July 2017, Week 3, General Garden Conversation & Harvest Talk

6 years ago

Good Morning and welcome to the start of another work week. I hope everyone's weekend was wonderful.

So, here we are in the dog days of summer. Just think, y'all, if we can get through the next two weeks, then guess what? August will be here and, normally, early August brings us the hottest weather of the year. So, that's all I've got---nothing to look forward to, weatherwise, just heat, heat and more heat.

This is the time of the year when the heat drives us indoors, but also often drives pests into our gardens. I don't worry much about pests at this time of the year unless they are present in huge numbers and are doing irreparable damage to plants that still are producing well. If they are on old, tired plants that I am not emotionally invested in, then I just ignore them. That's not much of anything that would make me spray a broad-spectrum pesticide anyhow, and it is much too hot to be out there hand-picking any pest of any kind. At this point in time I don't think there's any plant in the garden I'm invested enough in to make me stand there and hand-pick any pest off of it. Maybe the fall tomatoes.

I'm going to water the front garden this morning. Other than that, I have no big plan except just trying to stay cool. Maybe I'll harvest. Honestly, at this time of the year, the name of the game is to stay cool and avoid snake bites. If I can do those two things, then the garden and I will limp along, quietly and with as little hard effort as possible, through the next 4 or 5 weeks of insanely hot weather while waiting for the late summer/early autumn cooldown to arrive. I hate this time of year except for all the yummy fresh hot-season food coming into the kitchen. Oh, and the butterflies. We've had butterflies all summer but the numbers appear to be increasing daily. I guess we finally have the hot weather they thrive in.

What's new with y'all?

Dawn

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jerrydaniel87

6 years ago

last modified: 6 years ago

Not too terrible down SE. Around 96 for highs. High heat doesn't bother me its the stinkin humidity. Drying out like it is it feels like a sauna about 4. o, clock. My only complaint is that now that I am almost bald, the dang sweat just rolls straight down in my eyes now and I can't see diddly squat.

I grew up in TX. though and worked as a boilermaker/welder for years. You know, I'm one of those crazy guys that run around town in summer with the window rolled down in a truck with a long sleeved Khaki welding shirt on. I LIKE IT HOT BABY.

Wife just informed me that I am going to get more canning jars. She's the boss but hate to buy to many as then you don't need them and they take up room storing them. Not that I don't have plenty of room, its just they will always seem to be in the way and the older I get the less junk I want around to have to shuffle around. We had a ton of them at one time and I scaled way back.

You know the problem is my last daughter leaves for college this year. IT's just going to be me and the wife. And dummy me goes to growing a garden like every one is still around. Empty Nest- Full Cubbard Syndrome.

I admit I am bad about planting to much. Its just the way I was raised. I grew up on a cattle ranch with 2-3 generations of some of the best southern cooks that could flat rattle them pans in the kitchen with 10-11 course layout three times a day. I can still remember my dad and grandfather laying of 150ft rows of stuff. Dangit son if your going to grow something grow it. Ha. For me thats the hardes part of gardening is trying to figure out how much you need to plant. You don't know how many plants will survive, what bugs will hit you or how the weather will be. I thought my garden this year looked a little scaled back and scrawny mesef, and then we get all the water.

I always had some big strapping hungry farm boys around to feed and those guys could put away some groceries growing up. My oldest boy, I don't think you could have ever exactly filled his hollow leg. I even threated them with getting a milk cow and making them milk it when they were teenagers and the wife was going through 3-4 gallons a week.

It has kinda just now dawned on me, This empty nest thingy is going to take some getting used to.

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Comments (103)

hazelinok
6 years ago
Started reading back to Amy's post 17 hours ago. My garden is a jungle too. I've never worried about snakes, but now I am. There are places that the grass/weeds in the pathways are so tall that anything could be hiding in there. Hopefully next year, we will get some mulch on those pathways. Reading thru the next several posts, it seems like everyone's gardens are jungles.

Rebecca I'm so sorry about your tomatoes. It's so frustrating. Several years ago, at our last house, we didn't have a garden, so I had tomato plants in pots. The birds got all of my tomatoes. It's weird that they haven't bothered them (yet) at this house.

Sigh. Just called into a meeting. I'll never catch up here. So...HI Everyone! I'll read through the posts 'cause I know that there's good stuff that I've missed. Probably won't comment at this point though. Everyone stay cool today. Don't overdo it.
AmyinOwasso/zone 6b
6 years ago
Yeah, we've reached 90* in my yard (mesonet says 87 with heat index of 96). I weeded the flower beds and the perennial onion bed. Lots of male flowers on the east side cucumbers. West side are just sitting there. Does County Fair make a good slicing cuke? All the slicers are on the west side. I don't want to buy any more crummy cukes. The ones I fermented were soft in the middle.

I'm pleased to have flowers blooming. I threw some zinnia seeds out there, but I didn't see any sign of them today. Too hot to germinate? I will want something blooming next month, too. I noticed yesterday the asparagus bed is a solid mass of fronds. There is Korean squash in there, but you can't even see it. Think I should put some garden tone on it? same with onions. Suddenly the okra plants are huge and I'm wondering if I put too much in that bed.

Honey goes to the vet again today.

Dawn, I'm sorry about the tragedy you and the VFD witnessed. My youngest flipped a pickup end over end. He was bruised from the seat belt, but they could find nothing else wrong with him. My kids are/were all very conscientious about seat belts, and each has had an experience where seat belts saved them from harm. I was typing when you posted. I think my seeds were labeled Scarlet Sage, from Wildseed Farms, but latin name is the same, Salvia coccinea (Lamiaceae). It is growing at the foot of the 4' tall tansy, so they can battle it out. I will be deadheading the tansy, that just started to bloom.

Rebecca, I'm sorry. Have you got a friend with a dog they could loan you? Honey would just think the stockings were a chew toy, but we used to have dogs that would chase squirrels. I feel your pain, it's like watching the chicken stick her head under the fence I had just constructed and shinny on in.

Well, Jerry, enjoy your time off. So sorry to hear about your wife's hands.

I've been feeding the oversized squash to the chickens. I cooked one. Really bland. The big long one is really hard skinned, I'd guess fully matured. I know they're hybrids, but I wonder what I'd get from seeds.

