks to see if you get enough side shoots to make it worth your while. That's a choice each person has to make depending on their goals and whether they want to get a new succession crop in the ground or not. I get huge production from my garden because I so relentlessly yank out things that already have produced most of their harvest and replace them with something else. I'm not one to hang on to anything once it is past its productive prime.

Rebecca, Lettuce is just that way. Too much moisture and it rots, too much stress and it bolts, too little water and it gets bitter. Our climate is not that great for lettuce some years. This might be one of those years. We just get too hot too early. When we hit the 90s in January, I knew right then that this was likely to be a rough year for lettuce and didn't plant much. I'd rather eat kale anyway, and I have a lot of kale---far too much of it, really, but the chickens like it, so I often cut some of it just for them.

Dale, I hope you get side shoots. I just don't feel like we get enough to make it worthwhile. YMMV.

Bon, I love all our trees, or at least I used to. Obviously we wanted trees or we wouldn't have bought heavily wooded acreage. However, having those trees complicates gardening a great deal and our trees are so large, and there's so many of them, that I am hating the effect they are having on my garden. When we moved here, we had the attitude that every tree is important and we'd never cut down a tree unless it was dead and in danger of falling on a structure or something. Flash forward almost two decades, and I am starting to think that not only do we need to thin the understory layer beside the garden right now---as in yesterday if not sooner, but that we also need to clearcut an area about 40' x 250' where the woodland meets the main part of the garden and yard next winter. I doubt I can talk Tim into it, but those trees, many of which are 60-80' tall, are growing like mad after a couple of really rainy years and are encroaching seriously on the garden and yard. I am starting to hate them. My plan (you know how plans often fail to work out) is for us to cut like crazy this coming weekend to keep the understory trees out of the garden. They've filled the walkway and some are growing into the fence---engulfing it and swallowing it up. If we don't get them out of there very quickly, we'll lose the fence to them on the north side of the garden. It is sort of a desperate situation right now. The one thing working in my favor is that Tim hates fencing, so when faced with the fact that the understory trees are eating up the fence, I think he'll decide he'd rather cut trees than let them destroy the fence and have to rebuild the fence on the north side of the garden.

Bon, My potatoes are just like yours---planted way down deep in their very tall raised beds, so if you count the stolon length from the depth of the original seed potato to the top of the foliage, there are indeed some in the 5' range and many in the 4-4.5' range. Harvest time is rapidly approaching so the plants should start dying back in the next few weeks, depending on each variety's DTMs. You also can harvest potatoes any time you choose. Sometimes, if the plants start dying back and look awful (because, of course, a plant that is dying back naturally isn't going to look good), I start digging right away just so I don't have to look at them any more. We love all fresh potatoes, so sometimes I just selectively harvesting young potatoes (not so small that they really qualify as new potatoes) as needed, from plants along the edge of the bed. We usually harvest at least a couple hundred pounds and find it hard to eat all of them before they start sprouting, so I have no qualms about harvesting them and using them as needed in May before they are totally mature. I might harvest all the potatoes from 2 or 3 plants weekly and still, since we grow so many, hardly make a dent in the beds overall. The important thing is to harvest in a timely manner once they mature because if we get too hot while also too moist in summer, the potatoes can dissolve into a rotting, slimy mess if still in the ground. As with most other cool-season crops, our heat can suddenly become too much for them.

Nancy, Peppers are the most fun as they produce like gangbusters here, last the entire season most years, and come in an astonishing array of sizes, shapes and colors. I haven't ordered any from the company you mentioned as I mostly just grow my own from seed.

Peppers can be used a gazillion ways in cooking and are so easy to preserve. I haven't even counted how many pepper plants we have in the ground, but I guess about 40 or 50, including at least 5 habanero plants---three that produce orange habs and 2 that produce red ones. The main way we use them is in an Apricot-Habanero Jelly called Habanero Gold.

Kim had her first market weekend in Lubbock, so I imagine she's home today and we'll hear from her later.

Nancy, I agree about the excesses of prom and such. Limos are not huge here---I guess we are too country for that or we have parents mostly too smart to spend their money that way.

Oh crap, y'all, it is Monday and I promised a new weekly thread instead of such a long monthly one for May. So, with daylight streaming through the bedroom window and me needing to get off the computer and get outdoors to beat the heat, I'll start the new thread now.

