Amy, Since I'm only using the preserved tomatoes in soups, pasta sauce or stews, I just freeze them. I hate the longer canning times that the government safety research says we must use for so much nowadays and since our tomatoes will be cooked in soups, pasta sauce or stews, it doesn't matter if they are mushy coming out of the freezer. Who has time to spend that long on a canning batch when there's tons of other stuff awaiting? Freezing is quick and easy and works for what we need.

I think that the tomatoes will be fine as long as you got a good seal although any that stick up above the water will be discolored. I always add either bottled ReaLemon or citric acid for acidification to all tomatoes being canned as specified in either the latest Ball Blue Book or on the webpage of the National Center for Home Food Preservation, and I'm sure you did that as well.

And, I don't know why it happened but sometimes water can siphon out of jars. Usually, if that happens, your water in the canner is discolored by the water that siphoned out. I haven't used my pressure canner in a while. I don't even know why I hang on to it. If there's something we like that cannot be preserved safety by BWB, then I either dehydrate it, root cellar it (winter squash, etc.) or freeze it. That's why we have multiple freezers (and a generator in case the power goes out for a prolonged period).

Good Heavens woman, if you don't like canning, don't do it! Life is too short. I'm cutting way back on how much I'm canning this year. I just do not like spending all those days on my feet in the kitchen all summer long. It is making Tim nervous that I'm not canning enough salsa, but I don't care. I'm moving more and more toward only canning enough for us with just a little bit extra for a few Christmas gifts, not enough for him to give away to every person he's ever met. (I've already threatened to kill him if he comes home with any more great, labor-saving devices meant to encourage me to can more, like he did last year, and I think he might finally be getting the message that I don't want to can more---I want to can less.)

Our big chest freezer has a system of built-in compartments on the lower level and sliding baskets on the upper level. I only have trouble reaching the stuff on the very lowest level---the ones lying directly on the freezer 'floor', but I can reach anything lying on top of that bottom layer. If I need something I can't reach easily, I just ask Tim or Chris to get it for me. I think you wouldn't have any problem with anything in the sliding baskets on the upper level (which is where I put my most frequently used items). We also have an upright freezer and I like it, but it is harder to find stuff in it. I use it more for shorter term storage of stuff we buy at the grocery store but sometimes fill the bottom section of it with frozen corn, beans, tomatoes, peppers or okra. Really, if I could have only one freezer, I'd choose the chest freezer because it is easier to keep it organized and easier to find things in it. I fill each compartment with only one item, so everyone knows all the corn is one compartment, all the different peas and beans in another, etc. It makes it pretty easy to keep track of stuff.

My dream deep freeze would be like my kitchen pantry cabinet---it would be upright and instead of fixed shelves would have drawers from top to bottom that slide out so I could see everything in each drawer, but they don't make freezers like that. If they ever come up with one like that, I'd buy it! When we remodeled the kitchen, we put pull-out drawers in every single lower cabinet and I'll never have it any other way. It has made using the kitchen so much more enjoyable because we don't have to get down on the floor and search the back of the cabinet for something we cannot find. I'll never have lower cabinets with fixed shelves and doors again....drawers are the way to go....and I sure wish they made deep freezes like that.

Nancy, Many tomato products can be preserved using either a BWB or a pressure canner and each safety-approved recipe will so state, but generally if you are combining tomatoes with any other veggies, the only safe method to can them requires a pressure canner. Salsa is one notable exception to that, but when canning salsa you use the specified amount of 5% vinegar, bottled ReaLemon or ReaLime for proper acidification. For example, tomatoes alone are fine in a Boiling Water Bath, but if you were canning tomatoes and okra together, that would require a pressure canner. The difference is that pressure canning tomatoes is much quicker than BWB'ing them, and I think Amy choose pressure canning for that reason.

The longer canning times recommended nowadays are based on the latest government research that has been conducted using current, newer research methods than they used to have. The longer canning times exist for safety reasons, but those longer times frustrate a lot of long-time canners who were used to shorter canning times from long ago. It is what it is. I either use the current standards or don't can at all because I'd rather not give my family botulism. The way things are done have changed a lot since I was a kid helping my dad can in the 1960s, and I've just always tried to change with the times and follow the latest recommendations. A family that lives in a town about 40 minutes south of us contracted botulism about 15 years ago from (probably) eating chili that either had been improperly processed or improperly handled after being cooked. They were very ill and hospitalized for a very long time and almost died, but I think they all lived. The local media covered it pretty well for a while, but then as time went on and they remained hospitalized, the news folks went on to other stories. I don't remember any of them passing away from the botulism, so they were luckier than most people who contract it. Just surviving it, though, doesn't mean their bodies and health might not have suffered long-term consequences. Their experience is a reminder why we always follow the current canning standards and practices.

If you're only going to can tomatoes, certain fruits in certain ways, make jelly or jam, or pickle foods, then the boiling water bath canner is all you'll need.

I've got to get out to the garden now before it gets too hot!

Dawn

Ooops. I forgot fermentation. It is another great way to preserve food and so easy to do!

I like fermenting. DH said my sauerkraut was good. But you don't make pasta sauce with fermented stuff, and they have to go in the fridge, too, which is another piece of overused real estate.

I got the Weston tomato strainer last year. I like that. Then DH decides he wants chunks. I don't think he will like the over cooked tomatoes I just canned. Maybe it's what he's looking for, IDK. I did put citric acid in the jars. My canner book said to use it no matter how you can. The canner book (which is fairly new, I think we bought this canner last year.) recommended 25 min @ 10 pounds pressure. I tried to find something that explained higher and lower pressure. I know the temp is higher the more pressure there is, so processing times are shorter. And I guess commercially canned foods are all done at 15#. But nothing told me if it was better or worse for nutrition. I did a raw pack. The tomatoes were cold. I let them sit for a while, trying to get them to room temp. Maybe they were still too cold. There was definitely tomato juice in the water. Well, a little experience would help. If I did this more often, I might have looked at the jar and thought that's not right. Maybe next time I'll do a hot pack. Yay, another step. I'm looking at a counter of rapidly ripening tomatoes and thinking I need to do it again.

Gotta go get the PUPPY.

Yes, I see why you had to go so long now. Cold pack and whole tomatoes. Hot packing cuts way down on the time but your correct, its an extra step. I'm not sure what poundage would be more nutritious but if you grew it yourself rest assured that its packed with nutrients you will never get in any store.

I personally prefer canned stuff to frozen most times. It is somewhat of a necessity with me as I have a ranch and I have a extra large box freezer but, it usually gets filled to the rim every year with a full slaughter beef. The wife keeps the side by side packed with cook now things and I'll be danged if Im paying another 4-500 a year to run a third one.There is simply no way I could freeze that much produce. I just don't have the room. I have simply got to utilize every jar I have for produce. I do freeze corn, broccoli, califlower and a few things as space permits which is dang little.

By all means can how you are comfortable with. The wife and I have canned up to 800 quarts in a year (mostly her) back when I had a passel of young-uns to feed so I am probably am little more comfortable with it than most and know what to do and not to.

The citric acid is good for color also so by all means use it. I just use litmus strips myself sometimes but don't vary from your book unless you are comfortable and know. I'm sure you did.

I just got 8 pints of tomatoes snapped this morning but I pressure canned mine and quartered them so I didn't have to jack around. Plus I sent a sack of squash, tomatoes, and cukes to the neighbors and the windowsill is still full so I will have to go another round soon.

I keep a portable camp stove hooked to a propane bottle with an American canner out in the garage this time of year so using one is a snap for me. It gets faster with a little practice.

Puppy. Her name is Honey. There's some blood hound in her I think.

Hailey, I think you and Dawn posted at the same time, or she would have told you what your bugs are. I'm thinking spider mites. Trying to kill them kills their predators, too, and the spider mites rebound more quickly than the predators. On top of that, the webs they make protect them some from any insecticide.

If they aren't spider mites, they could be aphids. In either case, you might try hosing them off with a strong stream of water.

I see spider mites mostly when a plant has been too dry, or otherwise stressed. They are blown in on the wind, so sometimes they just show up.

Dawn will have more info, I'm sure, when she checks in.

Thanks for your input, Jerry. I think only 2 jars actually sealed. I think I hate canning because I really don't know what I'm doing. I want to pressure can chicken broth, so I really need to learn this. Although listening to the canner noise is obnoxious.

If I could find a fridge that was half freezer and half fridge, I could freeze stuff and use the fridge part for fermented things and carrots and stuff. But they don't make them that way. Or if they do, they are out of my price range.

Hailey, You and I were posting at the same time this morning, so I missed your photos of Spidermiteville. Those plants look sad. Can they be saved? The cucumber plants? No. They are too heavily infested.

Spider mites are extremely unique in the pest world because the most common result of spraying spider mite-infested plants is a huge explosion in the spider mite population. That's right. Attempting to kill them with a pesticide generally gives you more spider mites, not less. Does this make sense? Here's the explanation. Even though we gardeners do not know it, there's often a thriving population of predatory mites and other beneficial insects on the plants along with the pesty spider mites and they usually are keeping the spider mite population lower than it otherwise would be. You spray with the pesticide, it kills off the beneficials and maybe some of the spider mites, but not all of them. (They are hard to kill.) The surviving spider mites reproduce and grow and you're worse off than before because all the predatory mites and other beneficial insects were killed off. There is university research that supports this, by the way, and it is not some sort of crazy stuff I am making up. I actually witnessed this as a child gardening with my dad from a very early age---it was easy to see that every time he and his gardening friends sprayed their plants for spider mites, the mites got worse. Back then (in the 1960s and 1970s) no one understood it, but it happened so often that it has been studied a lot and is better understood now.