Have a good day, people.
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I'm so far behind I'll never catch up but I did read everything and I'm keeping my response minimal since it is time to start this week's new thread. Amy, Time off from a garden can be good. We all work too hard at this time of the year. Hazel, The best way to dig is with a special potato fork that has rounded edges on the prongs so they don't stab the potatoes, but I'm too cheap to spend money on a tool I'd only use a handful of days per year, so I used a transplanting spade with a rounded edge. Start further out than you have been and proceed slowly and with patience in order to avoid cutting into potatoes. Just use the cut ones first as sometimes they do not scar over and heal (though sometimes they do) and the ones that don't scar over will not store for long. A tomato knife is essential for someone who grows and processes as many as I do, and I did find one yesterday. I had to buy an entire cutlery set to get it, but it was an inexpensive set so I didn't mind. I wanted that tomato knife. I am going to go online one day and order a couple more. It is just I have tomatoes piling up everywhere now and need to be able to quickly cut them and use them and the tomato knife makes it easier. Melissa, Don't worry about being behind. Some years are just that way. We all have to work with whatever weather conditions we get. I am so sorry about your niece's injuries and will keep her in my thoughts and prayers. What a horrible way for her summer to start. I saw the story on the news and was horrified at the thought of those kids being in that bounce house when that happened. Jerry, That is an amazing corn story. Sometimes plants can be so resilient and I think often that many gardeners are too quick to write them off and either yank them out or plow them under instead of letting them recover on their own. Nancy, In your case, because of all the rain you have received, it is a good thing that the tomatoes are not closer to harvest. If they were, the excess moisture likely would ruin the flavor. Flavor is best if they are kept pretty dry as they approach harvest. So, for me, as much as I lament the lack of rainfall down here, it isn't really a bad thing for the tomatoes as it means their flavor compounds won't be watered down and they won't be suffering from cracking and splitting either. The first time I grew Mexican sunflowers, I wasn't prepared for how big they'd get. I space them much better nowadays so they don't crowd out everything else. Our dear, sweet Mary normally grows a ton of veggies and cans all summer long, both of which are a huge amount of work, of course. She is trying to take off this season in order to recover from what I'd describe as a major cardiac event so hasn't been posting here much. I was so happy to hear from her the other day and to know she is going to have a few plants. 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Rebecca, I'd just cut off all the damaged leaves and let the Brandy Boy put out new growth. It likely would be fine. Nancy, Cucumbers planted late will do fine. I planted my pickling cukes late on purpose (just last week I think, or at the end of the week before), except for 2 early plants I planted in late March, so that I could spread out the canning load. The cucumber plants from the seeds I just sowed will not be producing a harvest until I'm through canning tomatoes, which was my goal. Having too many things that need to be canned all at once can be a real problem, so I try to control the canning workload by using planting dates to spread out the harvest. You even can get a good cucumber harvest from cucumbers planted in July down here, and I expect it is the same up there. My honest opinion is that if you want more sun, get your sweet husband to cut down that tree now. As time goes on, the shade situation just worsens. I speak from experience. Now that you two both are enjoying gardening so much, it will be important to maintain sunny areas for your veggies, fruits and sun-loving flowers. There is a place in each landscape for both sun and shade, and too much shade (though shade is highly desirable in our hot summers) is not a good thing. Okay, it is Monday moring and I'm headed off to start this workweek's new weekly garden talk thread. Dawn
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Nancy, I used to wonder aloud, even here on this forum, how it was that 10 of our 14.4 acres are heavily wooded and yet we rarely saw a squirrel. It wasn't that I was complaining, but it just seemed odd. I suppose the dogs we had in our early years scared them away. Well, the old dogs don't scare them and this year we have tons of them. I agree they are just rodents with bushy tails. I have been ignoring them in the yard, but if they start getting in the garden, they are going to be in trouble. Long, long ago we raised a baby squirrel using kitten milk replacer and the tiny bottle that comes with it. We never knew what happened to its mother, but had had a vicious thunderstorm and this baby probably fell out of a squirrel nest and she didn't come find it. It was so small that Chris, who was probably 13 or 14 at the time, walked around wearing a pocket t-shirt with the squirrel riding in the pocket. It spent the rest of its time in a hamster cage or being bottle fed. Later on it transitioned to a nut/fruit/seed blend meant for birds. Finally, when it seemed large enough to release, he'd put the squirrel outdoors in the morning for ever-lengthening periods of time (just like hardening off plants, lol), but whenever he went outside to check on it, it would run to him and come back indoors. One day, it didn't come back and we knew it had successfully gone back into the wild. That was a relief. I didn't want to have a pet squirrel in a cage in the house forever. Nowadays, I don't know if anyone in this family would want to get up at night to bottle feed a tree rat. Y'all do seem heavily overpopulated by squirrels this year. If the nut-bearing native trees up there produced as heavily last fall as they did down here, that's the reason why. We had so many acorns from the oak trees that walking in the yard was like trying to walk on marbles or golf balls, depending on the oak variety. 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Kaida sounds absolutely so precious and it touches my heart so much that she clearly adores you and trusts you and will sit and open her heart up to you and share all her thoughts, dreams, feelings and more. Someones when somebody remarries later on in life, the family is not so accepting of/loving towards the new spouse, but clearly they all have embraced you as their own and that is special too. Kaida herself sounds like she is such a precious gift and I know you surely treasure her in your life. I'm glad you're a sucker for kids. I know you will not regret one moment spent with her this summer and, hey, now you've got two more hands available for weeding! You certainly inherited a fine bunch of folks in the younger generations when you married Garry, so surely your life overflows with many blessings. I know it doesn't make you miss your son and his family back in MN any less, but it is nice to have the new kids, grandkids and great-grandkids geographically closer to you, isn't it? Millie, I didn't know that. What a horrible thing to use around edible plants! I do know that many, many products that once sold and widely used have been banned. When I was a kid, they sprayed DDT as the solution to everything. I always hated that stuff, but we were stupid kids, and when the big tanker truck was driving up and down all our local streets spraying for mosquitoes in the 1960s, we idiot children road our bicycles behind in the mist coming from that truck. It is a wonder we aren't all dead. My dad never used many chemicals, and as he got older, he progressively used them less and less until he was almost to the point of being organic by the time Alzheimer's Disease stole his mind and he gave up gardening because he no longer remembered how to do it. The few chemicals he used, he kept in a chest in the garage and we knew we were not even allowed to open the door to that thing. Our government does a lot of crazy things, and I just try to ignore it and them as much as possible. The tobacco thing is perplexing, but it is what it is--a sign of how dysfunctional our federal govenment has become, not that our state government is any better either. Hazel, If I had to choose between garden time and internet time, the garden would win every time. Since I'm home all day, I usually have time for both. Peppers are prone to sunscald in our climate. The plants can produce more fruit than their foliage can cover. When I see that happening, I try to remember to give them some extra nitrogen and extra water to push more foliar growth. When you first notice sunscalded peppers, if you bring them inside, you can cut out the bad part and use the rest of the pepper. If you don't notice the sunscald until later on, often the fruit will begin rotting inside from the damage. 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Juy 2017 Week 2, General Garden and Harvest Talk
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Amy, You are a saint. I hope all the fun the kids had makes up for all the pain and tiredness you had to endure, and I hope you're catching up on your rest. Being too tired to sleep is the worst thing on earth and I get that way a lot during planting season. My dad, having Alzheimer's, hit the acceptance stage early, probably when he was in his early to mid 70s (he lived to be 85). He knew what the AD would do to him as it progressed because it ran through his family like wildfire (one reason we kids are so glad we were adopted and didn't have his family's genetics) and, since he was one of the youngest of 9 kids, he'd witnessed it killing many of his older brothers and sisters. While he was very early in his Alzheimer's Disease, he and my mom did all the right things with DNRs, medical power of attorney given to my oldest sibling with me as the backup if anything happened to him, making their wishes very clear and in writing, etc. I don't think my mom reached acceptance until the last couple of years of her life, and my dad has been gone since 2004. When Daddy was put into hospice care in the last week of his life, then my mom freaked out and wanted to rescind his DNR and medical power of attorney (thankfully she could not reverse his earlier decisions that way because he had suffered long enough). So, from watching her I think I have learned the importance of accepting the inevitable and of knowing when to fight and when to let go. At least I hope I have. I'd never try to prolong the life of a loved one needlessly if they were terminally ill and the quality of their life was extremely poor---I think we do too much of that in this life as it is. I hold my grandmother in my heart, soul and mind as an example of a strong woman who did everything in her power to stay healthy and live a long life but who also was ready to go when the time came. Nancy, Our gardens teach us so much if only we listen to them. My garden has taught me that there's nothing on this earth that grows and invades as relentlessly as bermuda grass. lol. Digging it out and staying on top of it is all that has worked for me. I'm glad you're going 'home' to visit your mom even though I know it also is hard to be away from everything/everyone here for a prolonged period as well. Tim's mom had an atypical case of Lou Gherig's Disease that did not present with the typical symptons and which was, therefore, not diagosed during the three or so years that her health was in a steep decline. Tim's sister, who worked in a field related to the medical industry, was taking her mom to one specialist after another seeing answers, treament and a diagnosis and, quite honestly, wasn't getting anything helpful from them. At one point I remember telling Tim "I think it is Lou Gehrig's Disease" (we were driving someone and I was reading a newspaper article about someone else who had LGD with the same nontypical symptoms as his mom's) and none of them could see it like I could, so my amateur diagnosis was ignored. I think that was because they were so close to their own mother emotionally that they couldn't objectively consider that LGD might be what it was since she did not have the usual symptoms. So, anyhow, when a doctor finally diagnosed her and put her in the hospital, his sisters told him her time was going to be short and that he should fly up and spend time with her while he could. They were talking in terms of months, not days or weeks at that point. He immediately booked a flight for the following week and made arrangements to take time off from work. He was going to fly up on the following Wednesday. He even figured he'd try to go up there for a week here and there over the next few months. The doctors thought she'd last at least another few months but instead she died the night before Tim was scheduled to fly. It was heart-wrenching. He, of course, would have flow up immediately if anyone had said she might not last another week. For all that medical science knows and can do, we still just never know when somebody's time will come. Of all 4 of our parents, my mom was the one who didn't care about trying to be healthy---she didn't eat properly, didn't exercise, etc. My dad and Tim's parents all tried really hard to eat healthy, stay active, etc. So, I guess in one way it is ironic that she outlived them all by well over a decade, but she was a decade younger than them so that may have played a role in it as well. Dawn
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July 2017, Week 4, Garden Talk
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Rebecca, If I had small boys who would enjoy shooting squirrels, I'd put them in the car and drive all day to bring them to you. I hope you can find a couple of little guys to borrow who want to come over and hang out with you and shoot squirrels with big Super Soaker type water guns. Augustus and the chickens do enjoy the sprinkler. I put a sprinkler in the yard and run it for them every so often---generally not long enough to really help the grass, but long enough for everyone to play in it. It isn't just the poultry that enjoy it--wild birds of every size from huge crows to tiny hummingbirds also enjoy having the sprinkler on. They especially love when I have it on underneath trees so that they can sit in the trees and let the water from the sprinkler cool them down while they sit there. This is how Tim knows he is married to a lunatic woman----he'll come home from work, the sprinkler will be on in the yard and he'll walk inside and say "gave up on rain and watering the yard?" and I'll say "nope, watering the birds". lol Or, he'll come home from work and there's huge puddles in the driveway. He'll ask hopefully "Did it rain?" and I'll say "Nope. I made puddles for the birds and the butterflies." I also will turn on the soaker hoses to water the clay soil around the foundation so that the foundation won't crack and shift (we've been successful so far---here since 1999 and the foundation remains intact despite some huge cracks in the ground in areas where I don't water). The soaker hose doesn't run at a high enough rate to really cause puddles, but it wets down the ground and the chickens will lay on the wet ground because it feels slightly cooler. Whatever it takes. In really hot weather, we run fans in the chicken coops to at least give them some air flow. Even when I stop watering the garden for the most part, I never stop watering the birds or the soil around the foundation. Melissa, Hopefully the plants will recover. If a person must spray with soap, it is best to use a real insecticidal soap like Safer's Insecticidal Soap as it is micronized so it is less likely to burn---and also because it is real soap. Back in the day (when all of us were much younger) you could use dishwashing liquid because it really was made of soap. So, flash forward to the 2000s and dishwashing liquids are not soap any more---they are much harsher detergents and also contain degreasers and other chemicals that can strip the cuticles off plants and leave them vulnerable to burning---either chemical burning or sunscalding due to the stripped cuticles. You still can buy real soap in most stores--look for the bars of Fels-Naptha on the laundry aisle (just cut shavings off them and dissolve them in water), or Murphy's Oil Soap, which the last time I checked still is soap and not detergent. Or, if you have any local stores that carry the Dr. Bronner's line of pure castille soap (or any brand of castille soap), those are real soap and not detergents. I always have Dr. Bronner's lavender soap, and usually his peppermint soap and tea tree oil soap on hand all the time, but use them more for pests around the house---like ants trying to come indoors, for example. I do not actually use soap in the garden myself. Well, maybe once every few years, and the only way I use it in the garden itself is to walk out to the garden with Safer's Insecticidal Soap in a spray bottle in my hand and then I spray the soap directly on the pest that is vexing me---which only would be blister beetles or a cluster of squash bug or leaf-footed bug nymphs. Nothing else is enough of a problem for me to bother with the soap. I never spray soap on my plants if I can avoid it--other than whatever tiny portion of the plant gets hit when I'm spraying a blister bug or a cluster of freshly-hatched nymphs. I don't think soap is good for plants in our climate and avoid its use as much as possible. Really, I always start with the lowest toxicity solution as a part of IPM and that's hand-picking the bugs and then dropping them into soapy water to drown, cutting them in half with my scissors or carrying a bowl of soapy water and flicking pests off the plants and into the bowl of soapy water....and I bet I don't do any of the above more than a half-dozen times per year. I just wait for the beneficial insects to kill the bad guys, and then I deal with the few bad guys that the beneficials aren't able to control. I've learned that the less I use pesticides in my garden, the fewer insects I have overall, and that is true virtually every year. When I start interfering in the natural ecosystem of the garden, that's when pest problems skyrocket. I hope you get the rain that is in your forecast. They keep pushing our rain further out and decreasing the expected amount, so my hopes are falling accordingly. It has to rain again eventually, but y'all need it a lot worse up there so I surely hope you get it. Nancy, Poor downtown Wagoner. I hate it when a downtown area burns---often you lose some charming older, historical buildings and that is sad. I'm glad you had a good day with your mom....and then you got to see her in what probably is her more usual (lately) confused state. It is a reminder of how dementia works---even after over a decade with Alzheimer's and a long, slow decline, my dad still could have a rare lucid moment or hour here or there where it seemed like he was himself again for a while. Those rare lucid periods became more and more rare (almost nonexistent) near the end, but then on his last week, when he was in hospice care, it was like God gave him back to us for a day or so and we had actual conversations for the first time in a couple of years, and he seemed to have a clue about who we were and what was going on....and then a couple of days later he was gone. I am so grateful we had that couple of good days before we lost him. To me, just those couple of good days felt like some sort of miracle. It was hard on my mom, though, because she misinterpreted those good days as a sign he had miraculously been cured of Alzheimer's Disease and started second-guessing everything that was going on medically. It sounds like your trip has been very eventful. If I was only going to grow one black tomato, and flavor was all that mattered, I'd grown Black Krim. A lot of people don't like it though because it splits and cracks a lot in heavy rainfall and is not the most productive plant. So, for someone who might have high expectations for higher productivity and less cracking, maybe JD's Special C Tex (it is really early in my garden), Vorlon (also early), True Black Brandywine, Black From Tula or Carbon. Or, if your friend would prefer a hybrid, then he cannot go wrong with Cherokee Carbon, a hybrid of Cherokee Purple and Carbon. I continue to pray for all of you and for Titan's situation. I so hope that he is cured. I hope the new vet will have some better options that help him recover and without the misery of throwing up the antiobiotics over and over again. Poor doggy. I know it is stressful for Gary to have to deal with it alone but he is perfectly capable and you need to enjoy your time up there and not rush back prematurely after everything you went through on that long, long drive. When we first moved here from Ft. Worth, I missed everybody and everything terribly and drove back down there almost weekly. For a long time, Oklahoma felt like the new place and Texas felt like home. I never second guessed our decision to move here but it sure took me a long time to adjust. Gradually over time the driving down to Ft Worth so often ceased and eventually almost halted altogether other than trips down for family get-togethers and holidays. At some point, I realized that I had let go of the idea that Fort Worth was home...now it is the place where I gew up, but it stopping feeling like home in the early 2000s. The growth down in the metro area is just so massive and miles and miles of once open-countryside that I adored is now just one big massive new housing development and the accompanying strip malls after another. Every time we drive down, there's less countryside and more concrete---and at an astonishing rate. I hate all the concrete and the traffic and I hate seeing former farmland continually converted to more concrete. Now, when we are down there, even though I am thrilled to spend time with my family, the fact is that we cannot get in that car, get out of there and get back up here to our rural area quickly enough for me. I believe the DFW metro area has gained a couple of million people since we left it. That is insane, and it is never-ending. Southern Oklahoma is and always will be home despite the frustration of near-constant drought and venomous snakes. Moving here still is the best decision we've ever made. Lots of Texas areas that still had somewhat reasonably priced land when we moved here and that might have been viable options for rural country living down in Texas closer to our family are just concrete jungles now and I'm so glad we choose to move further out to an area we thought would stay rural for the rest of our lives. Many of the little rural Texas towns we loved and could have relocated to back then are huge now---like Frisco and Celina. Even Denton, which wasn't small but still had semi-rural neighborhods, is huge now and not nearly so many rural or semi-rural areas remain around it. I know you'll be happy to get back home to Oklahoma where you belong, but it also is good that you got to make that trip home to spend time with your loved ones. Dawn
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Rebecca (7a)
6 years ago
Heat index is 100 at 11am.

I don't even want to look at the tomatoes today. Not just because of the heat, but I don't want to see what else I'm missing.
jerrydaniel87
6 years ago
last modified: 6 years ago
Holy Cow Amy, that King Kong squash is as big as my watermelons this year. Incredible. My watermelons were really kicking but then the drowning rains and now the scorching heat and they just seem to be stalled and pouting right here at the last, at least the ones that did not rot.

Oh, and fermented pickles sometimes are softer after they ferment but placing them in the fridge after they get to your level of desired sourness seem to tighten them right back up. Tannic leaves, using smaller pickle size cukes say 3.5" or less and cutting the blossom end off and using fresh picked as possible helps. But you probably know this already. Pickling cukes make excellent slicers to me, just peel them before tossing them in a salad.

I don't know why the strain of Kentucky Wonder beans I got have strings then. You know how it goes with these seed people these days. But they have em.

Found 6 more cantaloupes that were ripe this morning. Jeez you are right Dawn. Its all at once it seems. I remember watching these things grown and know darn well that they pollinated at different times over a few weeks but they still ripen all at once it seems. Must be the heat. We are scheduled for 100 degrees for the next 5 days.

My wife peels one of the cantaloupes and put it in the juicer with get this, a piece of cucumber, a handful of blackberries, a celery stalk and the cantaloupe and made herself a smoothie drink this morning. She said it was so refreshing and delicious. She asked me if I wanted one but I declined. Something about cukes and celery with cantaloupe and berries just don't mix for me. Its either fruit or veggies but together? BLEeeAACK..... women. I'll stick to my own Purple Drank. Ha

I am at the point of having to make a choice either to water or just let it go. I'm thinking I will just try to wrap it up and start a smaller fall garden after it cools off some. Stuff is in pretty bad shape and most stuff is either spent or winding down anyways.

I am not ready to retire just yet, but I think I will just work for myself for a while after I get caught up on some things. My place is paid for so its all good. The older I get I just don't play as well with others as I used to I guess. I think my patience with know it all idiots is just worn thin over the years. Or, I'm just becoming a cranky old codger one of the two.

Stay cool everyone, stay hydrated and go slow out there. Its brutal and if you do anything past just breathing you are drenched.
Okiedawn OK Zone 7
Original Author
6 years ago
last modified: 6 years ago
The heat is not so bad (for OK in summer, if y'all know what I mean) but the heat index certainly is pretty bad.

I'd didn't last long outdoors this morning, but then I wasn't even trying. I just tried to take care of the poultry, feed the wildlife, water the containers and get back indoors as quickly as possible.

Amy, Well, at least you won't run out of peanut butter. I keep a lot of beans in the pantry too---Bush's baked beans, black beans, refried beans, and I hate it when we run out of one kind or another because often I plan a meal predicated on those beans being there....and, then, occasionally they aren't there.

H/J, Hope the meeting was not boring beyond all reason. The garden jungle is common in July, and it is only a problem (in my mind) if a person lives in an area where venomous snakes are common. Having said that, even a bite from a non-venomous snake can be bad news if it gets infected....so, I guess all we can do is watch where we put our feet and hands.

Amy, County Fair is fine as a slicing cuke. At least I think so, but I'm not real picky about cucumbers. As long as you're keeping its soil moist, it doesn't get bitter.