Dawn
jlhart76
6 years ago
Back in 1994 when I had my senior prom, I let my mom convince me that "if you don't go to your senior prom, you'll regret it the rest of your life." Then she had to pay me: she said she'd give me $200 for everything I needed. At that time, some girls were easily spending that much just on the dress, so $200 was a fair amount. I bought my dress, shoes and jewelry for about $50, did my own hair, makeup and nails, and pocketed $150 for myself. What can I say, I'm a cheapskate. And moral of the story: you WILL NOT regret skipping prom.
hazelinok
6 years ago
Haha, Jen! Unfortunately, Ethan really wanted to go. He really should not have gone because he is only in 10th grade. However, his best friends are seniors and he wanted to go to the prom with them...and they bought a ticket for him (with my money).

Actually, my daughter was less expensive because, although she loves fashion, she was able to find dresses under $100. Although by the time we got shoes, hair, and jewelry, it was probably about the same cost as Ethan's tux...and I made him get the cheapest one available at Men's Warehouse. Jen, were you in the generation where girls bought those super pricey sequin dresses? I remember that was big a few years after I graduated.

Bon, thanks for the pecan tree answer. I may move that discussion to the new May thread and let this one die...or continue about proms. lol
Macmex
6 years ago
Bon, I'm positive you could still plant habaneros. I've grown them, here in Tahlequah, many times. I rarely get mine planted in the garden until near the end of May. Check a box store. I bet you could get a plant or two. It'd be worth it.

By the way, though I've won recognition for being a fire eater, I generally try not to push the limits very much. Habaneros are hotter than I'd ever want to eat, per se. But they make a wonderful hot sauce. You simply add fewer to the mix, to keep it down. Theirs is a unique heat. I call it "slow burn." It starts out low and gets hotter over about 20-30 seconds. Then, as the heat subsides, they leave a WONDERFUL aftertaste.

Jerreth (my wife) prefers her Chile Rayado, which is a kind of Jalepeño, only hotter. The Rayado is a wonderful pepper: much more hardy and dependable than any habanero. It's great. But if I were just growing for me, I'd lean more toward habaneros. My favorite the murupi amarela is essentially a small, slender habanero.

George
Nancy RW (zone 7)
6 years ago
I LOVE that sensation, George. Yes! the aftertaste heat, and aim for it in many dishes. Cayenne is one of my new secret ingredients with any of nearly all of my hot dishes, trying to get that slow burn. . .and in fact, that's what I call it!
AmyinOwasso/zone 6b
6 years ago
I didn't go to prom. I was bummed at the time, but, oh well. My daughter went. I raised her well, she heads for the clearance rack first. Her spring formal sophomore year she went around telling everyone she paid 7.89 for her dress. She wore a bride's maid dress junior year and senior year we bought the dress on ebay. She did her own hair and nails. The extravagance was a tiara for her hair. They spent maybe half an hour at the actual event. Then came home changed and went bowling. Daughter changed to jeans, flannel shirt and combat boots, but left the tiara in her hair. She told me she was a red neck princess. My boys all worked. I might have paid for prom tickets, but they were on their own for everything else. I didn't pay for rings either. 3 of the 4 got senior pictures, I have always felt guilty for not getting them for the youngest. The price just kept going up!

I saw some prom pictures on facebook and was appalled at the amount of exposed skin. I'm an old woman.

Bon, I'm sorry that happened to your kids. I remember those days only too well. My kids were all kind of outsiders, but they had their own little groups so they weren't alone. I remember what little #@%&s the neighborhood kids could be. I honestly don't miss that, though I would go back and visit my little ones if I could. DD lives in our rental, the house we lived in when she was born. I was there yesterday, and am suffering waves of nostalgia, remembering raising my babies there.
Melissa
6 years ago
I used to be able to heat hotter salsa and spicier food but as I get older that appeal comes along with side effects which I cannot handle. Hot and spicy foods cause me to get choked so much that I can hardly catch my breath. Whew. LOVE it, but just can't tolerate it anymore sadly.

Going to make sure everything is watered and then today is, unfortunately, a painting day inside. I still have a couple raised bed kits that I caught on clearance at TSC that need to be put together but that'll be later this week, then filled with dirt and then plants.
chickencoupe
6 years ago
Dawn, I'm all excited again. Yippee!! Taters were my family's first harvest and they're looking forward to reliving that experience.

jlhart, same here. I went to the prom, but didn't stay long!

Thanks George! I'm headed onto a habanero seed hunt this evening. I know I've seen them. My son had a spicy chicken sandwich at the fast food joint yesterday. It was HOT but the heat release was also quick leaving a nice flavor that lingered. I think he's headed into being a pepper connoisseur. I need to get those planted and feel bad for brushing that aside. My favorite is the jalapenos. I might try Chile Rayado next year. Sir Thor still asks, "Mom, do you have those little tomatoes?" He was referring to the Black Moor I got from you that rocked our world when I made my first homemade chili with those tomatoes. Now, I understand much flavor comes from other purple varieties, but Black Moor will always be in the garden. Gosh, I love having control over the flavors of our cooked foods. My goal is to outdo the fast food and my son would eat our chili morning and night if he could.