So, there are some unique methods of spider mite control that can work somewhat if used early in the season, like in April and May, but almost all of them cannot be used in the summer months because they damage or kill your plants if used when the high temperatures are exceeding 90 degrees. Among these are sulfur, neem oil and lightweight/summerweight horticultural oil. I believe all of these products damage if used in hot weather, and sulfur cannot be sprayed on cucumber plants in any weather as it is toxic to them. Insecticidal soap (true soap that is potassium fatty acids, not a dishwashing detergent like Dawn that is not soap) can be used with some success on spider mites earlier in the season, but like the other products can be phytotoxic to the plants once temperatures are above 90 degrees. Some people (and I don't do this, so I'm not really suggesting it---just saying some people do it) will use insecticidal soap in hot weather by spraying shortly before sunset---once there's no direct sunlight hitting the plants, and then will come back in 20 or 30 minutes with a water hose and try to hose off all the soap residue so it doesn't harm the plants. I am not sure how successful this is since I don't do it. So, having said all that, I'd yank out the cucumbers, wait a few days to a couple of weeks for any mites hiding in the mulch to move on and then sow new seeds. With the tomato plants, if you have a lot of green fruit nearing ripening, you might be able to nurse along the plants long enough to get ripe fruit. The problem with leaving any spider-mite infested plant in the garden is that it is breeding new spider mites almost daily and the wind blows them from one plant to another spreading them around the garden.

I had rather gleefully observed for the last 4 to 6 weeks that my garden was relatively spider mite free except for a few verbena plants. Well, it was nice while it lasted but it didn't last long enough and now the spider mites are all over the bush beans and increasingly are popping up on the tomato plants. I'm just gonna yank out the beans and probably the tomato plants in at least one bed, which is the one with the most heavily infested plants. It is hot and dry, rain is relatively scarce, we are in drought and spider mites are gonna do what they're gonna do.

Honestly, the best way to beat spider mites is to yank out the infested plants and start over, and that's why many of us plant fall gardens in July-August. Fresh, new plants that haven't been fighting disease and pests for months already are more resilient and better able to resist spider mites.

Jerry, We deliberately built our garage too large (1200 square feet) so we'd have room for an extra refrigerator and freezers and that's saved my sanity many times. If I only had the fridge and deep freeze in the house, I couldn't freeze nearly as much as I do. I still can a lot, but then there's got to be space for all the filled jars, and that's always an issue as well. If only storage space was not a problem!

Amy, Forget canning! I'd just sit and play with the puppy all day long. Who can resist that face and those eyes? Honey is so precious and does look like she might have some blood hound in her.

We had a Honey dog once and a dog named Biscuit at the same time, so when they were out running through the fields and I stood in the yard and called them to come home, it sounded like I was calling breakfast....."Biscuit! Honey!" Thankfully no neighbors lived close enough to us geographically to hear us call the dogs. I hope y'all enjoy your Honey each and every day. It has been several years since Biscuit and Honey crossed over the Rainbow Bridge and we still miss them so much.

I have tomatoes piling up everywhere again. I try to process them every other day and sometimes more often than that, but with peppers, squash and other stuff (beans, peas....) also demanding attention, it is hard to stay caught up. We're awfully hot and awfully dry so at least we've reached the stage where I'd rather be indoors than outdoors. Our fire pagers went off at some horrible time this morning, like 4:30 a.m. or something and I have been dragging around half-dead ever since. I should be in the kitchen doing something, but what I really want is to just take a nap.

The heat is so bad today and the heat index is awful and tomorrow will be worse. If I were a plant out there in the garden, I bet I'd be wilted. We won't know how the garden is faring today because I'm not going to go out there and look at it.

Dawn

Wow! I have enjoyed your posts today, so much, Amy, Jerry and Dawn. I have to save this conversation for your canning comments, and for Honey's photos! And freezers! Dawn, a blast from the past. When I was growing up, we had side by side chest freezers--big ones, in our basement pantry, which was probably about 15x15'' sq. The other three sides were floor to ceiling shelves for canned goods (save for the doorway in). Like Jerrry's freezers, the bulk of the space was devoted to deer, elk, beef and pork (my father was a meat-cutter early on in his adulthood, and continued to cut up meat for folks in the community on his off-hours as an electrician (and then mailman; so we always had beef, pork, and lamb as well as our game.) . And the freezers were just as you described them, with the sliding trays on the top layer. Yes, they were organized and easy. So I just brought this up to GDW. He thought that sounded find (and chest freezers are cheaper than uprights), and asked, "So where do you suggest we put one?" DARN it! There's always a catch. Maybe we can fit it in the garage. . . we'll measure.) At any rate, greatly enjoyed the discussion. Jerry (and Amy, Dawn, Bon) since there are only the two of us and since we don't have much gardening space anyway, I'll likely keep it simple with canning, so water bath. And continue to give away veggie plants and flowers that I grow on the grow cart.

I LOVE the way Honey looks. I'd grab her up in a quick minute! Keep us posted on how it goes. She looks like a sweetheart and winner.

We got out to the lake early today as planned. Breeze was nice and robust, and clouds for much of the morning. Perfect. A lot of fun until noon, when the sun got us, so we're back. I am always so surprised that we're exhausted after even 4-5 hrs of fishing let along 8. How can one get to wiped out while sitting in a boat fishing. I had chalked it up to our age and the hot sun. Well, today at noon, we stopped at the marina to cool off, and I asked Kaida if she wanted to go back out or call it good. She thought she'd had enough (and indeed, looked tired.) . So we hoofed it back up to Rocky Point and called it a day. On the way back to the house she was very quiet, and I asked her if she was okay. She said of course, just really wiped out, and when we got home, she said she had to go take a nap, and is in there snoozing away. I told GDW it made my day!!!! We wore the 13-yr-old out and I'm feeling not that bad. Woo-hoo, I'm not old!

And my first "teaching" class last night went good. How blessed we are and I wish great blessings on all of you, too!!!!

. I'll leave it at that. Just . Please use your imagination as to what I wanted to insert before that. It is so disheartening, at least I had success with garlic and cool weather veggies. I actually took some leaves to my local extension office and it was a confirmed spider mite infestation!! So, new to me, after several years are flea beetles and spider mites! Geez.

amy, They make exactly what you want---for a price. The one I see on TV most often has 4 sections/4 doors and you can convert the two lower sections from freezer to fridge to give you extra fridge space when you don't need lots of freezer space. Read. the. reviews. If you read the reviews, you won't even want to buy one, and they do seem incredibly expensive.

haileybub, Spider mites are incredibly common, and the hotter we get, the more spider mites we get to go with the heat. Next year, watch for them early...like in April or early May and treat with the treatment of your choice (insecticidal soap is good if temperatures are below 90) from that point forward to keep their numbers low. If it is of any comfort to know this, I have nursed plants along through July with horrible spider mite infestations and towards the end of July you could see the plants getting better and putting out new growth. They went on to produce well until the first freeze, even though they never were spider mite free----it was just that the spider mite population levels fell lower and lower as we went into autumn.

I actually was having a great spider mite year (as in not many of them) until this week, and now suddenly, they are everywhere. It happens.

I know you probably wanted to cuss. Or cry. It is okay. We all understand. We've all been there....with one thing or another, pretty much every year. If is isn't the spider mites, it is the blister beetles or the grasshoppers or whatever. We just learn to deal with them.

Nancy, The clear solution is to build an addition to the garage (or house) to hold the freezer. lol.

Congrats on wearing out the 13 year old. That is quite an achievement!

It is hot and I am cranky. I'm going to go take a nap. Will y'all wake me up when summer is over---say, around the third week of August?

Dawn

Dawn, you are SO BAD!!!! You ornery little pixie, you!

So little OLD me is the sole awake one here, with GDW and Kaida. . . and now Dawn. Will set the alarm, Dawn, for August 20.

The vet said Honey may get to be 65 pounds. I was not expecting that. 65 pound lap dog. She is very calm. Understands "No". Her reaction to stress is to go to sleep. Sleeping at the vet, sleeping in the car, jumped out of the cart at Petsmart. She wants to do her business outside in grass. Seems to be teething and has a yeast infection in her ears, but otherwise in good health. So much fun!

Well, I've pulled and discarded my cucumber plants but I'm very hesitant to pull any tomato plants . . .yet. All I really have left are a a bell pepper and a poblano as well as 10 mammoth sunflower plants! My pole and bush beans were a bust, however my asparagus is looking really good (shhh. don't tell, I don't want to jinx that!) Jiminy! Sounds like I may have the summer free, LOL! I am mulling over a plan of action. Baby the tomato plants and see what becomes of them then plant a late July round of cucumbers, as well as several cooler season plants. Certainly can't get any worse, right??? C'est la vie!

Dawn as you know I used Garlic as my natural insect control for several years and it always worked good for me. Now that I'm involved with cattle and the flies and ticks are extremely bad this year I've found that many breeders are having their best results using a mineral with garlic in it. I plan on picking some up tomorrow to put out this weekend. Haven't heard a bad report yet. There was only one company offering it but now several are. We have had good results with a pour on but prefer to use a natural source if possible. Thought you would find that interesting.