Softness in fermented pickles can occur for a plethora of reasons. Here's the ones I can think of: the salt brine used during fermentation was too weak, the garlic (if used) and/or spices were old or moldy, that important 1/16" of an inch wasn't cut off the blossom end of each cucumber prior to fermenting, there was too little brine relative to the number of cucumbers so that some were not fully immersed in the brine or the weight was too small in diameter so some cucumbers floated above the weight holding them down beneath the brine, the location where you fermented was exceeding the ideal range of 70-75 degrees during the fermentation period, the pickles were not properly processed in a BWB canner following the end of the fermentation period, or the cucumbers were too old (if it had been longer since 24 hours when they were picked) or too large (a length of 4" or shorter is ideal for fermentation). Whew. After listing all that (and I'm sure there's other reasons I didn't think of), it seems amazing to me that we get properly fermented pickles at all when you think of how many things could go wrong with them.

This car was so mangled that I do not even know if they could tell if it rolled from side to side or flipped end over end, but I guess in the end, it doesn't matter--the results were just horrible. I just feel so bad for the family, you know? Their son left home to go wherever and they were expecting him to return. They weren't expecting to get a phone call or a knock on the door like they did last night. I think that's why I tossed and turned and couldn't sleep---just trying to imagine what they were going through and feeling so bad for them, while simultaneously feeling grateful our family never had experienced a similar tragedy. We know far too many people who've lost a child in motor vehicle accidents.

Scarlet sage and Texas hummingbird sage are the same thing. I believe Texas hummingbird sage is the old traditional name from decades ago, and Scarlet Sage came into wider usage as it became a popular plant in places outside of Texas. It is an awesome plant. I doubt tansy can hurt it other than looming over it like a gigantic hovering nanny and maybe falling over on top of it if it ever rains again and the tansy gets a big late-season growth spurt.

Every single day I'm moving closer to stopping the watering and letting at least 75% of the garden go. I feel like it is a decision I will make in the next 3 or 4 days, and I feel pretty certain I'll stop with the watering. There's a part of me that says I ought to try to tough it out until the end of July, but with poor prospects for meaningful rainfall ....I just don't think it would pay off.

Jerry, Melons are so bad about coming in all at once like that, aren't they? We are eating watermelon and muskmelon every day (almost at every meal) just trying to eat them all before they can go bad. I realize that there's worse problems to have. I try to spread out the harvest by succession planting some melons, but somehow it seems like the ones planted later always manage to catch up with those planted earlier and then they all are ripe at the same time anyway. You cannot manipulate Mother Nature---that's the lesson I take away from that! If she wouldn't let the late ones catch up with the earlier ones, I'd get a longer harvest spread out in a more reasonable way.

I totally understand letting the rest of the summer garden go and waiting for cooler weather for a fall garden. I'm about there with you. I wish I could have one somewhat cool day to yank out all the plants I don't want to water. It would be easier to let them go if I didn't have to look at them.

I do want to keep the peppers going a bit longer. I love canning, fermenting, dehydrating and freezing tons of peppers to enjoy the rest of the year.

It might be time to play Survivor in the garden---stop watering and just see what happens and to whom. Well, except for the fall tomatoes. If I can keep the rapidly hatching grasshoppers from devouring them, I'd like to water them and keep them going.

It is 99 degrees here at this point and our forecast is for 99 degrees, so I expect we'll hit at least 100 or 101.

I find I am less tolerant of stupidity and foolishness as I get older.....so if that makes me cranky and hard to get along with, then I am cranky and hard to get along with. I 'retired' while in my early 30s so I could be a stay at home mom and never went back to a paying job. My friends gave me hell for giving up a good career at the time (the early 1990s) but I've never regretted it, even though living on one salary is much harder than living on two. I am stubborn and I like being the boss of me too.

Our county has had a grass fire today, following a series of small ones yesterday. Here we are, only two weeks removed from most of the county getting 3-5" of rainfall, and stuff is burning anyway. At least the fires are small and easy to control. I feel bad for the firefighters (and cops and paramedics) who have to be out in this heat.

My son is a professional firefighter, and they train year-round, regardless of the weather. So, today their training is live fuel fires....because, you know, on a day in Dallas when the temperature is outrageous and you have a Heat Advisory, it is a good idea to send your firefighters out to fight live fuel fires. Y'all can guess how many times I've texted him "stay hydrated" messages today.

Okie dokie, back to the kitchen for me. I need to finish before the sun gets far enough west to heat up the kitchen more than I'm already heating it up.

Y'all stay cool, comfortable and hydrated. Can we just cancel the rest of summer gardening season and stay indoors until September?

Dawn
hazelinok
6 years ago
Jerry and Dawn, when did y'all start your melons? Mine have no fruit on them yet.

Jerry, a couple of years ago I grew Kentucky Wonder pole beans and they were stringy.

I'm not sure if we have venomous snakes. We probably could, right? It still feels creepy stepping into some of the areas of my garden right now.

Dawn, the meeting was not boring. Normally, our meetings are sorta interesting and can be fun. Today's meeting was over-the-top fun and funny. I work with good people. BUT, it's annoying when I finally sit down to answer emails, reply to messages, post here...it's time to do something else/be somewhere else/etc.

Update on our Blanco sink. The people who sold it to us are coming out tomorrow so we are making progress there.

We are also making progress on the chickens. The pen part is built, SO, the chicks can be outside all day and I'll bring them in at dark to sleep. It's not actually completed--we need to make a proper roof for it, but it should be good temporarily.

In garden news, I found several cucumbers! When did those grow? I tasted one and it's good, but they are deformed a little. Oh well, I'm so happy to get some finally. There was a squash bug on them and a patch of eggs. Seriously. My garden is a squash bug magnet. It seems none of y'all have the ridiculous issues with squash bugs and SVB to the degree that I do.

The garden is a mess. It will have to stay that way for awhile.

:)
hazelinok
6 years ago
Comfrey?
Rebecca (7a)
6 years ago
The heat index was 100 at 11am today. It was 100 at 8:30pm tonight. I don't want to know where it got to during the day. I was inside, at work, and didn't want to go out.

I did bring in two cucumbers and a blushing Creole today. Didn't take that close a look at anything else back there. We are supposed to get a small break in the heat early next week. Looks like I'm going to have to double down then and start yanking and planting. Very limited time to get it all done. Would bush beans be ok planted in the next week, or too hot? Root crops I know need to wait a bit longer.

I wonder what is making so many people have so much squirrel trouble this year? Maybe the warmer winters? I know this wasn't nearly as big a problem for me last year. Definitely not talking about rat traps and squirrel stew. And I wonder about the chances it'll happen again next year.
Nancy RW (zone 7)
6 years ago
I've never grown comfrey before, but it looks like my comfrey, except I didn't pay attention to the flowers on mine. And now there are new ones ready to open; as I recall they were pink and looked like that. Dawn will have confirmed by the time I'm up in the morning to go look at mine again. lol .

Well, I tried out the Westie (that's what we call my Mpls grandson) sauce maker today. Only I prefer crushed tomatoes, so we pulled the peels off all those little paste tomatoes anyway as well as cores of the regular ones and then fed them through the hopper, and afterward, emptied the pulp into the food processor and pulsed it a bit and added it back into the sauce. I guess there's probably an easier way? But they certainly had the consistency I wanted as they cooked down a little. And, Amy, darned if I didn't almost forget to put the citric acid in! I'm thinking we're only going to get about 40 pints from the tomatoes in the freezer. But this Abu Rama plant is coming on strong now, and an Illini in the center bed will have a few now and then. And we have 3 volunteers growing fast in the raised beds, as well as the Cherokee purples we put in. So I'm hoping for more. Can never have too many canned tomatoes and/or salsa. (Well, this is relative--some you can, as we know!)

Will bell peppers begin producing again as the weather cools a little? I sure hope so--we didn't have a lot of them, and I haven't gotten as many as I'd hoped for. . . None of mine are in dry brutal sun all day, and they DO seem to still be putting on.

The volunteer potato we have in our compost is healthy and about 3 feet in diameter now and full of pretty potato flowers, and just as happy as it can be. And it's been growing for like 3 months now. Shows no sign of getting spent. Since we already unearthed 3 largish potatoes from it last month, I am expecting a miraculous plethora of potatoes eventually. haha! That's where one of our volunteer tomatoes is, too. I am remembering just one year ago when we such an abundance of dry materials for the compost and no green stuff. Now all of a sudden we have tons of green stuff, no dry stuff. Amuses me, but I figure it will all even out in the long run.

Dawn, I was actually nauseous reading about the car accident, and it brought tears to my eyes. I can indeed understand why you couldn't sleep. I had a hard time with it, too, and I only just have heard about it. My heart is so heavy for those young people and their loved ones. My first son, Russell, died in a bone marrow transplant. Four years later my other son was in a near-fatal accident. A large garbage truck turned left in front of him at an intersection (where Wade had the green light). Someone caught it on camera, and then the follow-up Fire Department jaws-of-life extrication. (I saw all of that in the next few days.) A passer-by was an EMT (his name was Jeff Foxworthy) and kept him breathing while the extrication was going on. It was Christmas Eve and a week before his 21st birthday, and he was on his way back to my house from shopping with his college friends. I got the call at 4:44 from the hospital. I asked if he was conscious, they said, "uhhh yes." I didn't know whether to take the Bible or the oatmeal-raisin cookies I'd baked for him; I first called one of my closest friends and she told me not to move, she was on her way to pick me up. And then I took both the cookies and the Bible. It was bad (the hospital kinda lied-- :) ). He had a closed-head injury and was in a coma for 9 days. . . both legs were broken with compound fractures, both arms were broken, and multiple bones in his right hand; his lungs were collapsed, several back vertebrae were cracked. He came out of the coma, but a lot of folks who have a subdural hematoma have significant brain damage. . . he definitely went through significant personality changes with it (that lasted for several years), but not physical limitations. He was in the hospital for two months (and they wouldn't release him back to his apt at college, but only to my house (which they came and checked out first to make sure it was adequate to accommodate him, seeing as he had four badly broken limbs) and then in and out of the hospital for follow-up surgeries for another almost two years. This is hard to articulate, but on that Christmas Eve night, when it was touch and go, I went outside for a moment (a crisp cold beautiful snow-covered night) and, of course, prayed to God with all my heart. And I felt the answer, "He is going to be fine." So I went back in and from that moment on, never had a worry. Wow. Please forgive me for going on and on and on. . . . but this tragic horrible car accident just brought it all back up like it was yesterday. Wade's wife, my dear DIL, is a saint and a blessing to Wade AND to me. They got married while his personality was still so volatile and depressive and all over the place. Now 20 years later, he is finally leveling off in a wonderful way. And back to this car accident you all witnessed last night. Absolutely heart-breaking.

Blessings to all and let's all agree to let the gardening fend for itself as much as possible in these temperatures.
Okiedawn OK Zone 7
Original Author
6 years ago
H/J, I am pretty sure I planted my earliest melons (the Hale's Best Jumbo) in April because we were so warm so early. IIt could have been early May. They are an 80-85 day melon, although I think heat might speed them up a bit, and we've had plenty of heat. The icebox watermelons that I planted in the same raised bed at the same time (they all are trellised, which can be tricky with Hale's due to the large size of the fruit) haven't produced a ripe melon yet and they have DTMs in the 60-75 day range. I did notice the icebox melons didn't bloom as early as the Hale's, so that likely explains why Hale's beat them to ripening. Now that we are hot, the melons are coming in fast and furious. Not wanting to water too much this close to the melons ripening (it can affect the flavor by watering it down), I have watered that northern edge of the garden a lot less than the rest of the garden. In this weather, deliberately withholding water is tricky---if you can do it just right, you get superbly flavored melons, but if you withhold too much, the plants don't do well.....

The Crane melons are struggling. They haven't looked good since we got the rain in early July and I think they have a disease....or voles eating their roots. The whole raised bed of Cranes looks bad and I may yank them out. I think that whatever problem they have is so bad that they aren't going to survive. I planted them in a former potato bed and it may be that they weren't getting enough water to thrive but then, instead of the early July rain helping them, it seemed to lead to some sort of fungal disease. Oh well, that's why I plant a variety of melons---because even if one variety has a bad year, that doesn't mean the other varieties will. We have tons of little icebox melons and Old Israel melons in various sizes and stages, so there will be plenty of melons, but there might not be any Crane melons.

Yes, venomous snakes are possible anywhere in OK, but more so if you are rural to semi-rural. It always is best to be extra-careful and assume they might be there than to assume they aren't there.

I'm glad they are coming out to look at the sink. Now, I just hope they will make things right after they look at it.

Congrats on the progress of the coop. Our mama hen #1 has been bringing her 9 babies out into the fenced run every day now. They still are small enough that this makes me slightly uneasy since the run is not entirely snake proof. (I wish it were, but hardware cloth is too expensive to use on an entire chicken run.) I think her chicks are about 10-14 days old, depending on the order they hatched. Mama #2, whose 5 chicks are around 14-18 days old, keeps hers inside the coop, and Mama #3, whose 3 chicks are around 5-7 days old, still keeps her hidden underneath her when I go into the coop. I'm hoping that (1) all these chicks are not males because, really, who needs more roosters?, and (2) that they make it to adulthood to replace all the chickens that big coyote has gotten this summer. The problem with letting a couple of hens go broody, keep their eggs and hatch them is that it seems to inspire every hen in the coop to want to do the same and they get mad and try to peck you to death when you're gathering eggs.

It is so hot that when I cut up a melon for us, which is pretty much daily, I leave extra meat on the rind and feel it to the chickens in the middle of the hot afternoon. They love their melons. I've also been giving them squash and zucchini, but they prefer melons when we have them.

Cucumbers just pop up like that. I trellis all my cukes because I think it makes them easier to find---not easy to find---but easier. I usually harvest the cukes first, and then I go back when I'm through harvesting the whole garden and I check the cucumber trellis again. Invariably I'll find several more cucumbers that I missed the first time. They are really good at hiding beneath leaves. Slightly malformed cukes can form beause of lack of pollination (each seed indicates one act of pollination, so it takes many visits from pollinators to get a fully pollinated, fully formed fruit) or it can indicate a moisture shortfall.