Amy, The skin! Yeah. I'm not a fan. I caught my daughter innocently mimicking behavior from youtube, once. I calmly explained. My son gained a horse in the game of Minecraft. Named it "boner". We were shocked. Turns out, he was innocent. I calmly explained. LOL Our kids have the benefit of a parent being there and supporting and explaining. I grew up thinking there was something wrong with me that caused people to be mean and carried that into adulthood until my late 30s. Engaged parenting: What a concept!

Enjoy those memories. I can tell you are an awesome Mom.

My son is a joker. I can hear his future self beginning the conversation, "Yeah. My first lesson with s*xuality began with a horse ... "

Okay. No offense to anyone. Just being funny here.

bon
AmyinOwasso/zone 6b
6 years ago
Works both ways. Have you seen the meme on facebook, text message, mom: grandma's in the hospital, LOL. Kid: Mom do you know what LOL means? Mom: Lots of Love? I taught my mom how to comment on face book and now she's chastising my nephew for his language...on some political site with 15,000 comments. LOL.
chickencoupe
6 years ago
LOL!
Nancy RW (zone 7)
6 years ago
What Bon said!
elkwc
6 years ago
All of my snow is gone. Saw a few patches today but mainly it is gone now. Can't believe how fast the water puddles have dried up. Planted my first tomatoes in my raised bed yesterday. I tilled under the cover crop and will plant tomatoes in the garden tomorrow and maybe peppers also. Trying to plant garden and haul off tree branches so have to split my time. It looks like I may lose two trees. Next week I will start planting seeds. Couldn't believe how the garden didn't seem to be very wet and with all the moisture we've had recently and the 4-5" of snow piled on it I expected it to be a little wetter. Although the deep sand doesn't hold water long.
Nancy RW (zone 7)
6 years ago
I know elkwc! We had 6 inches a week ago Saturday, and by the following Wednesday, I realized I had to water the next day!
Okiedawn OK Zone 7
Original Author
6 years ago
Amy, Same thing here with current prom pictures. No one back in our day (I was a senior in 1977) would have been allowed in the door with the exposed flesh I see nowadays. Sometimes I wonder what the parents are thinking, letting their daughters dress in such skimpy prom dresses.

Waves of nostalgia can be fun. When I am visiting my mom at our childhood home, I am nostalgic for certain things....the roses Daddy used to grow along the backyard fence, the big mimosa tree we played beneath while hummingbirds and butterflies visited its flowers, the roses, peonies, zinnias, cosmos and cockscombs that mom and I (okay, mostly I) grew in my mom's flowerbed by the porch, the fruit trees in teh back yard and the veggie garden. All of those are gone, but I can close my ends and practically see them, and all of us out and about and near them, when I am at mom's house. Then I walk into the house and wonder how in the world my parents raised 4 kids in a small 3-bedroom house with only 1 bathroom and a tiny galley kitchen. The miracle is that no one died in the perpetual fight to get into the bathroom at peak periods. The house always seems smaller than I remember it being, but I guess that's the difference in looking at things as an adult versus how you thought they were when you were a kid.

Melissa, The more I eat hot peppers, the more heat I can handle but I am mostly careful to avoid overdoing it.

There's plenty of time to plant habaneros. They really thrive in warm soil and hot air so I never put them in the ground as early as the rest of the hot peppers.

Bon, The only thing I don't like about potatoes is digging them, but the digging is a necessary evil that makes eating them possible.

Jay, It is about time the snow is gone! I am glad you're getting to plant. We only had really good rainfall here in January, so it is long gone. Otherwise, our rain has been sporadic. It keeps missing us (uh oh, had summers like that before, haven't we, and you as well), going around us, just flat out not falling, etc. Our forecast highs also have consistently run 4 to 6 degrees above whatever the forecast says. Yesterday the forecast high was 80 and we hit 86. I'm starting to dread the summer weather since we are trending hotter and drier than forecast.

Our back garden in the sandier soil does drain too quickly, but our front garden drains too slowly......if only I could take a gigantic mixing bowl and mix together the clay from the front with the sand from the back.

Dawn
Macmex
6 years ago
I suppose it's just psychological: digging potatoes or sweet potatoes is the only time, for me, that digging isn't laborious. This is probably because it seems like a treasure hunt!

May 2017 Planting/Conversation Thread

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