Jay, I do remember that you used Garlic sprays. I hadn't heard of it being used with cattle, but that does make sense to me. Lots of folks eat fresh garlic or take garlic daily to try to repel ticks and mosquitoes. I have no idea if it works in that way. I've had good luck planting a ring of garlic around my fruit trees to keep the voles from eating the roots. I haven't lost a young fruit tree to voles since I started doing that. I haven't tried a garlic spray to repel spider mites, but wonder if it would work. I think it would work better if done from the time plants are first set out than it would work if you don't start using it until you already have the Million Mite March occurring on each and every plant. Really, spider mites on tomatoes so far are mild but I'd be happier if they were non-existent, and on bush beans, they also were bad last year and worse than this year, but they never bothered the pole beans which were only about 10' away from the bush beans. I have no idea why bush beans were mite magnets and pole beans weren't. Oh, the endless mysteries of gardening.....

Hailey, If you want to try to keep your tomatoes going, you could try to repel them with a garlic spray like Jay used to use. You can Google and find easy ways to make them---one way is to just boil garlic in water, strain it and spray it. Let yourself kind of coast through the rest of June and part of July while you formulate your fall garden plans. It seems likely to be hot and dry (when is it not?) so it is a good time to have a few weeks with less gardening. That will allow time for the spider mite population to fall naturally and will allow you time to formulate a fall gardening plan. Here's the OSU Fall Garden Planning Guide with recommended planting dates:

Fall Garden Planning Guide

Amy, Honey sounds like such a sweetheart (pun intended). I bet in less than a week's time y'all will wonder how you ever got along without her. She sounds so calm and relaxed. I think that is a good sign.

Nancy, I am bad. I am an enabler. It is what I do. I never got the nap today. Went into the kitchen and starting doing things and got distracted. It was that sort of day.

I bet I sleep like the dead tonight. I answered so many tomato problem questions today on FB that I think my fingers are going numb, and my brain is too. I'll probably have nightmares about blossom end rot, fungal diseases and spider mites.

Dawn

So far, so good on the tomatoes. Picked a couple big, pretty bell peppers today. Squirrels must not like those. And I have an eggplant! It was hiding and I just found it today. I hope they don't like eggplant. It's not big enough to pick yet. First planting of cukes are starting to produce, too.

That's great, Rebecca! Maybe things are going to start going your way again after a couple of really frustrating weeks.

Y'all! Be praying for rain. We have a good chance and we need it. It's been since April 29 (the spring fling) that we've had any meaningful rain. Seriously. Pray. I hate this type of weather. It feels dead like. Winter is supposed to be a time of rest for the earth and plants, etc., so I'm good with it THEN.

Just glanced above.

Cute puppy, Amy.

Dawn, I love that you take it upon yourself to help so many people with their garden issues.

I think there is a hornworm hiding on one of my tomato plants, but I can't find him. Still getting lots of tomatoes. Wish I had time to can. I feel that I've "mastered" tomatoes. Okay, not really mastered, but at least I can grow them. Finally.

Now, I just need to figure out why I can't grow a cucumber that thrives...and if it does make fruit, why that fruit is always nasty and bitter!

I need to figure out many more things too. Many.

Hailey, sorry about your cucumbers. It's so disappointing.

Nancy, will you be my bff?

Okay. That is all. Remember, pray for rain. Good rain. A soaking, healing rain.

Wait, one more thing. I've needed to dig potatoes for over a week, but haven't had time. What does that do to the potato? Is it okay still? It might be another week before I get to them.

Hazel, it actually might be a good thing and lets them cure out a little.

Good Morning, Everyone. I feel it in my bones. I feel the rain coming. Do y'all feel it? One reason I feel it is because our dewpoint is even higher (75) this morning at our house than it was yesterday (74) so that can only be a good sign. Well, except for the fact that it will be hot and sticky until the rain arrives but that's a mere technicality when rain is finally managing to find a large portion of our state.

Hazel, I have been praying for rain for y'all for a long time and haven't stopped praying yet. I know whatever y'all get will not be enough, but it will be better than nothing, which is what you've been getting.

If y'all want to boost the odds of rain even higher: wash your cars, wash the exterior windows of your house, have a yard sale today or just start cleaning out the garage and putting stuff in the driveway. If all the above doesn't make it rain, you might have to get really serious and start painting something outside.

From looking at the OK Mesonet maps, it looks like some good rain fell across parts of northern OK, accompanied by some high wind (gusts as high as 77 mph were recorded). Let's hope the rain that is falling this morning, today, tonight and tomorrow is not accompanied by wind like that.

Hazel, This will sound crazy, but it works. Buy yourself a blacklight flashlight. Sometimes you can find them in stores, but at this time of the year, you'll probably have to order one on Amazon or eBay or something, or sometimes Party stores will have them. Shine the light on your tomato plants in the dark (watch your feet for snakes because they come out more at night). Be sure to check the undersides of leaves, which are a common hiding place for hornworms. When you shine the black light on the hornworms, they will glow green because they are bioluminescent. I bet if you look at YouTube surely somebody has posted a photo of themselves hunting hornworms with a blacklight. Otherwise, in the daytime, watch for the clumps of dark green to blackish frass on the plant leaves. Hornworms, once they are eating voraciously as they reach the later instars, will leave a very obvious trail of caterpiller poop for you to follow.

If you don't have time to can tomatoes, you can wash them, throw them in freezer ziplock bags and save them for a time when you have more time available....like, maybe, on a nice rainy day.

Cucumber bitterness is caused by various stresses, though some varieties will get less bitter than others. Some cucumber varieties are burpless and supposedly bitter free. If you want the names of some of those varieties let me know and I'll list some. However, there are ways to combat the bitterness. Heat and moisture stress are the main reason that cucumbers taste bitter and the best way to avoid bitterness is to never let the cucumber plants dry out once they start bearing fruit. That will help a lot. I really think it is the dryness more than the heat because I don't get bitterness at all some summers as long as I'm good and consistent about keeping the cucumber bed's soil evenly moist. It could be any stress on the plant, which causes the cucurbitacin compounds (usually found in the plant itself, not the fruit) to move into the fruit, but for us, the common stresses at this time of the year are the heat and dryness. I doubt we're having enough cold weather to make cucumber bitterness.

There are ways to make the cucumbers less bitter after you harvest them. I haven't tried this since I don't get bitter cucumbers, but have heard that it works:

Removing Bitterness From Cucumbers After Harvest

With the potatoes, the longer they are left in the soil in the kind of high temperatures/high humidity that we sometimes have in summer, the greater the chance that they could rot, but that doesn't happen very often. If your soil is very dry, they shouldn't rot, but if you are getting lots of rain, they might.

One year (might have been 2012 or maybe 2010) I planted far too many potatoes and was working on digging them in very hot and humid/sporadically rainy weather at least into the first week of July. Some of them did rot---they would look fine until you touched them and then they'd collapse into a watery, soft mess. That's the only year it ever happened to me. I usually dig potatoes in late May or early June, and we rarely have a lot of rain here in summer anyway so usually if I miss a few while digging, they survive just fine and I will find them later in the year (or next year) while digging in the soil. Sometimes I don't ever find them until they sprout and start growing the following Spring. As dry as y'all are now, I cannot imagine this weekend's rain would cause the potatoes to start rotting so quickly that they'd go bad before you could dig them....but I'm just guessing about that.

Be sure you do not leave them anyplace where they're exposed to direct sunlight after you dig them and bring them indoors or they'll turn green and develop excess solanine and you aren't supposed to eat them if that happens.

I wouldn't think that being left in the ground just a couple of weeks after the plants die back would lead to heat/humidity-induced rot, but people I know who've had it happen down here didn't leave their potatoes in the ground for very long either before it happened. I am sure it must take some specific level of soil moisture, heat and humidity to make the rot occur, but I don't know what the combination is since it is a relatively rare occurrence. Right now, with no rain for so long, the ground might be pretty hard and digging potatoes might be difficult anyway. Normally, if you want potatoes that will store well you leave them in the ground for a couple of weeks after the plants die back in order for the skins to thicken up anyhow, but our hot climate is just so tricky sometimes when it comes to cool season crops.

Dawn

What HJ said, Dawn. Your words are not wasted on me. Tune into this channel to learn something new and valuable. So appreciate it all. You all have certainly given me a good veggie growing season. And I said every time someone mentions a new pest, it shows up here--thankfully so far the spider mites have barely made an appearance. Have had run-ins with them at various times in years past, but since it hasn't been dry here, haven't seen them this year much. As with Dawn, got a few on some verbena. Still haven't canned any tomatoes, just washing and throwing them into the freezer. And as with the peppers in outlying beds, I anticipate just harvesting occasional ones, as the plants are all growing and healthy but not so much sun--apparently enough to produce fruit, though, as they are. I expect I'll pull the tomatoes in the raised beds out in a couple weeks.

I have noted that my jalapenos and banana peppers have been producing the most heavily. No problem with that, I love them both. But wish the bells would kick into a higher speed. We're pumped about more potatoes, have them sliced and hardening. Cucumbers are growing good, but will be a while (if the bugs don't find them); and I'm excited about trying to get some good beets this fall. Zinnias all got whacked off by me, and I'm going to demolish them and plant some more seeds for fall, because of mildew.