Everyone's gardens are squash bug magnets. They are such a major pest. Controlling them requires constant hand-picking and drowning of the adults in a bowl of soapy water, spraying the nymphs with insecticidal soap, finding and removing eggs by hand, etc. Some years I fight them hard, some years I throw up my hands in despair and just let them win the war and sometimes they just don't even show up (2 years out of 10). Some people that I know here in my area just spray their plants with Bug-B-Gone or something similar every week or two and have no squash pest issues. I guess it just depends on what approach you want to take, but understand you're unlikely to be free of them unless you do something to control them. I use a multitude of approaches, ranging from growing plants early under row covers (I like Micromesh better than Biothrips Proteknet but both do worth) to hand-picking to removing eggs, or spraying nymphs with insecticidal soap or Takedown spray some years. Takedown contains pyrethrin and canola oil and I generally reserve it for my most hard-core pests. You cannot use Takedown once highs are above 90 but it is great for killing the nymphs as soon as they hatch in late Spring or earliest Summer. I just spray it directly on them. (There is nothing I'm willing to spray on all my plants as I prefer to eat food that's not sprayed, but Takedown is great to use in the very limited way that I use it.) There are ways to work around squash bugs---for example, growing parthenocarpic varieties under row cover or netting for their entire lives. Or, growing under row cover, hand-pollinating early in the day when the blooms open, and then immediately putting the row cover back in place, etc.

I'm having an odd year with squash bugs present but not killing anything. I do not know why. I've never had a year in which I've had squash bugs but not had massive damage from them. I'd like to figure it out so I can repeat it again on purpose. There's got to be something in my garden killing them, but if that is the case, I wish I knew what it is. I'm not seeing any toads or frogs or skinks or lizards at all. It could be that the jungle is so dense that they are there and I just can't see them, but I really think the snakes have eaten them all already. There's lot of birds in the garden, but I don't think they eat stink bugs, squash bugs or leaf-footed bugs. They mostly focus on finding and eating caterpillars.

One of the most important ways to control squash bugs is to kill them all in the fall and to bag and dispose of squash plant debris where they might hide and overwinter instead of leaving it in the garden. I do compost it, but on a hot pile that heats up enough to kill any that are trying to overwinter. The problem with being rural is that they can overwinter in so many places---in the woodland, in the fields, etc.

That is comfrey. Bees love the blooms. Most have purple blossoms, some have pink. I grew my comfrey from seed and have plants that produce purple flowers and plants that produce pink flowers. It is one of my favorite plants and produces tons of leaves for the compost pile or for comfrey tea to feed the plants.

Rebecca, The heat index numbers are insanely high so early in the day, (and late into the night) and it isn't like the temperatures are cooling down much overnight either. I hate the weather at this time of the year. All we can do is try to stay cool and wait it out.

On Sunday we were out running errands. We hadn't bought many groceries as we have a full freezer and didn't need much, so the car was loaded down with stuff like poultry feed, dog food, cat food and bulk supplies (like paper towels, for example) from Sam's Club. We stopped at Wal-Mart to pick up a couple of food items because we thought it was going to be too hot to cook all week. When we got at the checkout, I looked at our cart and laughed. This is what it contained: milk, Bluebell ice cream, popsicles, fudgesicles, cold cuts, sliced cheese, strawberries, blueberries, grapes, a large seedless watermelon, lettuce, sour cream, a loaf of bread and a package of tortillas. I could tell from the cart that we were going mostly for cold meals this week. However, I did make chicken enchiladas and all the fixings early in the week and we were able to feast on them for three days, so heating up the kitchen on that one day while making them at least paid off because I didn't have to heat up the kitchen o the next two days.

I canned so much yesterday that I didn't want to cook dinner so Tim brought home hamburgers and fries. I think tonight we'll have BLTs, which means I'll have to cook the bacon but that's minor compared to heating up the kitchen to produce a full meal. It's just that time of the year---too hot, too hot, too hot.

Bush beans might be okay if planted in the next week or two, if you can keep them watered and if spider mites don't find them. Some years they do fine from a July planting and some years they don't. My bush beans have gone downhill drastically in the last week and I think they are done. I don't blame them. I doubt I'll plant more for fall because we have plenty in the freezer and the pole beans still are producing fine. Usually a person can plant bush beans in late July or in early August and be harvesting from September through October.

I assume your squirrel problem is a result of heavy mast crops in 2015 and 2016. When there's that many acorns (they covered the ground here like grass....or mulch....just everywhere), winter survival is assured and many litters of babies are born and have plenty to eat growing up. We need a bad drought to break the cycle, but squirrels are wily and know how to find plenty of garden food, food from bird feeders, pet food, poultry or cattle feed, etc., so once the population cycles up, it tends to stay up for a few years. A really hard winter might knock back the population some....but when was our last bitterly cold winter? Was it 2010? 2011? It has been a while, and that likely has contributed to the rising squirrel population too.

Nancy, Did you get the Weston with all 4 screens (sauce screen for applesauce and tomato sauce; salsa sceen, berry screen and pumpkin screen?). I use the salsa screen for salsa only and then the sauce screen for all other tomato products because it gives you a fine puree as opposed to the chunkier one you need for salsa. (For salsa, that chunkier tomato is important for density and heat penetration to occur, which is important because of the other ingredients in salsa.)

Bell peppers tend to come on strong in the latter half of the growing season, but it depends on the variety. This year we are having the oddest year. Normally bells are pretty slow and poblanos are even slower and I don't have a lot of either one until late summer. This year, they begin blooming and setting fruit in May (I did plant them extra early because of the early heat and lack of cold nights) and they have produced like mad all summer long. This is not normal, but I'm not complaining. The peppers are doing so well that I cannot harvest and use them quickly enough---just this week I've harvested scads and scads of bells, jalapenos, shishito, serrano, and habanero peppers. They'll be keeping me busy in the kitchen for the rest of the summer if I keep them watered. If your bells are late, don't worry because they'll make up for it later. I canned peppers yesterday and I'll be canning more today. And also tomorrow. Probably Sunday as well. I no longer like to be in the kitchen canning from sunup to midnight, so I'm trying to just do 2, 3 or 4 batches a day and then call it quits after that. That's about as long as I want to be on my feet in the kitchen on any given day any more. It is less painful if I spread out the canning over more days.

Nancy, I'm sorry the news of the accident bothered you so much. I know that you have suffered the loss of a child and undoubtedly this hit too close to home.

When I started doing fire rehab for our VFD back in 2004, the guys were just so happy to have someone bringing them cold drinks, snacks and meals. Then, later on, a few years later after our first female firefighter joined the department, and then later on our second one, various guys would approach me and tentatively ask if I wanted to be a firefighter too---because, they said, they wanted me to be a firefighter if that was what I wanted. I guess they thought that maybe I'd prefer fighting fire to feeding/hydrating firefighters. I assured them that I was working in the job that I had chosen and preferred, but thanked them for thinking of me. What I really should have told them is that I chose doing fire rehab because (a) I saw a need and decided to fill that need, and (b) I don't do well with blood and gore or with burned bodies. Sorry if that is too blunt, but it is the truth. I thought doing rehab would let me serve my community in a way that wouldn't freak me out and, in the beginning it worked. I just stayed far enough back that I couldn't see the sorts of things that would upset me so much. So, of course, over the years I learned that I need to pitch in however they need me and somewhere along the way (I think it was when we were working multiple plane crashes in a fairly compact time frame) all the guys started treating me like one of the guys (instead of treating me like a squemish girl) and stopped shielding me from the things that are hard to look it---so I have been too exposed to too many injured and deceased persons, and I have just had to learn to deal with it. I've gotten better at handling that aspect of it, but it still upsets me dreadfully and I cannot get it out of my mind long after we go home.

Every time you mention your dear departed son, my heart aches for you, for him and for everything y'all went through. We tend to think of bone marrow transplants as miracle cure-alls, but they don't save everyone. Your son's accident sounds so horrific and I am amazed he survived it. I am glad that his brain has continued to heal and that he has been able to make a happy life for himself despite the long-term effects of such a horrific accident.

Our son lost one of his dearest friends in 2006 in a car accident. We were in the midst of horrific drought for the second year, non-stop, in a row and our whole county was burning. We had 5 wildfires that day. I think that his friend's motor vehicle accident was in between our first and second fire, but it wasn't in our fire district and we didn't know it was him. When we were at our second or third fire, another fire rehab lady from a different department came and found me and told me the deceased driver from the rollover accident was my son's friend (her nephew was a friend of his as well). At that point, Chris was driving a tanker with 2000 gallons of water and we didn't want him to be upset while driving it, so I decided I'd tell him about his friend after the fire was out and we were back at the station. Well, on our way back to the station, I stopped to help at a third fire so I was later to get back to the station and when I got there, Chris already was on his phone learning about his friend's death. It was so horrible and we were so busy that summer running from one fire to another that I think it was months before our son could take time to grieve properly.

Life is such a gift. Working with the VFD as much as I do certainly reminds me of that each and every day, and horrible things happen to good people. We simply do all we can to help whomever we can, but dealing with the feelings left behind is what I find hard.

Dawn
luvncannin
6 years ago
I wish I could let it all go. I am so tired of fighting the weeds and I would enjoy letting them die for lack of water. My tomatoes and peppers and eggplants are really taking off right now. The baby eggplants are very popular. I should have had 100 plants of these. I have my friends seeders for peppers. They are beautiful and will be nice addition to my booth. I hope they sell well. My market is about half I don't care what it costs I want it, quarter whew you are way to high, quarter I want chemical free but I am on a budget. The ones who think my stuff is too high feel like they have to stand and warn everyone else for a couple minutes :/

I had a couple women in town that way. Could not believe I charge $3 for a pint of onions. Lol. I laugh but really it's kind of rude how they act.

A friend called yesterday and gifted me 14 qts of peaches. Not sure where to store them until Sunday. Ha I guess in my bed with me lol
Nancy RW (zone 7)
6 years ago
Dawn, I KNEW I should have got the other 3 screens! Dagnabbit. Budgets. I'm not sure why, but I was trying to be really thrifty and thought I'd try it out and if I liked it, I'd buy the rest of the screens. Turned out good in the sense that then I need to take this trip, and although didn't HAVE to buy the new tires, we've discussed it off and on. If GDW were going with me in the car, we'd chance it. But since he isn't, and since I haven't changed a tire in years, and since I'm a baby, we decided to go for it--so funny that 30 years of being alone, I thought nothing of tire worries driving back and forth from MN to WY 2-3 times a year (a 25-hr round trip). Now all of a sudden I'm Ms. Cautious. I'm glad I have so many friends and a couple SILs I could stay with. Not only saves money, but so lovely to see the friends! Still. All in all, can live without another $25-$30 for the screens until August. And no worries about the sadness regarding car accidents. My experience with my boys taught me a lot about compassion in every part of life--AND the importance of laughter. You know? Of course you do.

Speaking of laughter, Wade could NOT handle the sight of blood or injuries as a child and teenager. He had to give blood various times during Russ's hospitalizations, and the nurses always teased him about his squeamishness. They had a supply of Snoopy bandaids that they'd put on him after his blood draws. He has told me that he blanked out much of what his brother went through (W was 14-16 then). So when he ended up in a really bad pickle himself, he's never been squeamish about his own pain since. No big deal. However, he still can't deal with others who are, well, like what you described. And like you, he compensates in other ways, with generosity and a heart of gold.

Kim........ I can picture the $$ for plants scenario; can just picture it. I'm in the I don't care what it costs camp if I don't have trips to Wyoming. lol . I only buy San Marzano canned tomatoes, for example. I didn't even know if they cost more than others. Never looked. But I use them almost exclusively in cooking. So last night I looked because GDW asked me how much canned tomatoes cost in the store (aha--they DO cost more). We both laughed a lot. But we both know why we're doing this and it is good stuff for so many reasons. I may miss cooking with the Marzano's in one sense, but we are thrilled about using the stuff we grow, and knowing there are no commercial fertilizers or pesticides. Thrilled the baby eggplants are good sellers. They're cute and they're tasty, grilled!

Peaches are my personal favorite fruit, but only fresh or frozen!

Well, here I go for round 2 of chunky tomatoes! Will be happy to get the other screens, as we have deemed the sauce maker a success.
AmyinOwasso/zone 6b
6 years ago
DH is going to give himself heat stroke. I hate winter and cold, I do, but this is just awful. He's been mowing and weed eating the last 2 days. Today, weed wacking along the outside of the fence, the bottom cover came off in the grass. He had to get the mower out to mow the grass so he could find the weed wacker part. (Can you imagine the smoke coming from his ears and the language from his mouth.?) Then he came in briefly, said he just had a little more to do. But then the mower wouldn't start. Then he was looking for a part in the garage to change the blade. Couldn't find it. Went to Lowes. Now in garage. I had to go make sure he was alive, there was no cussing. It's 1:30 pm. I want him to quit for today. He hurt his elbow working with the chainsaw. Mower has made it worse. Stubborn man.

I watered today. Trying to do it every other day. Accidentally left the water running for the chickens for several hours yesterday. Good for them, bad for the water bill. SHOULD have watered containers yesterday, but couldn't make myself go back out there. Heat really got to me yesterday.

Honey has gained 5 pounds in 3 weeks. (I think it's all feet) She's costing a small fortune in vet bills.

Sleeping Lady Dwarf makes a good tasting fruit. I don't think I got to taste any last year. Might win it a spot in a bed next year.

I took out an old broccoli plant today, trimmed back piracicaba and collards (they are shading my peppers). Also cut back the holy basil a bit, I lost a jalapeno in it. It's living mulch. Chopped and dropped. Found these 2 weird bugs on the collard. MIGHT have been cucumber beetles, but didn't seem like it. Yellow, black spots. Bigger than a lady bug. There's a picture on line of a "squash beetle" that kind of looked like it. Beetle not bug. But there was no mention of it eating brassica. The collard looks like lace. I assumed caterpillars, but maybe it was these guys. NOT harlequin bug. I don't know, maybe an early instar of a harlequin beetle. Sigh, BT won't help that. But I only saw 2. Didn't notice eggs or other beetles. Also collected seeds from dill plants, parsnips and orache. I have got to put out fly traps! Stupid dogs stand and look at me while the hordes of flies come through the door before them.

I'm over tomatoes. Ready to start pulling them out. Cherries in pots first. Y'all, there is a volunteer tomato growing in the chicken pen. Alright! Let them grow their own!

Nancy, losing a child is my worst nightmare. I cannot even imagine the pain. I am so sorry.

Kim, I know people at farmers markets have to price their produce in order to make a living, but for people on a budget, it is hard. I always stand back and eyeball signs to decide if I can afford a purchase. How very rude, though, to stand in front of your booth and tell people your prices are too high!!! People's lack of class always amazes me.

I need to go process tomatoes. Yeah, I'm so over this.
Okiedawn OK Zone 7
Original Author
6 years ago
Kim, You cannot let it go since you sell commercially. I get that. I just know that for my garden, there's an imaginary budget line in my mind for watering---and I don't like crossing it. It's relative to the harvest though. So, if I am harvesting tons of cucumbers to pickle, then watering is worth it. If voles start eating the cucumber plant roots or if production just flat out drops inexplicably, then there's no point. That's how I make my decisions about when to stop watering. Or, take tomatoes....we have them canned and frozen and all we possibly could want....and still have plenty of fresh ones coming into the kitchen daily. As good as they are, we're tiring of them. So, why keep watering tomato plants? Why keep watering squash plants when I'm feeding 90% of the squash to the deer? (Well, except I hate to deprive the deer of some food with a high water content....especially that darling little spotted fawn.) I'm teetering on the edge of shutting down the water and maybe the deer just will have to forgive me.

People like the ones you described should try growing their own produce and doing it organically in order to get a clue about the amount of time and effort and material it takes to raise crops organically. I would have been furious at their lack of class.

Nancy, I bought the screens with my machine in a special package deal back when I got it maybe a decade or more ago. I'm shocked how much more they sell for nowadays but it has saved me tons of time over the years and I have no regrets.

I do understand the importance of laughter, and you know, sometimes you have to laugh or you'll cry.

The Snoopy bandage thing is funny. We have a Christmas party every year for our FFs, and part of that includes neat little gifts. The best, most well-received gifts are not what you'd expect---one year it was little knit caps for winter that cost me either $1.99 or maybe $1.00 apiece but were incrediby well received. Another year it was silver duct tape bandages back when 3M still made those. Another beloved gift--duct tape with a flame pattern. Camoflage bandages and other themed ones are something even the biggest, toughest adult will let us stick on a bleeding wound. Plain bandages? Nope. Anything cute? Yep---they appeal to children from 9 months old to 99 years old. It makes me laugh and is a good reminder that there's a child hidden inside each of us.

Have fun with round 2 of the tomato processing.

Amy, Tell him if he'll just leave the grass and weeds alone, the heat will dry it up and it all with wither and decompose on its own. That's our approach and it is working. Every day I look at increasingly ugly, increasingly brown pastures and I just don't care. It is too hot to cut them. I do my best to talk Tim out of cutting them. Eventually we'll have to cut down the tall, brown dead stuff, but not until grass fires/wild fires start hitting too close to our place for us to ignore standing brown plants any more.

I hope your DH doesn't overheat....and, yes, I can picture the smoke coming out of his ears and the words coming out of his mouth because Tim is exactly the same way. Be careful with yourself. I've been trying really hard to avoid getting overheated because I know that it is not even worth it. I'm firmly in summertime mode, doing laundry first thing in the day while it is cool, and even doing the cooking early in the day and then reheating food in the microwave for dinner in order to keep the kitchen cooler---or there's cold meals, fast food, pizza or eating out. Plenty of heat-avoiding strategies go into effect once we are hitting the 100s.

I brought in another Hale's Best Jumbo today. It had slipped off the vine on its own since the last time I checked it yesterday. It smells so heavenly. That's one thing I love about home-grown melons---they perfume the whole garden or the whole house with their delicious scent.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who is tired of dealing with the flood of tomatoes. It seems sacrilegious to stop caring about them, but even the best food in the world gets old if you have it every single day.

So far today, it is cooler than yesterday because we've only hit 100 degrees and yesterday we hit 101. Gee, I think maybe I feel 1 degree cooler. Or, maybe not....and this day isn't over yet. It is dinner out tonight...and no afternoon canning to heat up the west end of the house.

Honey is worth every nickle. You cannot put a price on cuteness or on the love and adoration a dog returns to you in spades. I'm laughing about her feet because they truly are a clue to what size she'll be one of these days. One thing I love about big dogs is that random strangers who pop up knocking on your door will not start any trouble when you open a door with a giant dog standing beside you.

I have seen photos of squash beetles online but never have had them here and have wondered if they are common in OK. If they are, I'm not complaining that they haven't found us yet. Ditto on the flies. I've been fighting them like crazy and I do blame their constant appearance in the house on cats and dogs who demand to go in or out and then stand there halfway in or out and hesitate like they don't know what to do. I'm nudging them with my foot and telling them to stop letting flies in.

Ten more days, y'all, and we are done with July. Think about that. Only the rest of today and then 240 hours more. It doesn't sound so bad, right? July will be over and done before we know it. Well, then there is the inescapable fact that August follows July and early August usually is hotter than late July. I'm trying to ignore that fact until August actually arrives. One month at a time.

Grasshoppers. Ugh. More and more appear to be hatching and showing up daily. I am not surprised. It is hot and they thrive in heat. Their numbers have been down here for a couple of years now after being extremely high in 2011-2014. It is inevitable that the numbers cycle up again....I just hope their population is not about to explode. If it does, then bam, I am done watering because I refuse to provide a nice green garden just for the grasshoppers to devour.

As hard as it was to abandon the garden last year in order to work on the kitchen remodel, I'm starting to think I should do the same thing every August. Or, at least, just give the peppers and fall tomatoes minimal water to keep them alive and let everything else go while I find projects indoors to keep me busy---not anything on the same scale as remodeling the kitchen, but just stuff that is fun and interesting and, most importantly, can be done indoors without turning on any big appliances that heat up the house.

I think I've gone almost a week without seeing a snake. I absolutely don't think it means the snakes are not out there....it just means I am staying indoors a whole lot more, and that's not a bad thing.

Here's our Maximum Heat Index Numbers so far. They don't look great:

Max Heat Index Numbers For Today

And, here's our Maximum Wet Bulb Globe Temperature Risk, also not looking so wonderful:

Maximum Wet Bulb Globe Temperature Risk

Still, as bad as today is and as bad as this week has been, it is nothing compared to 2011. That's how I use the memories of 2011 now---to remind me that this weather is not nearly as bad as it could be. Granted, it's not much, but it's all I've got.

Dawn
Nancy RW (zone 7)
6 years ago
I'm loving processing the tomatoes, Amy, you know because I'm a beginner and I'm stupid. And besides didn't get that many tomatoes. Yesterday was the first day of trying the Weston. Today I cut my time exactly in half. Cool. Maybe tomorrow I can cut it in half again tomorrow. Garry was out weed whipping, too, but at least he quit at noon. Yeah, Ron's working way too hard, I agree. Amy, thanks for thoughts, and Dawn. Frankly, it's fine, sorry I even talk about it occasionally. Life is good. We are so blessed. Time certainly helps. When one thinks of all the tribulations people have at various times in their life and across the world. No matter how bad one has it, there is always somebody having a worse time of it. It's life, you know.

You need to post another picture of Honey--and Kim, you also need to post another picture of the puppies!!!

I was thinking the yard and garden would be good if I watered every other day, too. What I wasn't realizing is that I can't water the entire yard and garden in one day! Therefore, no, Nancy, you will be watering every day; just in different parts of the yard. I laughed this morning--did my walk around--oh my gosh!!--the coleus in front are all dying for a drink; they hydrangeas, too. Why heck, just watered them two days ago. Same with the cucumbers and vegetables out there. Yep. Duh. So I had to postpone canning to handle the watering emergencies. Lesson: yes, the plants only need watering every two or three days. That does not mean I can water every two or three days! lol

Here's what I am wanting-- I am really wanting the brugmansia to bloom before I leave in a week. Please please brugmansia, GO. I've been fertilizing it, twice in the past 2 weeks; and put grass mulch around it too. It is enormous and has many growing calyxes, so I sure don't want to miss the show!
AmyinOwasso/zone 6b
6 years ago
We went to the Y and emersed ourselves in cool pool water. Ahhhhhhhhh! I complain about it in the winter, I get too cold. But today it was just right! DH feels much better now. I'm not going out again. Never have processed tomatoes. I think I will wash them and roast them. Just hate to heat up the kitchen. I don't know if there is room in the freezer. Tomorrow may be a day to can :p And those Heidi's are still loaded. I never thought I would say I'm done with tomatoes, Dawn. And heaven knows I don't can as much as you do.

You're not stupid, Nancy! I much prefer using the Weston over any other method. And it is satisfying to get it done. I have been really cranky and we know canning is not my favorite thing, LOL. I think it's the heat. Getting up early is working, but it's hard on a 2nd shift schedule.

Phone scam at 7:30 this morning. 7:30! Someone called to tell DH his computer was about to crash. He told them he didn't know anything about those things. Playing dumb. They hung up. But really 7:30 in the morning?

The heat index is mind boggling.
hazelinok
6 years ago
Hi Y'all. Wow, what a day to be the first day in your new outside pen. Poor little chickies. It was so hot today, as you know. They were panting, but they made it. I just have to keep an eye on the shade...or absence of shade. There's a time in the late afternoon that there is very little shade in all of the animal enclosures. For the dogs, I bring them in. The older chicks have a tarp on the west side of the old coop. I actually put a fan and mister on the outside of the new pen. As soon as we get it all built, I want to put a narrow bed around the pen. Put some type of heat tolerant climber to shade the pen a bit. (I'll be asking for suggestions) Also, some fragrant herbs. I can't wait to get to the fun stuff!

I didn't look at the garden today. I hope it's okay.

I just don't have time right now to pick bugs and bug eggs. Maybe I'll put the chickens on the garden at the end of the season. Maybe they'll clean them out for me. I'm intrigued by the Korean squash. There are vines that are dead, but they've put out new vines that look quite healthy. y

There's a "community garden" behind our church. It's a very untidy garden and not what one thinks of when they think of community garden. However, I checked it today and picked a spaghetti squash. I also noticed several volunteer (I'm assuming) yellow summer squash plants around the edges of the garden. They looked so healthy--no bugs.

Hoping for rain, although the chance is very low. I have a free day tomorrow and there's so many possibilities. What to do....
Nancy RW (zone 7)
6 years ago
last modified: 6 years ago
Yay for free day, HJ! Gotta love the free days! Yesterday and today were mine and because I'm only a canner with one year under my belt, I enjoyed it. . . tried to get every little bit out of my puny little (but pretty) paste tomatoes. Tomorrow the pressure's on in so many tasks; and then Sunday-Wednesday are gonna be bears. And then next Thursday to get myself together and leave for Wyoming the next day. Poor chicks. . . Yep they need something--got an old bed sheet?

I was reminding GDW tonight that we have three very healthy volunteer tomatoes growing like weeds in the veggie raised beds and compost, two new Cherokee purples that took to life here with ease, and the Illini and Abu Rawan and two determinates that are looking good in another bed, so I suspect there will be a round two of canning, based on what happened last year when I ended up canning 20 pints of green salsa, 15 of red salsa, and another 20 pints of green tomato mincemeat. Sadly, no one within miles likes mincemeat (and most have never even heard of it) except me. Me alone. AND sadly, we have a Mexican restaurant town that has "to-die-for" fajitas. And so since we have to have their fix about once a week, we don't eat much Mexican here now! (AND they serve THE best margaritas--we always have one margarita each with dinner. Once we asked one of the waiters, Ramiro. what was the secret to their wonderful margaritas, and he said, "Too much tequila." LOL )And since I'm a new canner, I'm not comfortable giving away any of last year's goods. Now THIS year, sure. But this year, I'll not be making probably any of Annie's salsa. Strictly tomato sauce and/or crushed. The salsa they serve at this restaurant I'm so fond of, The Lopez Grille, is delicious, and depending on who makes it on any particular day, it's milder or hotter. A few months ago, before we were REAL regulars, I heard a nearby lady ask Raul, "Who made the salsa today?" He told her and she laughed, and I thought, "Aha!" I have been paying very close attention to their salsa. . . heh heh. . . because we love it so much. They use pureed tomatoes with seeds in it; I can taste the salt and garlic and cilantro and lime. . . and hot peppers, of course. And yes, it's true, they take turns making the salsa. One night when we were in there, Raul showed up with another little dish of salsa and asked us to try it and let him know what we thought. We laughed so hard--it was SO hot it set us on fire. He, meanwhile, was standing a ways off and was watching us. We glanced up and saw him laughing, and then he came over. We all got a laugh out of it.
Turbo Cat (7a)
6 years ago
Boy, you can't miss a couple of days here or it takes forever to go back and catch up! :)

Had to go back to the hospital for a bit. Thought it might be another heart attack, but it wasn't. I don't think we really figured out what was going on, except maybe an exacerbation of heart failure. Pulse was running in the 30's and blood pressure was running about 190 systolic. Crazy. Anyway, I am really tired and am to stay out of the heat and sun. So, he said I could get out and water early, but that's it. Plants survived my absence, which is good.

So, I'm gonna try to catch up here and see what's going on in everyone else's gardens.

Mary
Okiedawn OK Zone 7
Original Author
6 years ago
Mary, I am glad you are okay. Please take good care of yourself. This heat is crazy. I went out to the garden long enough to water the fall tomato plants, and only the fall tomato plants, because I feel like everything else can just sink or swim on its own.