We're not going to get invested in fall gardening, for the most part, though, as we've got two separate week-long trips coming up, to Wyoming and Minnesota. Always stresses me out a little because of Titan and Daff. We have to leave Titan with Kaida's family and he has to be on a chain, which I HATE (and I know he does, too--but at least he knows them and likes them), and we leave Daff here with a neighbor to check in on her, but she's always stressed by our absence, too. I'm thinking we might try to take the dog to MN with us when we go, as he's so mellow and good. . . we'll see.

Amy. . . your new Honey makes me want to go out and find a puppy just like her. BUT. . . . I think you and DH should make a run down here and bring her with you!! :) . Your garden's looking great.

Yes HJ--you're my new bff, too! Hahahahaha. I laughed so hard cuz I'm so old I'm thinking, "I KNOW bff. I know this, but what does it stand for! (I have a really good memory, it's just short.) Took me like 5 minutes to remember what it meant!" XOXO

Alexis--hope all is good, know you're working way too hard. Bet Wren is keeping you ever busier, and know the heat has to be getting to you.

Likewise, Bon, love it when you check in. And Jerry, I'm enjoying your advice and stories, as well as your expertise, and and LoneJack--some high-powered gardeners out there.

And to the rest of you all...... Eileen--did you have fun Wednesday? I am so sorry I planned poorly, but was mightily preoccupied with our upcoming class and the preparations and study and prayer. Please let me know when you'll be coming out again. Rebecca........... I'm still harboring murderous thoughts about your squirrels and will be fantasizing about ways to deal with them. If I come up with anything I'll let you know.

I love garlic. So happy I got a few developed bulbs. I DO think it works as a pest deterrent and have used it in combination with cayenne, a lot, as a deterrent, and I know it does work; but it takes perseverance, in re-applications. Cinnamon in combination with either of those two also helps. Titan was after a (gopher?/voles?/moles?) . in the back yard--and while I don't really blame him and in fact appreciate his effort, it has been futile, and meanwhile, found 3-4 holes he'd dug into. I filled them back in with some of the imported topsoil dirt we got, mixed a lot of cayenne and garlic with it. Ha! Works as a dog repellant too.

But Titan's gold for a companion. He knows he doesn't go into the beds. Some are fenced with fishing line, but several are not. He's only 3 now, and we thought we bit off more than we could chew when we got him, a 10-month-old German shepherd/husky/wolf mix. We looked for him for 2 weeks before we found him--checked all the GS rescue sites, all the breeders, and finally Craig's list--found him on the 10th page of Craig's list. Ten month old GS/wolf/husky, obedience trained (fraud!!!!!!!! --they didn't say he flunked--LOL). Handsome gangly youngster with bright eyes. Perfect, we thought. Easy, we thought. Not. THE most disrespectful egocentric and difficult guy! His previous owners loved him, but were a young couple in their late 20s who were both so busy with their jobs, they realized they were doing a disservice to him by being gone so long every day--AND, he had to be chained up. They felt so guilty they decided they needed to find him a home. It was touch and go for 3-4 months with him. . . so glad we all persevered!. Neither of us has ever had such a wonderful companion dog. He doesn't understand (or doesn't choose to understand) words as well as my kids' Australian shepherd Brisco, or if he does, doesn't let on, but he is much more intuitive. He's a valuable, loved and important member of our little family.

Honey is more "puppy like" today. Bouncy, investigating, trying (unsuccessfully) to get the cat and the old beagle to play. Generally more active. She slept in a kennel last night with no issues. She's tripped me twice :(

We got 3/4 of an inch of rain (I watered yesterday). It is quite cool out still. Looking at the rainfall map, this round missed those of you who need it most.

I didn't do much yesterday, but it's like having a toddler in the house, always on high alert to see what she'll chew on next.

Rebecca, I sauted eggplant and squash last night. My plants make little ones, smaller than a tennis ball. I just don't like eggplant. Only grew it for DH. Hope you enjoy yours. I just thought of another way to squirrel proof fruit. It was a picture some where. They took the plastic clamshells that strawberries and the like come in and shut it over the fruit. If you run out of knee highs.

Wow, thanks for all the good info, Dawn.

Hmmm...maybe leaving the soaker hose on all night will boost my chance of rain too. AND, if we drag out all of the tools, etc. to work on the coop. I'm going to try that one. The soaker hose really happened. I had a meeting and gave Tom and Ethan the task of turning the water off at 7 last night. They forgot. And I didn't notice when I went out to put the chickens to bed, although they had already put themselves to bed like they always do. I just needed to close their door. Found the water on this morning.

Have y'all ever started cucumbers for a fall garden?

I'm wondering if a place like Party Galaxy would have a black light flashlight. More than likely they're already putting out Halloween stuff. I did see the black caterpillar poop. (and the empty stems from where they/it ate the leaves) Couldn't find the dumb hornworm though.

Nancy, okay! Let's get those BFF necklaces! Seriously, you remind me of my best friend in 7th and 8th grade. Why? I don't know exactly.

Do any of you remember the name of the woman who came to SF who was new to this forum. She had red hair and was wearing maybe a yellow jacket. She came with her husband and they live in the Lake Hefner area (I think). I can't remember her name/screen name. I really liked her, but I don't think she's posted here since the SF.

Are you getting any bells, Nancy? Mine are doing fairly well. But the other peppers are certainly outdoing them.

Amy, it's good that Honey did well in her crate. That's always so nice when they don't cry and whine in the crate.

The chicks are getting too big for the house. I walked into the third bedroom last night and Sunshine was sitting on the rim of the brooder--practicing her roosting maybe? I made a mini roost bar for their brooder. Guess it's not good enough for her. lol. I may have to make a wire cover this afternoon. We aren't ready for them to go outside yet. At least another week.

Back to work.

Nancy, Usually the bells are very slow compared to almost every other pepper. The only peppers I grow that are as slow as bells are the Habaneros. Every now and then the poblanos also are late. This year I planted everything early and everything has produced early. Even the habaneros have set a lot of fruit pretty early, and shishitos that were the last ones I planted already not only have produced green peppers, but a few red ones as well. The bells will make up for it later in the season because even though they can be slow starters, they do produce heavily later on.

Titan sounds precious. I bet he understands every word y'all say, but he knows he can get away with pretending he doesn't. Dogs are funny that way. I'm sitting here looking at my two gray-hair dogs. Jet used to be black and now is salt and pepper with a mostly gray face and paws. Jersey used to be brown (like a Jersey cow) and now she is turning pure white on her face. It is hard to see such visible signs of aging in furbabies that are loved so much. They both had their wild young days but grew into mature, responsible, loving companions. Now they are oldsters, though each of them thinks they can keep up with the two young dogs. They can't keep up with them. Ace and Princess run rings around them, but I also think Ace and Princess keep Jet and Jersey young at heart. When I think of all the times that Jet drove me nuts digging holes in the yard and garden, and it has been several years now since he dug anything....and that is sort of sad because it is just another sign that he's getting old. (Don't tell him I called him old because he would be mad and would pout.)

I did not spend much time in the garden today. I watered out back because the pattypan squash and Armenian cukes looked pretty parched and I wasn't sure they'd make it through today in half-decent shape without some water. That sandy soil sure drains quickly. Mostly I have been processing the harvest. I put up 9 quarts of squash in the freezer, most of that being harvested yesterday or the day before. It sort of has been piling up. I made the mistake of slipping out to the garden after I thought I was done with the squash to see if any more squash had reached a harvestable size since yesterday and found 13 more squash/zucchini, so I'm not through with the squash yet, though I'm setting aside a portion of it for fresh eating. This afternoon will be all about tomatoes after I blanch and pack a little more squash. (Does that surprise anyone? In June, it always is about tomatoes here.) I'm trying hard to catch up on all the produce piled up in the fridge, and on the counters and tables so I can coast through the Independence Day weekend at a more leisurely pace. Sadly, there's a lot of tomatoes that need to be picked, preferably before it rains, but I'm not going to pick them in the heat index we have now, so I'll just focus on processing the ones we have and maybe I can slip outside after dinner and harvest the tomatoes in the cool of the evening just a bit before sunset. I really think the rain won't arrive here until the overnight hours so I should have plenty of time.

Out in the back garden, which I planted really, really late (well, late for me), the okra is blooming, the corn is tasseling, the cucumbers are blooming (but no cukes yet), and some of the winter squash, especially the butternut types, have formed their first fruits. The back garden seems remarkably pest-free so far, but that won't last much longer because it is surrounded on all 4 sides by plain old prairie pasture land filled with dry, stressed plants that probably are harboring a lot of pests.

Dawn

I guess Nancy and I were posting at the same time. I DO want to come see you. I've just kind of put life on hold while we get used to the dog. She's not leash trained yet, will look for a harness today. I suggest you live vicariously puppy wise. We've piddled in the house twice now. I put the recliner footrest down and trapped her in the chair. She looks SOOO sad when I scold her. But she rarely makes any noise at all. Whines to come in when she's outside. Whined outside the bathroom door. I've heard a whimper when she chews her raw hide, which makes me think her teeth hurt. I think she barked at the cat once.

Have to go.

It's raining and I didn't even need to drag out the coop-building tools (as suggested above). Hopefully it will amount to something.

After getting home from work, I stuck a few more melon seeds in the garden...and a few Seminole pumpkin seeds. And noticed that some of the crane melons and Southern peas are up.

Some advice about volunteer Seminole or OFTV (or a cross of the two), please. These plants are (were) infested with all sizes of squash bugs. The disease is apparent on much of the plant. SVB have tried to bore in, and some have been successful. The ones who weren't successful have oddly wrapped themselves in leaves and it looks like they are pretending to bore through the leaves, which I guess they are because they are in wads of leaves. Does that make sense? I should have taken a picture, but was in a hurry. It was weird. I quickly killed every bug I could find and scraped off all eggs. Here's the deal. These plants are half dead. Literally, half of the plant (s) is (are) dead. BUT, they are putting out new and healthy foliage and I even found some small fruit. What should I do with these plants? What would you do? They are just outside of the garden bed for some reason, so I'm pulling out the grass and weeds that surround them. This is mostly why they are so infested with squash bugs. They hide down in the grass and it's takes extra time to clean everything out.

Well, the rain has ended. LOL. It got my car splotchy that's about it.

Can't remember having so much trouble with blossom end rot on my 40 or so tomatoes. And this in a year (after retiring) when I've been consistent with watering.

I also grew too many determinates (which were not plagued with BER). Lettuce and greens are done for now but sweet potatoes and melons seem to be on their way. You guys that find something to do with carrot tops amaze me.

Starting on fall plantings next week, lot of which will be in the greenhouse, where I'll have to fight for room with my wife's butterfly garden plantings.

Neil

Pantyhose covers still holding well.

Have 3 Charleston Belle peppers harvested and in the fridge. First ones of the year. They seem to like the heat. Big Bertha has now topped 5 feet in height, still blooming, but dropping all flowers. The producing Charleston Belles are between 2-3 feet tall. Peppers are weird. And do you wait for Cayennes to turn red to harvest them, or is green as good?

Harvested a gallon size bag of spinach tonight. Spinach in July. Spinach is weird too.

I have some work to do on the tomato plants. They all look like crap, although some more than others. Still blooming and putting out flowers, though. I'm at least getting great fruit set still. All my paste types died. Guess I'll yank those out and save the pots for brussles sprouts. I have a few tomatoes sprouting, but they aren't ready yet and neither am I.

Amy, When Ace and Princess were puppies, we discovered dog training pads. Why had I never heard of those before? Oh, maybe because our last puppy was Jersey way back in 2007, and I don't remember any issues with her so she might have been housebroken when we got here. We bought the dog training pads in a yellow box at CostCo. I don't know the brand name but those are better than anything we found at any pet store or big box store. We still leave one puppy training pad in the corner of Tim's office when we leave the dogs indoors for a long period of time while we are away, and they'll use it if they have to 'go'. It is such a relief to not have to clean up messes off the floor and then mop it when we get back from a fire or a day in Texas or whatever.

I'm convinced those sad puppy faces are a well-practiced con artist technique to keep the darling little puppies from getting into too much trouble.

Hazel, Either of your volunteers are C. moschata so should be largely SVB-resistant, but sometimes a really determined or desperate grub can bore into them, and often the way they try to do it is thru the leaf petiole. I am not sure if there's a place there where the petiole attaches to the vine that might be a weaker spot they can tunnel into or not.

One of the ways the C. moschatas survive in our climate is that they outgrow pest damage and disease, so yours are behaving exactly as I'd expect. Normally mine will outgrow whatever pests and diseases Mother Nature can throw at them and produce until fall, so I'd leave the plants alone and give them a chance to outgrow what is happening to them now. If they look really awful and you aren't comfortable leaving them, it certainly is not too late to take them out, but since they're starting to produce, that wouldn't be my first choice. It is unfortunate they're in the lawn as that gives bugs a place to hide. You have my sympathy in dealing with that.

Oh, there goes a weather alert.....only a Significant Weather Advisory and not even for my part of the county but the Dispatcher mentioned winds strong enough to bring down trees and power lines, so if I disappear, it won't be because a twisty, twirly wind got me....it will be because they lose power in town and we lose our internet service.

I was hoping for more for you than just a splotchy car. Y'all have been waiting so long for a good soaking rain.

Hi Neil,

First, congratulations on your retirement. Woo hoo! That's certainly something to celebrate.

I'm sorry that BER is such a problem this year. Some years are just that way and it is so frustrating. Hopefully the plants will settle down and behave themselves for the rest of the summer. I think all this erratic weather the last couple of months hasn't done our gardens any favors.

I don't have any BER issues but we have an army of stink bugs doing massive damage to the tomato fruit and now they're moving on to the beans. It's gonna be a long summer of stink bugs I guess.

Have fun getting the fall garden stuff started. Since y'all are further north than me, I lag behind y'all by a couple of weeks in that regard since we plant later down here for fall. I'm having a hard time getting overly enthusiastic about fall when we're in drought, but I'll start the seeds soon and give it my best shot anyhow. This isn't the worse summer drought ever, so that makes me somewhat hopeful.

I'd better hurry up and post this before the storms in NW Love County knock out the power. I also want to run outside and take a peek at the skies. I'm hearing from the guys out in northwestern Love County that they are seeing quite a lightning show out there, and I think I am beginning to hear distant thunder.

Later!

Dawn

Glad your getting some bells Rebecca. I

m preforming a miracle on mine and bringing them back from the dead from bad bad fungus infestations from wet weather/

The Cayenne Pepper. What a wonderful pepper variety that has stood the test of time and for good reason. I used to grow tons of those things. Don't know why I stopped really. I just grow mostly Tabasco and Scotch Bonnets now.

You can pick them green or red it is of no matter.

I always picked them red if I was going to dry them. You take a needle and thread and run through the stem ends and the strings of peppers are simply gorgeous hanging up in the kitchen. You can use this kinda like the red pepper flakes like the ones at pizza chains or grind them in the infamous powder. Good sprinkled on about anything really. If I was going to pickle them in vinegar then I picked the green, But, you can do either its just how I did it.

I have some sun scald on a few bells that are on the west side of my house. Next year, I'll only plant native wildflowers in that bed. Luckily the other pepper bed is doing fine other than an aphid attack on a couple of plants. Jerry, what did you do with the cayenne? Or rather, how did you grind them up. We have a ton of peppers but not sure what to do with all of it. And we like cayenne pepper too for pasta dishes and pizza. Just sure how process it though. Oh, and most of ours is purple.

Dawn, we have quite a lightning show going on too. That, along with the fireworks, is quite entertaining. Just sad that the rain missed us. Good luck with the rain falling on you. Hopeful for you and happy that so many others got it.

Hazel- Dried you can just crumple one up in a dish when cooking. I sometimes used a hand food ginder/mill. It had multiple disks for fine and coarse and even down to one for peanut butter. You can use a blender too. I do this in a blender now to Ancho peppers and make a powder for my brisket rub. Its best to try to get at least some of the seeds out as you fill the hopper. You have to keep shaking and tilting the blender to make the bigger pieces go down towards the blades. And, you have to be careful with a hotter pepper though. disposible gloves maybe a pair of glasses or don't rub your eyes... you know, they can hurt your feelins.

You can get a decorative jar with heated straight vinegar and pretty much just pour over the peppers. Add a few allspice(pimento) seeds if you like.

I have one beside the cook stove now that has been there at least 2 years. Then you just tong one out as you need it cooking. And you can chunk more3 in later as you go. Its an ongoing system.

You can freeze them or can them like pickles too.

Never seen Purple ones before. I just had the old ones that turned from green to red and dried darker red.

Oh dear. . . . where am I, what am I doing. Total sidetrack today. Kaida's been having problems with her lower jaw the past week, teeth, possible earache. Come to find out, it began before she came over, but she minimized it because she wanted to come. She's been taking some Tylenol and Oragel, but it got the best of her this morning, so she called her Mom, and GDW and I took her home. Our best guess (her Mom's and hers and ours) is that with new molars, her teeth are too crowded together. As that's when she began having this problem off and on; so a trip to ER this afternoon for x-rays and then to the dentist Monday.

And then I was expecting it to be raining this morning. As you know, we and most of the rest of the east are not currently in the drought area. Feeling a bit guilty; I'm so sorry the rest of so many of you are! We got 1.5" this morning from about 5 to 9. And I was surprised it was raining when I got up; and things were wet enough that not much I could do in the gardens, then when Kaida got up (late . . . she is in heaven here sleeping late), she was in so much pain we sprang into action. And she was distressed and tearful that she couldn't go to fireworks with us tomorrow. (And now that she won't be here, we certainly won't go! LOL) . So GDW and I kind of lollygagged coming home from their house.

To further complicate the day, I HATE TECHY issues!!!!!! GDW can't live without his Willy Nelson Roadshow. And I've not been a fan (please forgive me you all; just remember I was a French horn major in college; and French horns aren't very often found in country music. .. . . . hmmm, maybe some bright gifted country song writer or singer might consider it. . .), but yesterday for some unknown reason we could not get Sirius's Will Nelson Road Show. Emergency ALERT! ALERT!! Garry is as helpless with these kinds of things as I am with auto mechanics or electricity issues. And so it falls on me.