H/J, We usually use fans, ice cubes added to chick/poultry waterers, misters, etc. to keep poultry cool. In 2011, when our actual air temperatures often were in th 108-116 range in July-August, I froze half-gallon and gallon jugs of water by putting them in the deep freeze at night and then putting them in the chicken coop all day. Poultry that was too hot could lay up close to them and cooldown some. It was a PITA to clean them up with bleach/water every night and put them back into the freezer to refreeze solidly, but I did it for about 6 weeks anyway. I've done the same thing at various times when we've been extremely hot, but haven't done it yet this year. I probably should have done it today. Our chickens are standing around a poultry waterer in the shade drinking a lot, so I think they are okay. Augustus (the turkey) is lying down on some wet ground enjoying wet ground moistened by water that condenses off the AC unit. It is his favorite spot to spend hot afternoons. Our coops are in shade....not full shade all day but probably in the shade 80% of the time. I'm so thankful for the trees that shade them. We also have tarps over the chicken runs to provide them with heavy shade in the chicken run part of their houses. Sometimes I turn on a sprinkler in the yard and all the birds play in its mist---poultry, wild songbirds, hummingbirds....everyone, all together, just trying to stay cool.

Nancy, I enjoy processing tomatoes for a while, and then it gets old and tedious. I used to enjoy it more. Salsa takes so much time per batch that I'd rather can just about anything else because everything else takes much less time to make and much less of the chopping, chopping, chopping that making salsa involves.

Amy, Those scammers should be shot. So should anyone who calls at 7:30 a.m. It is hard enough to get good sleep if you work a non-traditional shift without the phone ringing that early.

I believe today's maximum temperatures, heat index numbers and the wet globe bulb numbers are going to make yesterday look like it was a walk in the park.

Tim just headed out the door to go to work. They are doing a once a year drill--you know, where they set up a big fake disaster type incident, pretend it is real, and spend hours responding to it and dealing with the initial incident and all the fallout exactly as they'd respond if it were real. I told him I hope they planned/prepared for all the folks participating in this thing to get incredibly hot and to be miserable....because I am sure the majority of it will be occurring outdoors. I am sure it has been scheduled for months but, really.....on the hottest day of the year? You'd think they'd do this sort of thing in winter.

One of our neighbors called this afternoon looking for missing dogs. The weekend neighbors whose property lies between us and the Red River had two dogs take off and disappear this afternoon in this awful heat---an old one and a much younger one they described as a puppy, though I think the puppy isn't a little puppy---just younger than the old one. We're keeping an eye out for them, but those two would have to make it through mighty thick underbrush to come through our property and make it to the house. I am worried about them---at least they came east towards us and didn't go west towards the river. I'm hoping their collars aren't hung up on a barbed wire fence or underbrush or anything, and I'm hoping they didn't run into venomous snakes or coyotes. One thing is for certain----if those dogs show up here, we'll know it in a heartbeat because our chickens will start squawking and carrying on. They're pretty good watchdogs themselves. I'd had to have dogs missing in the heat we have right now. When I heard about the dogs, I checked and our temperature was 101 and the heat index was 112. Maybe those dogs got into our woodland (their place is mostly grassland with just a few trees) and found a shady spot and are just lying down back there waiting for their people to discover them.

I went out and looked at the garden and I'm sorry I did. It looks pathetic and I've decided to stop watering the back garden. The cucumber production has dropped a lot and the butternut squash plants already are fully loaded and ought to be able to mature what fruit they have without any irrigation. The okra, southern peas and Armenian cukes are producing, but we have plenty of everything so I'm just gonna let them go and they can sink or swim on their own. In this heat, I think they'll die in just a few days without water. The front garden is on life support. I'll keep watering the perennial border, containers of ornamentals sitting at the shady west end of the garden, peppers and fall tomatoes and let everything else go. Our prospects of rain are slim, and even if rain were to fall, the QPF doesn't show us getting enough to matter. Our soil moisture levels are incredibly low and dropping every day. I'm done. I know that even with irrigation, you can only fight so hard, and I have no desire to spend the next month doing heroic amounts of watering.

This map shows your soil moisture levels. If the number for your county is less than 0.50, you should be watering:

4" Plant Available Water

And, if the forecasted rainfall does occur, here's how much rain is predicted to fall over the next 7 days:

7-Day QPF

I hope everyone is staying cool and hydrated.

Oh, and being a man, Tim just had to go out and start mowing this morning, even though the heat index already was close to 100 very early in the day. After he mowed the dog yard, I talked him into quitting. By then, the heat index was 99 and he was drenched in sweat. I think the rest of the yard can wait--it really is pretty short and turning brown, so if he doesn't get around to mowing it, I don't think it matters. It isn't going to get any taller for a while. I've noticed much less bee activity the last couple of mornings, but more butterfly activity in the afternoon. I guess the bees may be foraging in shadier spots or earlier than I am outdoors because just a few days ago they were everywhere, and now I'm not seeing many.

Dawn
AmyinOwasso/zone 6b
6 years ago
Mary, I'm so sorry you've been back to the hospital. Don't push yourself, a garden is not as important as your health.

H/J I've been feeding the chickens frozen peas and overflowing their water so they have some cool ground to walk on. I tried last year to convince them to walk in a kiddie pool, but they weren't having it. They are enjoying the tomato peels and seeds, and did I mention there's a volunteer tomato growing in their pen.

Nancy, I would like your mincemeat recipe. DH likes mincemeat.

I watered containers today. That's it. I DID process tomatoes last night. They are cooking down in the crock pot now. My fitbit said I had more steps yesterday than I did Sunday at Woolaroc. Went grocery shopping with my daughter this afternoon. I. Am. Done.
Nancy RW (zone 7)
6 years ago
Amy . . http://nchfp.uga.edu/how/can_02/can_pie/green_tomato_filling.html . That's for the green tomato one. They also have the meat version if you go to their site and just type in mincemeat.

I'm finishing up the canned tomatoes today and then I'll be done until fall. It'll probably take til midnight. . . I don't care. Okay, you're done--have a seat, prop your feet up and have a nice cool beverage!
Okiedawn OK Zone 7
Original Author
6 years ago
Woo hoo. It is 8 p.m. and I am celebrating the fact that our temperature has dropped all the way down to 93 degrees, and our heat index is only 100 degrees. I know--not much to celebrate, but we'll take what we can get!
Rebecca (7a)
6 years ago
8pm here and we were still 97 with a heat index of 103. Why are we warmer? Weird. But yeah...take what you can get.

I only went out long enough this morning to walk the garden and bring in the handful of green beans that were ready. Too hot to do anything else. I do have to get out some evening or early morning and yank enough tomatoes to get the new seedlings in. This is what I call Flare Season, when the heat and relentless sun make me more likely to have an autoimmune flare, which makes getting things done outdoors that much more difficult. The more I stay indoors and cool, the more likely I am to not have one. But at the same time, I want/need to keep up the garden.

Is it weird that my bush beans are still producing? They do get lots of afternoon shade. I think I'll plant seeds for the Thanksgiving beans at the end of the month. Need to yank more stuff to make room.

I can't keep the Habanada pepper watered enough. I don't think the potting mix is holding any water. It's gotten dry enough it just drains right through. Should I set the pot in water for awhile to hydrate it again? It really needs water, quite obviously.

Charleston Belle is setting peppers still, in this heat. Good plants.
Nancy RW (zone 7)
6 years ago

Half pint frog resting on half pint ripening tomato this evening.
Okiedawn OK Zone 7
Original Author
6 years ago
Rebecca, Who knows? It did feel like we cooled down more quickly tonight than we had on other nights, so I think that is a good sign. I'm out in the country with very little concrete around. Those of you in cities with lots of concrete usually stay hotter at night in summer because all the concrete holds heat really well---it is a part of what is called the heat island effect.

I've had bush beans produce all summer some years but not in other years, and it doesn't seem to be anything that has a rhyme or reason to it. You'd think they wouldn't produce well in hot summers, but then did in 2012, so I've given up trying to find any logic in it.

I think setting the Habanada pot in water to soak and rehydrate is a good idea. Sometimes once soil-less mixes get very dry, it is almost impossible to rewet them in any other way.

My main goal from now until the heat breaks is to stay indoors and stay cool. I believe I am at the point where that is all that really matters to me. If there is anything I cannot get done in the first half-hour I am outdoors early in the morning, then it can wait until the next day...or it can wait forever if I can't get it done the next day. It is just too hot.

Nancy, That froggie heard a wild rumor that the tomatoes were going to be allowed to come inside the house and he wants to come indoors too.

It looks like Monday is the only day we get much of a break, and the mid-90s is not much of a break but we'll take what we can get.

Dawn
hazelinok
6 years ago
Mary, sorry about your latest health issue. Love your spirit, though. Hope you were able to get caught up here. Sometimes I get so far behind that I stop trying to catch up, even though I miss good stuff.

Yes, Nancy, it was so nice having a day off. I worked around here, of course. My bedroom has honestly been a disaster since the home remodel. I've dusted and swept, but there were piles of stuff sitting around. It was truly getting on my nerves. I like to sleep in a calm and pretty room. Now, it is. The new bed coverings are on. The art is hung...and it's clean. I feel accomplished. (The garden is the opposite btw. What a mess it is.)

The chickies made it on their second day outside. During that one hour or so, I'm moving a large board to lean on the pen. It provides some shade for them. All that will change with the seasons and the sun's position, etc. Amy, I gave my big girls some frozen kale yesterday. They looked at it with suspicion and disgust. However, when I went back it was gone, so they must have gotten over their issue with it. Today, they got a flat pan of ice water with cucumber bits and old blue berries. They liked it better. What do y'all do about different ages of chickens and feed? The babies will be 7 weeks on Monday--they should start grower feed in a week or so...and they'll eat it until 18 weeks. I will move the big girls in with them once the coop is finished completely. The hens are on layer feed. So, how do I feed them separately?

I picked the orange pumpkin. The plant looks nearly dead. The pumpkin is cute and it's skin is tough, but it's mushy inside and there are squash bug eggs near the stem. Squash bugs of different sizes were hiding under the pumpkin and the plant looks nearly dead. I will just pull the plants probably on Monday. I am considering dousing the plants with an insecticide before pulling them to try to kill the bugs before they hop off and move to the Seminole pumpkins and Korean squash. Any suggestions on what would kill them quickly?

I wish I had the energy to make pickles tonight. But I don't.

My watermelons seem stunted, but the crane melons are taking off.

Hmmm...what else? Oh, I went antique shopping with my sister, mom, and niece on Tuesday. I found a couple of things. I bought a cast iron cauldron for $10!!! It was marked $20, but it was in an area that was half-price (I didn't realize). I saw another one the same size for $120. Mine is missing it's handle, but a handle will be easy to make. It's not the giant cauldron like my Grandma's, but it will look cute in the Harry Potter garden. I also found a vintage macrame owl wall hanging. Y'all remember those from the 70's? I remember them from my childhood. I'm still fascinated with macrame.

Rain! Rain! Rain! Please rain.
hazelinok
6 years ago
I forgot. The plant that we've identified as a tomatillo--the volunteer that is in one of the pepper beds, IS a tomatillo. It has the little husks. It's not from me. Mine (in the back garden) have yellow blossoms. This one has white. It's covered with husks. Those that I actually planted in the back, had two husks that have fallen off. How big do they get? These were tiny. I think that tomatillo seed came from a pot from the Spring Fling. Which one of you folks have tomatilloes with white blossoms?

Dawn, I was just talking tonight about how it feels cooler on our property (although not cool) than it does in town. Less concrete.
Nancy RW (zone 7)
6 years ago
Same here, Dawn and Hazel. We ran into town yesterday and blistering hot in the parking lots. Well, I mean blistering BLISTERING as opposed to just blistering here. I enjoyed having to be inside most of today canning. Although I was less than impressed with all our small past tomatoes, They sure are nice to use for canning from frozen. They just pop right out of their skins so nicely after a little blanching. (We did, however had a nice selection of the larger tomatoes in with the miix too--even several larger cherries). I ended up with an even 40 pints for Round One of tomatoes. Even if we were to get no fall ones, I'd be pleased. But judging on the last two years, we should have a good fall bunch, too. I realized today that since I wasn't making sauce, anyway, no need to use the sauce maker. Duh. I just threw them in the food processor instead. Now I can make the salsa or sauce in the fall, and looks like I'll have them to eat right up to the end of fall, judging by the Abu Rawan's performance right now. And the Illini in the slightly shady center bed.

There's also a determinate in the shop bed (can't remember what it is at the moment--it's small but finally growing good and is covered with blossoms. That's a nice suprise. (The deer cut it back last month before I put up the fish line fence.) . And so weird that they decided to cut back the echinaceas out there and the purple mums--not the gold ones, just the purple ones. I was aggravated, but it WAS kind of funny to note what they selected.

Garry spent the day moving the hoses around and watering. He's practicing up for while I'm gone, I guess; as usually he leaves the watering to me. Cute. He's anxious to get to work on enlarging the raised beds now that I've yanked out all the tomatoes. I hope he'll wait until it cools off a bit.

OSU says it's okay to plant cowpeas now, so I'm going to plunk some of yours in, Amy. Kind of excited to taste this newcomer. I think it was you? Who said you planted zinnias and they didn't come up? Mine either! Well, I got 4-5 little ones to sprout. But I remember we had those torrential rains right after I planted them a few weeks ago. Maybe they got washed away. At any rate, so GLAD now that you brought me some, as I used all the ones I had! FATE! LOL

Haven't done any reading here or anywhere else today, so I guess I'll go catch up! Sweet dreams.
Nancy RW (zone 7)
6 years ago
last modified: 6 years ago
Titan's sick. We're distressed. He was quiet from this morning on. We thought up until about 4 pm, that he just didn't want to be in the heat. (And he doesn't.) But then at dinner time, I fixed his leftovers and he didn't eat them. (Then we thought maybe our neighbor, who is his second family, fed him. . .) but an hour or so later, when he was still just lying between GDW's lounger and my couch, and I sat down beside him, his nose was warm and dry. And now he didn't get up to go to bed wth us. . . . we just sat out here for half an hour trying to figure it out. We love our family member, as we love our neighbor. But we agreed that we let nature take its course for this evening, at least. We'll be watching him closely in the morning. Sure wish dogs could talk.
Turbo Cat (7a)
6 years ago
last modified: 6 years ago
Hazel, there is nothing nicer than a bedroom that has been prettied up and fluffed up!