I hate dealing with Sirius. And I have thought on more than one occasion that I could save us $200 or so a year if I can get my act together enough to find streaming music for him that would be less onerous for me. . . but I never got around to it; although I'm better than many folks over 50 with that kind of odious stuff, it doesn't come easy. So when Sirius quit yesterday, I was having fits, not for me, but for him (and remember--I don't even LIKE country music!!!! How's that for sacrificing for the other! LOL) . So when we had to take Kaida home today, I spent most of the hour trip getting us linked up with streamed country music. Hurt my brain. Mightily hurt my brain. But got 'er done. Then I had an involved conversation with the more savvy one, the 13-yr old about which streaming services were good, and so on. So when I got home, I checked into things, and I already have Amazon Prime, so got that app and stream. Spent the entire evening building a playlist for GDW that wasn't too horrible for me, and in fact, pretty darned good, and included some oldies that both of us have in common; I left out the ones I hated, but included many of his favorites that weren't on Willie's Road Show. I had several on when we had to drive into town yet once again this evening and got 'er going. GDW was astonished hearing some of what I knew were his favorites (and that I actually like) and not knowing this was a list I was creating for him, said, "WOW. This is a lot better than Willie's Road Show!" He was so tickled. I haven't yet told him I am customizing a play list for him that will be acceptable to me, too. . . . at this point he thinks I found a magical station that has great music on it! I'll wait a while before I clue him in--but I bet he'll figure it out before that. And meanwhile, I'm thrilled to know that although we've only been back together for 3 years, I know the stuff he likes.

Yeah, so this whole evening while he was in watching the Texas Rangers, I was out here adding songs to GDW's playlist. I'd say this is a labor of love, would you not agree?

Please forgive me for my totally not-gardening babbling. I'm not happy about it either. But that was my day.

OH, but I did pick off 2 dozen tomatoes today! (That's not as impressive as it might seem to those who, like me, only have 16 plants--because they're all half the size of what I'd like a tomato to be. But healthy and good. I'll take 'em.) . And I am LOVING the way the sweet potatoes and cucumber plants are rampantly growing!

I must take a pic of the Mexican sunflowers in the shop raised bed--they are hysterical. I can't reach the tops to deadhead. So funny it must be to the neighbors who drive by. I've had to stake some of them up with some of the heavy rains we've had. . . but, Dawn, those plants are winners in a full sun garden! Those and the datura. Brugmansia is almost taller than me now . . . but I'm freaking a little. I was thinking today since I put it in the ground instead of container (and the one I got is supposedly hardy to 7) I may have to cover it with a frost blanket in the coming winter, and have a whole lot of leaf mulch around it. Would be a shame to see such a plant perish.

Appreciated your input on the jalapenos, Jerry. Took note and will do, as I'm getting a lot of them.

HJ, like you, we got a dusting of rain here tonight. I am so sorry you didn't get the early morning stuff we had. Forecast for here was heavy rains tonight. . . . LOL. I checked the radar two hours ago and the probability had gone from 80% to 15%. The rain crossed over south of us. Good for them, good for us! Here's my question to you. Why didn't your bff from jr high make it through the rest of your life?? Oh, and I'll have to check out Amazon for a bff bracelet. Don't think I could do a necklace. You see, if you have a necklace, you can't SEE it.

So, Dawn. . . did you GET the rain? And thanks for the reassurance about the bells. They're working on it and I've noticed that a few of them are getting strong and growing VERY well with some blossoms.

Where is KIM????

I'm sorry this was so long, I have been babbling. Just scroll right on down, friends.

Rebecca, I usually harvest Anaheims and pretty much all peppers green earlier in the season. It's a greed thing. Instead of waiting a couple more weeks for the peppers to turn to their mature red color, I want to pick them and use them now, largely in order to allow the plants to bloom more and set more fruit. Later in the season I let peppers go to their mature color which, for most pepper varieties I grow is red, except the habaneros turn orange. I let peppers better at their mature red stage as the flavor is better, but they don't hold long in the fridge once they've gone red, so I always remain mindful that their shelf life is short at that stage. I pickle, can, freeze and ferment a lot of peppers and like to have both red and green when I pickle, can and ferment because the contrast in colors is so pretty. If making pepper jelly I use only red or only green in any given batch because brown jelly does not look appetizing.

Jerry, Congrats on performing a miracle and saving your pepper plants!

Hazel, We had crazy wind. When it first started up, I sent a text to Tim at the EOC that said "wind is really picking up". By the time I typed that and sent it, CRAZY wind had picked up so I sent another text that said Crazy Wind had arrived. Within about 2 minutes of that, our VFD was being paged for a semi tractor-trailer truck blown over on the highway near our neighborhood. What followed was several hours of wind, lightning, thunder, noise, wrecks, power outages, more wrecks, more power outages, power poles and trees down, power lines down, fires, etc. There is wind damage to some structures, mostly west of us as far as I know so far. Rain? Bah, humbug, it was light and didn't last long. We got about a third of an inch. I cannot believe how little rain fell in comparison to all the wind, thunder and lightning.

So, I know that your area and mine got shorted on rain and that means July is going to be extra hard on our gardens---especially in your area. To me, it feels like my area has had sort of a lot of rain lately, especially compared to central OK, but our June rainfall still was only about half of average at our house, so it only feels like a lot compared to how little rain fell in April and May. This makes me really dread July and August. Our June water bill arrives next week and how high it is likely will determine how much I choose to water in July. I think I did a really good job of watering only when it was absolutely critical to do so in order to avoid BER and/or plant death, and I think I didn't run up a huge water bill doing so. I hope I'm right about that. I'm only willing to spend so much money on watering the garden in the summer, so at some point if rain doesn't fall, I will just have to stop watering everything but the perennials and the dozen or so containers. Really, once you each a certain level of dryness, watering might keep plants alive but it doesn't keep them producing well so then all that watering becomes pointless and just an exercise in frustration. However, it also is frustrating to stop watering and watch plants wither away and die.

Jerry, I have a bottle of hot pepper flavored vinegar sitting beside the stove too, but mine is only a year old. I made it with chickenheart peppers last summer. I have another jar of pepper vinegar sitting in a cabinet that I made at the same time.

Nancy, Poor Kaida! Do you think it is her wisdom teeth causing the problem? They often force their way in when there's really no room for them. I hope the dentist can resolve the issue quickly so she isn't in such pain. Bless her heart. I bet she hated having her visit with y'all cut short.

Congrats on fixing the country music issue! What you did for Garry definitely was a labor of love, but you don't need for me to tell you that! I love Willie Nelson, but I grew up in Texas so of course I do. lol. I especially love his stuff from the 1970s. I don't listen to music much. I spend so much time outdoors and cannot listen to music there or I'm likely to miss the sound of a rattlesnake rattling, and that rattle has saved me from being bitten more than once.

About the Mexican sunflowers, all I can say is I told you so! lol. They get so huge that the wind blows them over here. I didn't even plant any this year because we were so dry and their foliage turns black in the years when I cannot keep them wet enough and I knew this was one of those years. I doubt you'll have that problem there.

We got lots of destruction from wind and lightning and relatively little rain in our county. (shrug) That's about typical for summer so I'm not surprised at all. It is going to be a really rough July if the rainfall doesn't pick up, and then there's still August after that.

Dawn

Nancy, I forgot to mention Kim. I'm sure we'll hear from Kim tomorrow or Monday. She went to TX last week to visit her mom and other family members and I'm sure that when she got back home she had to work some really long hours harvesting to get ready for today's market. About the only thing I remember seeing from her on FB this week was the schedule for the Farmer's Market.

Dawn

The dog is not on a second shift schedule. Maybe I should cover the crate with a blanket so it stays dark longer. After going outside she went and nibbled DH's toes so we were both awake. I have had some really big dogs and grandchildren stopped by the kiddy gate. She knocked it down chasing the cat. Poor cat. She is not pleased. I'm going to have to look into the training pads. As long as I remember to take her out often, we're ok. But she's not housetrained by any means.

H/J, she whines a little when I first put her in the crate, but she's been amazingly accepting of it. I've been amazed that she hasn't cried for her momma and siblings.

I can't imagine chickens in the house. Your Sunshine sounds like Speckles, too smart for her own good.

I had SVB attack a tromoncino. Eventually that year the SVB and squash bugs and whatever diseases they carry did it in. Enough SVB damage to the leaves means it can't get enough chlorophyll (or can't use it or whatever that process is). I had such a problem that year I didn't even grow squash the next year. I also think it was an exceptionally bad year for the pests. IF I really wanted to keep the plant, I would wet it down with BT to kill any new attackers, and do my best to keep squash bugs at bay. Maybe it will outgrow the damage.

Rebecca, a 5 foot tall pepper plant, wow! Mine all look stunted, but they have peppers on them. I'm amazed at the spinach thing, too. How does it taste?

I've had a lot of BER this year, too. I've been blaming it on containers, because that's where I'm seeing it.

I can see my flower beds from the kitchen window, they are making me happy. The purple cone flower is blooming. The rudbeckia is blooming. The salmon four o'clocks are gorgeous. Gaillardia. Some phlox finally bloomed, still have alyssum, scarlet flax, the fuzzy blue flowers whose name I've forgotten. There is a deep purple Lara Bush petunia this morning.

The year we had a massive cayenne harvest (who really needs a six pack of cayennes?) I threaded some as Jerry described, I used some to make a fermented tabasco like sauce, I dehydrated in the dehydrator (outside), and we took a piece of pegboard and put the stems in the holes so the peppers stood upside down to dry. Some of those molded, but the mold was INSIDE. I broke them in half to see if they were good before I used them. I always meant to make a capsaicin cream with it. Didn't happen. I did break them up and throw them in garden beds to keep my dog from wallowing there, and when the rabbit tried to nest in the garlic, I did the same thing. I grow them now, just for that.

Nancy, I'm sorry to hear about your granddaughter, I know she was disappointed. DH is off from the 4th through the following Sunday. Is there a day in there we could get together? Message me on Facebook if you want.