I ate my first Cherokee Carbon tomato yesterday, along with my first Texas Cream Peas, and some of the garden zucchini. OMG, those Texas Cream Peas were delicious. I didn't even cook them with any type of ham or bacon or anything. Just pure peas, with some butter and salt/pepper. It was all I could do not to drink the potlikker (being generous with the term "potlikker").

Frogs are everywhere this year. I'm getting ready to water, and then my day will be inside under the a/c. The nice thing is, these tomatoes in fabric pots are holding enough water that once per day seems to be enough. I don't know if that's a good thing, or a bad thing, but so far they seem to be doing well.

Everyone stay cool today.
AmyinOwasso/zone 6b
6 years ago
IDK, Nancy, maybe those zinnias aren't viable any more, or maybe I weeded them out without realizing it. We are solarizing a new bed by the fence. I actually want another, but DH did this in the horrible heat yesterday, so I'm not going to complain. I need a place for his beloved garlic chives. They don't play well with others. Also some yarrow currently in pots. And the dang wormwood I've been afraid to put in the ground.

The Egyptian onion bulbils have started new plants. One of the Korean squash plants had a wilted vine today. I found and duct taped some eggs and barely hatched nymphs, but never saw an adult. They may have been leaf footed bugs, I've seen them. Missed a cucumber beetle. Once again, the big Pink Berkely Tie Dye fruit had fruit worm. The unknown saladette that grew with the JD's Special CTex is sprawling every where and putting out cherry sized now. The tomatoes are getting that end-of-July look. The African red cowpea (I can't remember the name) has 4 puny plants, no where near the size of the other varieties. Peppers, okra, melons look good. One of 2 Anaheims turned out to be a banana, so there won't be many Anaheims this year.

Who was it that was complaining about blight in her garden? Rebecca? I have 2 Chocolate Champion plants that have been used and abused this year. Currently in pots without even mulch. Except for spider mite damage, they have the best looking foliage in the yard. They are a determinate dwarf. Any way, they seem to be resistant to blight. Taste is good.

Kitchen work this afternoon. Wonder where the citric acid is....

H/J, ground cherries have husks like tomatillos. They are dime sized. We have natives, but I planted them one year and they come up on their own now. I've only had chickens since last spring. Never introduced more. DH wants ducks, so I doubt we'll have new chickens soon. As it is I have 4 dozen eggs I need to get rid of. Have another hen gone broody. It is TOO HOT to sit in the coop all day. I need to find a way to discourage her.
Okiedawn OK Zone 7
Original Author
6 years ago
Hazel, I don't try to feed the chicks of different ages separately. I just put out the multiple types of feed in different feeders and let them pick and choose. The little chicks tend to stick with chick starter for a while and gradually move themselves up to chick grower when they are ready. I think chicks are pretty smart in that regard. Older chickens will go back to chick starter at times, but I think mostly they do it just to see if they can. Our older chickens free-range, so I turn them loose first and then feed the babies, and only occasionally will an older chicken wander back into the coop to eat some chick starter or grower.

For squash bugs, you've got to bring in the big guns, and in this case, I feel like a synthetic pesticide is better because they actually are less dangerous than the strongest organic pesticide, whish is Rotenone (which is linked to Lou Gehrig's Disease and I wouldn't us it ever under any circumstance whatsoever). If you happen to have an organic pesticide whose active ingredient is pyrethrum, that probably would work, but I don't use those becasue we have cats. For a strong synthetic pesticide, you could use any of the synthetic pyrethrins like bifenthrin. If I was going to do this, I'd just go to the store, buy Bug-B-Gone Max, spray only the plants I need to spray in order to kill the squash bugs, and be done with it. If you have a kitty cat, don't let it be out in/near the garden while you're spraying or for the rest of that day. Pyrethrum and pyrethrin can cause nervous system damage/death to felines, which is why I generally avoid them completely. Still, they will kill the squash bugs. The reason I suggest a synthetic form of pyrethrum (the synthetic forms contain pyrethrin) is that squash bugs may have developed a resistance to older pesticides like Malathion, so it seems smarter to me to use a newer pesticide that they might not be resistant to.

Congrats on scoring the cauldron! I bet it was fun going antique shopping. I remember those owls.

I have noticed that the area right around our garden is always the coolest spot in the yard and I think it has a lot to do with the way plants transpire moisture out into the air, cooling it slightly. Being a tiny bit cooler is one of the perks of country living. I think your volunteer is some form of ground cherry.

Nancy, Cowpeas will do great. They adore the heat. (I'm glad they like it because I certainly do not.)

Mary, Cream peas are such a special treat and so is potlikker, especially with cornbread!

We had frogs everywhere until the snakes found them. Have I mentioned how much I hate snakes? Yes, I know, I have mentioned it at least 1 million times.

Amy, I have seen tons of leaf-footed bugs the last few days and am too hot and too tired to fight them. There's also increasing numbers of grass hoppers. July certainly is the month that all the summer garden problems start going off the charts.

I think your African red cowpea is the variety Haricot Rouge Du Burkina Faso.

When we want to discourage a broody hen, we just take her eggs away and keep an eye on her. Every day when she lays another egg, be quick to grab it and bring it inside so she won't start setting again. Sometimes a broody hen gets mad about this and goes off and starts laying her eggs in the woods where we can't find them....or her. Most hens that do this do not survive because some sort of predator will find them at night.

Our neighbor's puppy was found at a house up the street, playing with the dogs that live there. The adult dog has not been found. I saw the grandkids (teenagers) out searching for the dog this morning. I hope they find it. Being missing for 24+ hours in this heat cannot be a good thing for a big old German Shepherd.. We're all afraid a snake might have gotten it yesterday, or some other type of predator might have found it overnight.

I did nothing with the garden today and nothing with food processing either. Just trying to stay cool.

Dawn
AmyinOwasso/zone 6b
6 years ago
I need to can tomatoes. BOTH the dishwasher and washing machine are broken. I just washed all the dishes loaded in the dishwasher. It won't turn on. The washer's agitator broke. Sigh. Less than $9 for the part, but have to wait for it. Not sure what to do about the dishwasher. I have hated this thing from the beginning. It's never cleaned well. I would be very tempted to get a new one, except there have been a lot of expenses lately.

Yes, Dawn, that is the cowpea. I'm thinking about planting pole beans on the trellis with it since so few came up. Then saving seed from the ones that came up.

I haven't seen tons of leaf footed bugs, but I saw 3 on the squash one day. Scissors weren't fast enough. I'm not going to do too much to fight them. When I found them, there was a storm to the north and a LOVELY breeze blowing out of it, so I wasn't in a hurry to get inside.

I have 10 beds with vegetables in them. The first 2 beds had half way decent purchased soil. Then there were 4 filled with the dirt we had delivered. It wasn't very good. They've never been as good as the first 2, or the small one that I think was filled with bagged ingredients. The last 2 we built were done lasagna style. And not very good, the layers weren't very thick. They never were as deep as the other beds and they've settled. But the plants in those beds are always happier than anywhere else. [Just a random observation.]
Okiedawn OK Zone 7
Original Author
6 years ago
Amy, That's terrible about the dishwasher and the washing machine. At least the washing machine is fixable. Hopefully the dishwasher is as well.

I can't understatnd why those cowpeas sprouted so poorly. They were beasts in my garden last year.

My only goal for today was to survive the heat, and I did it. I don't really have big goals for tomorrow either. The heat is sucking all the ambition out of me. I need to take out a lot of plants and throw them on the compost pile, but that would require more energy than I can summon up in this heat.

It rained. It wasn't a lot (a third of an inch) but it dropped our temperature down all the way from 101 to (eventually) 76 degrees. Now that the little rain shower has moved on, we've already heated up to 78 again. Still, that's cooler than we normally are at this time of the evening.

While Tim was grilling, he could hear the neighbors still calling their missing dog. That is so sad. They have to drive back home to Texas tonight without it.

Every raised bed in our garden is somewhat different from the others, partly because we built then one by one at a rate of about one per year. This means the oldest ones have been amended forever and forever and are in much better shape than the newest others. Still, all of them are better than the clay we started out with. I don't think I'll ever get them all the same, but I have figured out which ones are best for different crops and that helps a lot---though it doesn't encourage crop rotation either. I love the soil in my asparagus bed the most. Of course, the asparagus (which isn't even on my list of Top 5 veggies, is the only thing that can grow there. Honestly, if the asparagus were to up and die (it never will), I probably wouldn't replace it. I'm the only one who really eats it and it produces more than I want to eat. (Deer do like it.) I'd rather use that wonderful soil for a crop that produces longer than a couple of months per year.

The ultimate irony in the garden now is that it produces so well since all the wildlife have been fenced out of it that it really produces more than we need, even given the fact that I preserve a lot. So, who gets the surplus? The chickens and the deer. I hope the deer understand they're getting the last laugh here.

Dawn
AmyinOwasso/zone 6b
6 years ago
I don't feel quite as guilty throwing past it's prime produce to the chickens. I hope they're enjoying the tomatoes with the surprise (worm) inside.

It has not rained here, but it is very cloudy`and my thermometer says 91 (better than it has been the last few days). It rained north of us this morning and they have some heavy storms south of us now. Eh, maybe tomorrow.

Tomatoes in the pressure canner right now. I remembered the citric acid this time. I either have to blanch some green beans or roast them. Not crazy about turning the oven on. Not crazy about more steam. My blue Coco pole beans seem to be producing, slowly, in spite of the heat.
Nancy RW (zone 7)
6 years ago
last modified: 6 years ago
And a glorious 82 here right now. Dropped from 98 to 85 in about 15 minutes 2 hours ago, and now at 82, I had to turn the big fan down, Wow, is THAT a treat. I don't know yet if we'll catch any rain, and that would just be a bonus.
Rebecca (7a)
6 years ago
I've counted about a dozen tomatoes missing since Friday morning. Latest one is the Martino's Roma, stripped of 7 or 8 small ones. They aren't even bothering to leave behind the hosiery or zip ties anymore. They cut the stem and take the whole thing. At least, I'm hearing from more and more people having the same problem, not necessarily in my neighborhood, but in Oklahoma. Between that and the blight, Septoria, and the Brown Crunchy Disease, I'm done. I will put in my fall seedlings, just in case they decide to turn their attention to the pecans in a few months.

I wish we got some of that rain today. It's so dry. Zinnias were all wilted this evening. I don't have an easy way to get water to that bed. The front spigot is hidden behind the thorniest rosebush ever invented. If anyone ever tries to get in my bedroom window, they will leave DNA behind.
Melissa
6 years ago
I have been away for awhile trying to get caught up on indoor projects and have really missed the gardening talk around here. However, I am ALL caught up!! Woohoo!! Painting is all finished, trim that needed replaced finished and repainted, steam cleaned all the tile, and cleaned up the clutter from the projects. My poor garden has suffered sadly. I made sure it was watered well, but didn't get to weed much. I just pulled my zucchini plants after getting overran with squash bugs. I hate those things. I did my best to kill the eggs and the adults I saw running around but just couldn't keep up. I really need to do something different with the squash because it is really disappointing when you work so hard and pests just ruin it. Although, I did get a huge bumper crop from the zucchini before I had to rip them out. My peppers haven't produced at all, not sure what's going on there. My tomatoes are doing well and I am finally getting more cucumbers; but everything was just slow to get started. Not sure why, I haven't done anything different from last year and I actually planted late last year.

Does anyone put sheets over their tomatoes to deter the birds? Stupid things are eating my tomatoes and I am not happy about it. Maybe I'll get one of those plastic owls, or do they even work? I've also heard of using those disposable aluminum stove burner things. What have ya'll found that works best?

Sounds like everyone is doing well and hopefully ya'll are staying cool with this heat. I went out Friday and the sweat just ran like an open faucet. Ewwww!! lol

I really wanted to get back to canning this year, but I suppose it just wasn't my year. I have learned quite a bit though from observing the garden and how things are growing and what to change for next year. I know I need to use more trellis' next year for cukes, beans, some vining squash, and possibly the cantaloupe.

We got a bit of rain earlier but not enough to really make a dent. Wish I was close to some of ya'll because I'd give you the produce that is either half eaten, or just not suitable to eat.
Eileen S
6 years ago
Hi everyone! I'm happy for those who got rain. No rain here in Catoosa but I am definitely enjoying the cool weather (83) gardening.

My marketmore 76 cucumber plants have been producing but some of the leaves are not looking great. I have trimmed off all the yellow leaves today. Also noticed two of the cucumbers have very bad sunscald. Photos below for your reference.

Is there anything else I should do to the cucumber plants? Are the sunscald cucumbers still edible?

Is that powdery mildew on the leaves? (Although I just realize this variety has intermediate resistance to powdery mildew). I may have seen a spotted cucumber beetle a week ago. I can't find it now. I initially thought it was a ladybug until I realize recently how cucumber beetles look like.

Killed my first stink bug on the tomato plant today. May have spotted and removed some spider mites off another tomato plant too. Well, I am not certain but I am trying my best. Haha waiting for the day I don't get squeamish killing bugs. My husband thinks I am too skittish to be a gardener.
hazelinok
6 years ago
Hi Melissa and Eileen! Good to "see" you. Congrats on your progress...and sorry about the things that aren't doing as well.