I was going to suggest Pandora. Didn't even know Prime had that. Will have to look it up. Pandora had a deal where you put in an artist and it would give you a channel of similar artists. I found a guitarist I liked better than the original.

I'm sorry those who needed it didn't get more rain.

My turnips molded in the fridge. How do you store them? Maybe because they were salad turnips they spoiled quicker?

Amy. From the former non-veggie gardener/flower only. I think I like vegetables much better this year than flowers. Flowers plus not-much sun=floppy green plants. I'll message ya. I can picture yours, at least and that makes me happy.

Please ignore the Johnson grass growing over the fence. See the little cream flowers on the left front? Called Cherry Carmel. Alyssum next to those. Can't hardly see the other blooms in the pic. A gazania bloomed today in that clump of leaves on the right and gaillardia is in the right corner. Yeah, there's a volunteer lettuce plant bolting in the back, and the big plant on the left is Tansy. The only thing the chickens didn't kill. At least that's what I think it is, it hasn't bloomed, just got big.

Dawn--whoaaaaa. Willie Nelson's different. He's in a class by himself--a consummate musician! It'd be downright un-American not to love Willie Nelson--he's a national treasure! And there are some I actually love listening to--Don Williams, Josh Turner, and many of the rest of them, depending on the songs. Okay okay. so I like some country. :)

I got another couple dozen tomatoes today, and there ought to be that many tomorrow too, I'm thinking. I'll take every one of those little buggers I can get. We'll plant potatoes Monday. GDW got one bed done (widened). I spent the day doing some much-needed weeding and deadheading flowers; cleaning out the side-by-side fridge/freezer, and the small upright. Actually have room in the upright for as many tomatoes as I'll freeze prior to canning, I think. And my stash of frozen peppers is growing.

(Not Kaida's teeth at this point, though wisdom teeth are on their way. TMJ and a bacterial pharyngitis. So she's on antbiotics and will be getting a mouth guard for the TMJ.) .

So I was laughing a few minutes ago, told GDW, "Good. Now we don't have to go watch fireworks." (They're right down at the Marina a scant mile away--normally we can see enough of them through the tops of the trees, but the trees are so plush this year, not possible.) He agreed. But then he said, "Well, we've been talking about fishing in the evening. If you wanted to see them from the lake, we could take some sandwiches and (Not Your Dad's) root beer and go fishing. . ." SO--that's going to be OUR evening. What hoot--that'll be fun! Brilliant, GDW!

The amaranth looks awesome; and now you need to go take a pic of the 4 o'clocks so we can see that pretty salmon color again!! Do you have shasta daisies? If not, want some? The brown-eyed Susan and bee balm should flush out nicely by next year, right? And the petunias and the echinacea. Two of my echinacea are in too much shade, gotta move 'em. BTW, Your yard looks lovely.

HJ, how many pepper plants did you put in? I have 16 scattered around, I think--with 7 (8?) bells (CA Wonder), 2 bananas, and the rest jalapeno. Today I see half a dozen small but growing bells; so looks like they're getting ready to go, Dawn.

Well I best to get our sandwiches made while Garry took the boat to get gas in it. Woo-hoo! Have a super evening everyone!

Amy, Our dogs do adapt to Tim's shifts which is great on the days he's working, but on the days he is off, they start whining and making noise because they want to go out at 5 a.m. whether he is awake and getting up or not, so guess who gets up and let them out? They wake me up, so I let them out, naturally. A tornado hitting our house wouldn't wake up Tim, so he sleeps through it all. The sleepyhead dogs also go to sleep early like Tim does, so at 9 pm last night they were all confused that I wasn't turning off lights and putting everyone to bed. I think we were up until about midnight, and the dogs were getting grumpier and grumpier but wouldn't go to sleep until we did. Tim was gone most of that time, either working at the EOC or running on fire calls, and you'd think the dogs would clue in....they hear the fire truck sirens going down the road and howl right along with them. I wonder if they know those sirens are affiliated with Tim's absence from our home?

Turnips will store from 4-5 days to maybe 2 weeks in the fridge depending on how wet or dry they were when harvested. I remove the greens, clean and dry the turnips, wrap them in paper towels to absorb excess moisture and put them in ziplock bags. For longer term storage, you can store them in sand or sawdust in a cool, dry location like a cellar (good luck finding a place that stays cool enough in summer, but it is possible with a fall harvest). I am not sure why yours molded. Perhaps the really rainy spring just made their moisture content too high, and there's nothing you can do about that. In some parts of the country, folks leave them in the beds over the winter, harvesting as needed, but you have to cut off the foliage and it helps to turn each turnip a half-twist in the ground to make the roots stop trying to continue growth. I don't know if it would work here since we don't get all that cold in winter any more.

I do believe the plant you identified as tansy is tansy. My regular tansy started blooming a couple of weeks ago, but the silver tansy hasn't bloomed yet.

Nancy, I agree that Willie is in a class of his own. He won't live forever and it will be such a sad day when he departs from this earth. I like even his oldest stuff better than what passes for modern day country music (so much of which seems more like pop to me). I guess it hardly matters because I hardly listen to to the current country music. I love old, classic country....including Waylon, Willie and the Boys...and Johnny Cash....the Highwaymen...George Jones....Don Williams....George Strait (he's still alive!), and the women....Loretta Lynn...Tammy Wynette....the incomparable Dolly Parton....Kitty Wells....Reba....Emmylou Harris....Patsy Cline. And, of course, having grown up in Texas, I love western swing and know that Bob Wills is still the king! Practically everyone I used to listen to is either dead or well on their way, and that is sad.

Poor Kaida. Well, at least they know what it is and solutions for it. I hope she feels better quickly. It seems like the kids have such a short summer any more, and I hate that she's feeling to crappy to really enjoy it. Stores here have had 'back to college' and 'back to school' crap for weeks now...and I keep saying to myself that summer just began....why ruin it for the kids and parents by pushing back to school in June???? I suppose the retail world will start putting Christmas stuff on the shelves on July 5th. (Actually, Hobby Lobby started putting out Xmas stuff 3 or 4 weeks ago and I was not even ready to see that yet.)

Before our trees got so tall we could see three or four distant fireworks shows without leaving our property, although we often would go up the road a little bit to a friend's place on higher ground than ours for an even better view. We could see the fireworks from Lake Murray in Carter County, from the Falconhead area in western Love County, and from the WinStar Casino east of Thackerville. Then sometimes we could see more distant fireworks shows from other places in Texas. Now that the trees are so tall all around the house and yard, I don't think we can see any of them.....and I don't much care. Been there, done that, blah, blah, blah. Usually on July 4th itself, Tim is at work and I am in the kitchen canning. He's off this year so I probably won't be in the kitchen canning, but I'm hoping for a quiet day/evening at home with no actual fires. I don't think we've had enough rain to keep fields from catching on fire when folks set off their own fireworks so my wishes for a quiet day and evening might not come true. Our first couple of years of living here, we'd go up to Lake Murray and spend the day at the lake and attempt to stay to watch the fireworks and that was a really long, hot day and we came home with Chris and his cousins asleep in the car and us adults all worn out. It was fun, but I don't miss doing that now.

The older I get, the happier I am to just be at home at what Tim jokingly calls "The Compound". There's more than enough to keep me busy here all the time, and other than the weekly shopping and errands, if there's anything I want to buy (other than plants), I can just order it online and have it delivered. I think I could have lived 100 or 150 years ago and been a pioneer and would have been perfectly happy---except for the snakes. My grandmother was born in 1898....and I think that would have been a fascinating era in which to live, though life certainly was much harder back then. When we first moved here, I met a neighbor who came here in a covered wagon before statehood. I remember being both horrified and fascinated when he mentioned that his uncle made them a dugout home in the bank of the Red River. Maybe that would have been a tiny bit too rustic for me.

We stayed cloudy and cool until mid-afternoon and it was so pleasant, and then the sun came out and ruined everything. At least one half or almost 2/3s of July 1st had really pleasant weather.

Dawn

I thought turnips kept longer than that. I will know better next year. Already decided succession sowing on those would be better than all at once. I will do something to preserve them.

I watched the fireworks from a boat on a lake (Grand?) when I was single. It's a great view. We usually go to my son's for the 4th to watch fireworks. He lives in an apartment on the golf course where they do the fireworks. I don't know how the dogs will deal with fireworks. So far Honey hasn't seemed concerned. I know my old dog hates them. I give her benadril to dope her up that night. My daughter won't be going because the dog who got shot is terrified of fireworks. I was always afraid if we left our house would burn down from some idiot shooting things off in the neighborhood. We can see fireworks from our yard still. You always end up fighting mosquitoes, though. Dawn, I hope you have an uneventful 4th.

The older I get, the more I hate crowds. We took #1 son to a Riverparks event in Tulsa when he was maybe 2 or 3. Idiots were shooting Roman candles at each other in the crowd. Last time we ever went there. There is always someone being rude or unsafe.

I was a dyed in the wool rocker (and disco sucks) until I heard Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain. We moved to country rather than listen to disco. Took a class in country dancing after #2 was born. I was never any good at it.

The dog woke me at 6:45 again this morning. If you don't go to bed till 1:30, that's early. Too, early. And that is when she's rowdiest. I tried sitting out side with her, but the mosquitoes were bad.

Yesterday I pushed some more Haricot Rouge Du Burkina Faso (why such a long name?) In the ground since only 3 came up the first time. All other cowpeas are doing great. The second batch of Armenian cukes came up great. Will those cross with regular cukes? I used the last of my seeds, wondered if I can save seeds for those. The cosmos flowers I threw in that bed are sprouting but I don't see okra there yet. No winter squash sprouts either.