Because it was so cool and we didn't have time to get started on coop stuff, Tom took the weed eater to the garden pathways. They have gotten ridiculous, I mean--2 feet high weeds. It is very stressful to see the garden like that. Things are looking worn too. I'm pretty sure some stuff (like peppers and beans) have spider mites. The peppers have produced wonderfully (and there's still another bed of peppers that is as healthy as can be), the beans not so much. There's something sick looking about the tomatoes, although they are still producing. I picked a bucket last night and a few hundred Sungolds too. I took them to church and put them on the info booth. It's just not pleasant in the garden right now. I feel like I'm abandoning her. I'm really not, my attention is still with her, but my time has to be on other things.

I've decided that my first four hens have been old ladies since they were babies. This group is feisty. They've spent 3 days in their pen from morning until dark now. Doing great and they sleep great in their indoor brooder at night.

So, tomatillos stay small? My planted tomatillos made two "fruit" that fell to the ground. They actually had something in their shells, but they were tiny. Is that how they are supposed to be? The volunteer one has shells, but nothing in them yet. They are also small. I suppose I need to watch a video or something on these things, because I'm confused by them. The ones in the back have blooms but haven't made anymore fruit. The volunteer one has tons of the shells. Are ground cherries the same as tomatillos? Are ground cherries edible. I"ve never seen them before. I know nothing about them. Research, I know. And I will.
jerrydaniel87
6 years ago
last modified: 6 years ago
Busy busy today.

Had 5 watermelons on deck and ate the first one. It was ripe but not quite as sweet as what I usually grow for some reason. , rain maybe. Hazel you asked when I planted them. Not exactly sure. I think it was around May first but I know it was before Cinco de Mayo because that always works out for me usually here.

Had way too many building up so I made some watermelon jelly out of the innards out of 2 today today and got 14 cups of strained juice. I ended up with eight jars of something. What I mean is, I am definetly not the best jelly maker by no means. I kept putting the juice on a cold spoon with an ice cube under it and it did not look like the syryp was thick enough to me so I ended up putting another package of pectin and boiling down another 5 minutes. I was out of Pectin and cooked it twice so it was all that I could do.

I have never made it before but the stuff looks a beautiful rich deep red. I even bought some food coloring JIC but did not need it. Now if it only jells when it cools down so I don't end up with 8 jars of juice. Fingers crossed.

I have 2 old Atlas five gallon carboys that may get a starter culture of watermelon wine next if I get backed up again. Been juicing the excess cantaloupes and freezing the juice for the wife and her smoothie fad.

Garden is burnt to a crisp but it rained today. I think it may be about 1-2 days to late as stuff was getting pretty yellow and dropping leaves. I really can't water as I am nursing 4 new baby trees I planted this spring through the heat as it is.

But, this is the first year it has been this late and I still have a few living squash and potato plants. Amazing to me.

Most things are in and about the only thing left going strong are whipporwill peas going nuts, a few peppers and runty tomatoes and squash. I'm still getting a few tired cucumbers but they are starting to get a little bitter now with the heat.

Got a ton of weeding done the last two days around things that are left and shredded cornstalks and spent bush beans. Looks better now.

Stay cool and hope every one got some rain today.
Nancy RW (zone 7)
6 years ago
Your canning cracks me up, Jerry, and enchants me. Would be so fun to watch you doing this!
Okiedawn OK Zone 7
Original Author
6 years ago
Amy, I avoided the kitchen all I could this weekend because of the heat. We either ate cold meals, ate out, or cooked on the grill outdoors. It is too hot to can, but I'll be doing it this morning anyway. At least the weather today won't be quite as hot. My purple pole beans still are producing too, but I'm tired of picking them (because, you know, then I have to process them or cook them for dinner, lol) so I am going to let the ones still on the plant dry for seed.

Nancy, The cooler air is just so nice, even without rain.

Rebecca, I cannot believe how hard the squirrels have come back after the tomatoes after they figured out they still could get to them despite the stockings covering them. It is too bad you aren't rural and couldn't let a neighbor just shoot the little furry rodents. That would solve the problem.

For what it is worth, I've been watering the zinnias 2 or 3 times a week, and they still manage to wilt and twist and look bad every afternoon. It is sad when the heat is too much for them. I'm hoping to be able to get them through the next couple of hot weeks so they can continue to bloom into fall. The butterflies love them so much that I'd hate to lose them.

Melissa, Congrats on getting the home projects done. This is the time of the year when I usually start working on projects indoors in order to give myself a reason to avoid going outdoors in this heat.

Even though my garden has had squash bugs for a couple of months, they really haven't been doing much apparent damage until the last couple of days. I know it is time to yank out squash plants now, if I can make myself stay outside long enough to do it, so the squash bugs will perish for lack of something to eat. The danger in doing that is that the surviving squash bugs might move to the muskmelon and watermelon plants in order to survive, so maybe I'll take out the squash plants one by one---maybe one per day---so I can continue to harvest melons for as long as possible before the bugs move to those plants. There are times (and this is one of them) when I wish I could just not care about being organic and instead just go nuts and spray all the squash plants with a synthetic pesticide to kill the squash bugs, but as much as I fantasize about doing it, I'm just not willing to use those chemicals in my garden.

Sometimes peppers are slow in the heat and then produce very heavily in the autumn. Since yours haven't done much yet, I'm assuming they're saving themselves for the cooler fall weather.

Sometimes putting out shallow pans of water for the birds will deter them from eating the tomatoes since what they're really after is water. Sheets will work only if they completely cover the plants like a tent and are held down firmly to the ground to keep birds from getting up underneath them. Bird netting works, but only if the birds cannot find a way underneath it. Those fake owls absolutely do not work so save your money there. Anything that moves in the sun, preferably something highly reflective, often will startle the birds and keep them away. You can use bird flash tape (our Walmart had it earlier in the season, I don't know if they have it now), aluminum pie pans, old CDs, etc. Tie them to the plants or to the cages using thread, string or fishing line and leave them loose so they can twist and turn and move in the wind.

Eileen, Those cucumbers are diseased, which is not uncommon because there's tons of diseases that affect cucumbers---they are disease magnets and cucumber beetles spread diseases right and left all summer long. If you haven't fed the plants lately, you might feed them the water-soluble fertilizer of your choice to see if it pushes out a lot of new growth. Then you could remove all the old diseased foliage. I'm not sure what your cucumbers have. You can go to the Cornell University vegetable MD online website and compare your plants to photos there of cucurbit diseases and see if you find a match that helps you figure out what it is. To me, cucumber diseases look so much alike that I rarely bother trying to figure out which one a plant has---it largely is irrelevant because once they're sick and we are this hot, it is hard to save them. I just yank out the cucumbers in late July or early August and plant new seeds for fall.

Here's the cucurbits page from vegetablemdonline:

Cucurbit Disease Info At Vegetable MD Online

With cucumber diseases, you often get multiple diseases at the same time, making diagnosis by photograph really tricky.

You can cut off the sunscalded parts of the cucumbers and eat whatever is left.

H/J, Normally the spider mite population peaks around late July and starts falling. Hopefully that will happen in your garden (it would help if some rain would fall since spider mites like it dry and dusty). The spider mites I had on my peppers earlier in the summer never did much damage and seem mostly gone now. Perhaps lady bugs or green lacewings or some other beneficial insect ate them.

My tomato plants look like crap but are still producing too. That's really all we can ask of them when it is this hot and dry, and when pests and diseases galore are everywhere.

Tomatillos do not fall off the plant while very small unless some insect or disease is infesting them. With tomatillos it usually is because some very small tomatillo grubs, sort of like tomato pinworms, infest them. I haven't had them here, but lots of people in OK have a lot of trouble with them and cannot get a tomatillo crop because of them. Spraying the plants in general with Bt might help. Ground cherries are edible, but I found myself unimpressed by them the year I grew them and never bothered growing them again. YMMV.

Jerry, I bet it was all the rain that affected your watermelon flavor. I have had heavy rainfall do that to mine some years.

I hope the watermelon jelly gels, but even if it doesn't, you'll have yummy watermelon juice to drink.

My garden is burning up right along with yours. I could keep watering and maybe keep it going, but there's no point in this heat. I'm going to focus on keeping the peppers, the flower border and the fall tomatoes alive and let everything else go. In a few weeks, I'll plant stuff for fall......if it seems like it might rain again some day. I'm not big on trying to start a fall garden in vicious heat if there's no rain, so reserve the right to change my mind about fall plantings. Really, with lots of canning done, tons of potatoes and onions in dry storage, and the freezers just about full, I can walk away from the garden and know we have had a really productive year despite the weather.

We did have 1/3 of an inch of rain yesterday evening. It was nice, but I'm not overly excited about it---today's sunshine probably will suck up all that moisture right out of the ground before the sun sets today. In the overall scheme of things, 0.33" isn't enough to get excited about. Now, if we'd had 1 or 2 or 3" I'd be deliriously happy, but that didn't happen and it almost never happens in July or August, so I'm not getting my hopes up. We've been dry all year and, while that 3" of rain that fell in early July helped a lot, it is long gone and the soil is dry and cracked and parched and it is going to take a lot of rain over a prolonged period of time to turn things around. I just don't see that happening in July or August.

So, thinking about how dry we've been most months of the year just made me wonder what things look like statewide in terms of year-to-date rainfall...you know....who's had above average rainfall (Jerry? Nancy? anyone?)....who's had below average rainfall (Me? Amy? Melissa? Eileen? anyone else?).....is anyone sitting right at average rainfall? So, I'm going to go get the average rainfall maps and post them here and we can all look at them and ponder why the weather does what it does.

Here's the year-to-date rainfall in inches:

OKMesonet Year To Date Rainfall in Inches

Of course, the rainfall map in inches is more meaningful if you know how much rain each area receives because there is a huge variation in average rainfall totals across the state. So, here's the map that shows rainfall as a percentage of average rainfall for the same time frame:

Year To Date Rainfall As A Percentage of Average

The numbers on the above map surprised me. Even folks who have had plentiful rainfall at times aren't doing that well overall.

So, one final measurement is the map that shows how large of a rainfall deficit (or surplus) there is at each Mesonet station compared to what would be average rainfall for the same period. Here's that map:

Year To Date Rainfall Departure From Average

The above map is pretty self-explanatory. Blue is great, orange is awful, and everything else in between could be considered various shades of good or bad. And, really, for our gardens, what matters most is what has happened in the last month, but it has been so dry, I refuse to look at those maps because it would be too depressing. July is the hardest month.

Dawn
Eileen S
6 years ago
Thanks Dawn! I will read up on it. Power just went out here. Even Walmart is closed. Good excuse to eat out for lunch and find some air conditioning somewhere.
AmyinOwasso/zone 6b
6 years ago
I came across this when looking for a quick way to get flies out of the house. Bug Asalt gun. I wondered if it would work on squirrels. Just enough to scare them off? It made me laugh.
Okiedawn OK Zone 7
Original Author
6 years ago
Eileen, I hope the power is back on soon. It is too hot to be without power for very long.

Amy, We were talking about this on one of the OK gardening-related FB pages last week. People who said they have them really like them and said they fight over who gets to use the gun to kill bugs. Some people who use them in the garden said they use Epsom Salt when they use it in the garden, and some who use it to kill larger bugs use Kosher Salt because it is bigger and more coarse or something. As soon as I saw one, I said "I want it" but I haven't ordered one yet. I think it would be great for killing flies indoors.

I wonder if a person could scare off squirrels by shooting them with a Nerf dart gun or something similar?
Eileen S
6 years ago
last modified: 6 years ago
Power was back up after we came back from lunch. Thankfully.

Amy, that gun looks fun! I would be more than happy to shoot all the pesky flies in my house. Wish it cost around $25 instead of $45. It will definitely make it easier for me to load it with epsom salt to kill bugs in the garden since I'm still (unfortunately) squeamish about squashing bugs. Hmm as for squirrels, may have to load it with strong cayenne powder.

Dawn, the year-to-date rainfall here in Rogers county is above average. I guess so far this year, whenever it rains, it rains hard. Too bad we missed yesterday's.

Dark green (32.7) for OKMesonet Year To Date Rainfall in Inches

Green for Year To Date Rainfall As A Percentage of Average

Blue (6-7inches) for Year To Date Rainfall Departure From Average

I will see how the cucumbers fare till early August. So far, only the ones on the right side look sickly. Will yank them out and plant new ones for fall if necessary. Thanks for your advice!
Okiedawn OK Zone 7
Original Author
6 years ago
Eileen, You're welcome.

I thought the same thing about the salt gun---that it seemed a little pricey to me.

I'm glad your rainfall is above average. In our county, there's a rainbow of colors for the year to date rainfall departure from average map and our place is right about where the dark orange changes to a lighter orange, so we are somewhere between 6 and 8" below average, I guess, and that's not good since we tend to not ever really get enough rain in summer anyway, but I am fairly used to it. I plant as early as possible (generally earlier than OSU recommends) to beat the heat and that's the best strategy I've found for gardening here since we are almost perpetually dry and have drought for at least a part of every summer. We had a really wet year in 2007 and another one in 2015, so I know it is possible to have a wet summer here---but it doesn't happen often enough.

The dry summers down here influence my plantings a lot---I long ago stopped planting anything ornamental that needs a lot of water to make it through the summers. There's just not enough water to keep extra-thirsty plants happy. Some years we even lose native trees and native cacti to summer drought, and you'd think they'd be able to tolerate it. Oklahoma summers are hard on gardeners and their gardens alike.

Dawn
AmyinOwasso/zone 6b
6 years ago
Yeah, the salt gun would have been in my cart if it was cheaper. My kids would have liked to play with it. (My kids are adults). We are 6 inches above average for the year, But, like most of us in the state, the 4" soil moisture today is dark red, .14. I noticed last time I watered that water was coming out of the beds into the paths more than usual. I probably just had the hoses running to fast, but maybe the soil under the beds is holding more water.

July 2017, Week 3, General Garden Conversation & Harvest Talk

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