It is sultry and hazy out. My least favorite kind of heat. I guess the chickens need some frozen peas today.

I saw the stupid white cabbage worm butterfly yesterday. :p

Kitchen stuff today. Almost time for DH to go to work.

Amy, I assume the long name is simply the local name (or a seedsavers name) for Red Pea (Bean) of Burkina-Faso (which probably is the west African nation from whence the seed was collected). The French language in the name likely is because French is their official language. And (sigh) when you and I were in middle school or high school and studied geography, this nation probably still was known as Upper Volta, so the name could be Haricots Rouge du Upper Volta had the seed been found prior to the mid-1980s. I usually just call it Red Burkina Faso here at home where I am the only one who knows what it is anyhow....or sometimes just red cowpea since it is the only deep red I'm growing (I think).

The Cucurbita family can be quite promiscuous and lots of crossing occurs between some species in the genus, but your Armenian cucumbers (which really are melons harvested young for use as cucumbers) are Cucumis melo and will cross only with other C. melo melons (muskmelons, cantaloupes, casaba melons, honeydews). Your regular cucumbers are Cucumis sativus and will cross with other true cucumbers but not with melons. Thus you should be able to save seeds of the Armenian cucumbers and have them come true if you do not have any of the other Cucumis sativus melons in bloom at the same time.

It would be much more complicated if we were talking about the crossing that can go on between members of the C. pepo, C. maxima, C. argyrosperma (used to be C. mixta) and C. moschata families. In those cases, some pumpkins and winter squash cross easily and others don't.

It is sultry and hazy here too. Our heat index hit 106 but it seems like it is dropping now. Regardless, it is a better day to be indoors in the air conditioning than outdoors. We released the two chicks today from the brooder to run free with the big chickens. They are about half-grown so ought to be able to protect themselves from Pumpkin, who likes to stalk and harass chickens but doesn't actually hurt them...he just follows them around and occasionally swats at one of their fluffy butts with his paw. Tim found three new chicks hatched this morning underneath the brooder (which sits up on legs) with their mama who still is setting on other legs. Chris built the brooder low to the coop floor so it must be a banty under there because I don't think a standard hen could sit on a nest beneath the brooder, and you really cannot reach the tiny chicks to pull them out from under there and put them in the brooder, so Tim left them with their mother who went bat**** crazy and jumped all over him as he grabbed each baby chick and dunked its bill in the chick waterer to show it how to drink. I probably would have gone ahead and moved them to the brooder if I were doing it, but then the anxious mama hen would freak out and abandon her nest in an effort to move to the brooder with the hatched chicks, so he didn't. The last thing we needed was more chicks, but when a hen goes broody in a hard-to-reach spot, it is almost impossible to stop them.

There's nothing left in my garden that the cabbage butterflies/moths like except for cleome. I don't know why they like cleome, but they do. We have a lot of butterflies out visiting the flowers today, so that was nice to see.

Our VFD only has been paged out twice today---one small fire and one medical call---and we were down in Texas and missed them both. I hope to work in the garden tomorrow to make up for staying inside as much as possible this weekend. I think if I get up and out of the house early tomorrow, I can sort of beat the heat.

We have more wind today and are finding more tree limbs down from the storm the other night, but none of them fell in the garden or onto the house, so they aren't a problem---just something to pick up and throw on a hugelkultur bed that is in the process of being built.

I need to start thinking ahead and planning for fall, which means I need to stop filling up the beds with more southern peas and winter squash. It is just so easy to start them at this time of the year and they tolerate heat so well that I just keep planting more. There's too many squash plants now as it is, but I suspect the pests will take care of that for me over the next few weeks. We're in drought. Drought stresses plants. Pests attack stressed plants. Hence, the excess squash plants won't last all that long. I've been putting as much squash in the freezer as possible and may start pickling some since the harvest of fresh squash won't last forever. I'm sort of surprised it has lasted this long.

Dawn

Got back thursday from spending a week in the woods with 2 dozen jr highs. Great group this year, minimal issues, but I was exhausted and played lazy yesterday and Friday. Husband dear didnt bother ti water while I was gone, but I made sure to soak everything before I left and the heavy clay kept everything sufficiently moistened. See, there are sime good reasons to have clay soil. Oh, and I came home to find 3 ripe tomatoes (my first of the year).

I got to meet Chelsea (think that's her ID) today & get some cuttings of her roses. Hopefully I can get at least 1 to root for her.

Hi Jen. Welcome back. Glad you had a good time in the woods, with minimal issues. Congrats on the tomatoes. I'm so glad you're going to try to root Chelsea's rose.

Okay. I have searched for my hornworm. Can't find it. It has moved over to a SunGold plant. I haven't used a black light though. But, here's a thought. Grasshoppers. I seem to have several grasshoppers in my garden this year. Do they eat plants the same way a hornworm would? Could it be grasshopper damage instead of a hornworm. Hmmm....

Anyway, I hope everyone is having a great Sunday. I didn't read any posts yet, except Jen's. Oh, and we almost got some rain. It turned real dark and a cool wind blew in. No rain, though.

Good storm here. Haven't made it out to check the rain gauge yet. Too wet still. Enough wind to bring down a tree branch that knocked a part of my patio pergola off onto the elevated cable line. Still have cable, though.

Have to put some time into the garden tomorrow. Been spending time with family and just haven't been back there. But since I need to take the ladder out to untangle the cable line, I'll be there tomorrow.

I can imagine the kids wore you out, Jennifer--they're energy-suckers! But fun. I laughed remembering your prediction of your DH's iffy watering attention. Good for you that you armed your plants beforehand.

I thought to look at our forecast about 3 this afternoon--I hadn't realized rain was perhaps on its way. So I quick ran out, planted 4 more cucumbers and the newly hardened off potatoes, along with some dill. Gotta soak some beet seeds tonight. I Have 6 4-lb bags in the freezer and if I can tomorrow, should have a total of 7. That should give me a start, eh. I don't expect I'll have more than 50-60 lbs, altogether for now. But am happy for them. Noticed two nice volunteers coming up with the sweet potatoes, so think I'll move them over to the cucumber bed, since I put the new potatoes in the same bed with the sweet potatoes. Now I have one bell pepper (CA Wonder) that has gone into crazy grow mode and is about 3 1/2 feet tall with 3 small bells that get bigger each day and several more little ones. Are those typically good producers? Sure hoping so!

Ripped zinnias out today, but only got half before it began raining. I'll finish up tomorrow and just plant a new batch. And though I read and heard that deer seldom bother echinacea, Some gourmet deer pest had to chew off all the flower of the two in the shop bed. Should have gotten that fishing line fence up when I thought of it last week!

I also avoid crowds, like the plague. And when we first mentioned fireworks last night, neither of us was a bit interested until Garry mentioned fishing. Well that seemed like a no-brainer, fishing while watching fireworks. Sure enough, just as the fireworks finale ended, I got a GOOD one, and then my reel fell off the pole. By then it was dark, so I just grabbed the line while Garry managed to put the reel back on. It was 3-4 lbs, and quite a tussle at first without a pole or reel or light. And we were laughing so hard, that didn't help matters. We would have loved to have stayed out a while longer, but had to get up for church--as it was, we didn't get home til midnight. So much nicer fishing without the hot sun beating down!

Dawn, I had to go look up Burkina Faso. I was surprised Upper Volta became a country in 1958, I figured between YOUR Jr High days and MINE that it got a new name. But no, my geography is just long since forgotten. It is close to Benin where my friend lived for awhile. When you mentioned Africa, I remembered the catalog description. Still, I'm not writing the full name every time I talk about it. It's just too much.

I do have a melon across the path from the Armenian, but my success with melons has been marginal, it may be done by the time I want to save seeds.

I've been thinking I need to plan for fall too. Why don't we get to deal with summer first?

Jen, you are a braver woman than I. Even a week with my own Jr Highers would have been too much for me. I managed a weekend with girl scouts at Devils Den. DH used to do Boy Scouts, but he is the kind of person has no problem being the authority figure. The kids were scared of him. The other leaders would threaten them. Don't wake Mr L up. You know what happens then. (He would have made them police the camp for a couple of hours).

H/J, go out with a regular flashlight, I've heard the white on them shows up better at night. Black light is better, but finding them is important. I don't have an answer about grasshoppers. Yes they eat a lot. I'm not sure about frass.

I'm glad you had fun on the lake, Nancy. I thought you were going to say you lost the pole overboard. I lost my dad's good fishing pole in an Arkansas lake when I was a kid. My brother and I managed to tip over the canoe. Got in trouble cause we didn't have life jackets on.

I've not gotten much done today. How does that happen? I am such a good procrastinator. Picked tomatoes. One winter squash has sprouted, one okra from the second planting.

We got, at most, 1/4" of rain. Lots of hat, not much cowboy ;)

I will go out and do that, Amy. It's crazy. I see the stems where the leaves have been eaten but can't see a single hornworm, unlike last year when I found several!

Burkina Faso caught my eye. One of my very dearest friends EVER was a missionary there for several years. She is still traveling in life, but wants to settle down and garden someday. She does garden when and how she can. So, I MUST tell her about these peas. This makes me miss her so much. I think I'll send her an email now...right after I check the tomatoes for hornwoms and try to settle the dogs. They are so upset by the fireworks.